Compositions and connections
Pairing two seemingly dissimilar images together to show a similar relationship.
I remember the day in Studio PAUSE when Sush showed me her monoprints, where she had added scripts and images to them. Because for her just the black and white monoprint image was not enough, or too much, and it didn’t feel like her. So she added the Devanagari script, her language, using water soluble graphite and Chinese ink and brush and a flourishing gold paint; and a bright gold sun. These things made them hers, she said.
Her monoprints were inspired by her trip to Palm Springs, CA. But it was so much more than just a trip, she later said.
I love just black and white. It’s just right. But there was something in Sush’s monoprints that was captivating me. I got close. We both took Ken’s monoprinting class way back in February, and had our own experiences, struggles, and breakthroughs. And after effects. I cut mine up into squares and rearranged them into a monoprint collage hanging. That’s what also made them mine, I think.
When I leaned in and got close to Sush’s monoprints, I saw marks I couldn’t make, scripts I couldn’t write, and lines I couldn’t draw. That’s what was captivating me. I felt myself zoning in, feeling the marks with my eyes, and traveling with swirls and lines to elsewhere. I breathed in and slowly stood up straight.
Maybe I asked for a square cut out. Or for paper to make one. Or maybe it was already on the table within reach. However it happened, I started using it. It helped me focus, maybe zero in more, though with more ease and less intensity.
Smaller compositions began appearing. Another kind of interaction began to play. Other stories started to emerge.
I called over to Sush. “Look! The bunnies are going to battle!” She saw it too and we laughed.
It reminded me of six-word stories (stories told in just six words) and I thought maybe a project for these compositions and interactions was to do just that. Maybe one of us starts it with three words, and the other finishes it with three words.
This is what my sweetie and I do sometimes when we’re waiting someplace, or have a few moments in between something. We did this a lot standing in long snaking lines in the Trader Joe's parking garage during the pandemic. Those were very different stories then.
Months passed and the collaborative idea went dormant. It just stayed in my art and writing sketchbook until I came across it recently flipping through back pages. Maybe it’s time, I thought. I found the original digital images and started editing them. They still held my gaze, seeing those crazy beautiful marks and scripts and lines that I can’t make. Only Sush can.
But then something else happened. I saw in one of the smaller compositions something that reminded me of the rocks and fog on our recent hike up to the top of Killington Mountain in Vermont. I paired them together:
Rocks and fog. Mind on edge.
And then another, because I had just been going through recent vacation photos, and so I started making more connections:
Rocks and ferns. Mist and fire.
Reaching above. Towering below. Just perspective.
I couldn’t help but wonder how I was making the visual connections. Or how relatively easy it was (mostly) to find pairs. Perhaps because I had a focused set of cropped square compositions from Sush’s monoprints and that I really did have our recent vacation photos on my mind. I texted Sush with a few pairings to show her, and to get her permission to use her art in this way.
“Holy what?! That’s crazy!!” and “Totally okay! Go for it!” She started having ideas, too. Maybe no words are needed. Or maybe words would be interesting. Or have others write, too. Six word stories, haikus, mix and match cards? A collaborative handmade storybook! Such fun ideas. Some will happen.
She wondered about the pairings, too. How was that happening? I wrote that I first learned how to do this as a didactic exercise at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland in the early 1990s – to pair two seemingly dissimilar images together to show a similar relationship.
But I’ve created the images. The cropped images that is. Or rather, I’ve composed them. It’s how I get close. It’s how I focus and frame. It’s a way of seeing. I’m capturing the same range of ways, “my way,” that look good to me. So whatever the image, it could be anything, it’s just my way of seeing it. I compose what I’m seeing.
Then at some point the paired connections were getting more challenging, so I ventured into my other vacation photos from Colorado, and connected a few more.
“To pair two seemingly dissimilar images together to show a similar relationship.”
To interact with another who may be unlike us. To make connections across seeming differences. To compose and create together a new perspective.
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Seeing…
LouLou
“Compositions and connections” was originally published as an exclusive post to my Ko-fi supporters in September 2023. Now it is public to you, too!
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