I am bowled over by this piece, and by your writing. It's impossible to absorb all the details properly in one read. I must read it again and then likely again.
Leslie! I loved this piece so much (and I want to frame that photo 4). Very swept up in the shifting perspective and all the colors and textures that compliment it. It makes me think of every time I return to Monroe, how my feelings towards it have shifted in surprising ways that I'm not entirely sure what to make of, but am interested in it nonetheless.
Those images with the grasses and the light! - truly as luscious as the prose descriptions of 'color appetite' (which I get so much) and the enchantment of specific trail vignettes. The beauty is a delight, and it's also gratifying to follow your mind through convoluted & contradictory responses. There are too many excellent phrases to excerpt, and I will keep wallowing in the pictures....
I laughed when you wrote " My friend Maggi and I take an art class in Santa Fe and we stand around the instructor’s buffet tables of pastels, resisting the strong urge to sink our teeth into a particularly gorgeous fat turquoise stick like it’s a chocolate truffle." because you captured the strangeness of the human experience with such fun visuals and satisfying descriptions,
Also, the quote "It is not lost on me that this technique of deliberate composition is also my strategy for existing in both Scottsdale and the wider world of ambient anger and ruthless self-interest. Don’t look outside the frame. This is both coping mechanism and abdication." resonated with me and was written with such clear eloquence it put a familiar feeling under a fresh light.
I really enjoy having photographs with the writing it adds this dynamic to the piece between the spoken word and what cannot be said.
Finally, ugh I'm such a fan of Saidiya Hartman, my undergrad thesis pulled a lot from her novel "Lose Your Mother", it made me smile to see her mentioned here
I am bowled over by this piece, and by your writing. It's impossible to absorb all the details properly in one read. I must read it again and then likely again.
Leslie! I loved this piece so much (and I want to frame that photo 4). Very swept up in the shifting perspective and all the colors and textures that compliment it. It makes me think of every time I return to Monroe, how my feelings towards it have shifted in surprising ways that I'm not entirely sure what to make of, but am interested in it nonetheless.
Those images with the grasses and the light! - truly as luscious as the prose descriptions of 'color appetite' (which I get so much) and the enchantment of specific trail vignettes. The beauty is a delight, and it's also gratifying to follow your mind through convoluted & contradictory responses. There are too many excellent phrases to excerpt, and I will keep wallowing in the pictures....
As someone about to visit Scottsdale- I loved this perspective
This is such a rich piece!
I laughed when you wrote " My friend Maggi and I take an art class in Santa Fe and we stand around the instructor’s buffet tables of pastels, resisting the strong urge to sink our teeth into a particularly gorgeous fat turquoise stick like it’s a chocolate truffle." because you captured the strangeness of the human experience with such fun visuals and satisfying descriptions,
Also, the quote "It is not lost on me that this technique of deliberate composition is also my strategy for existing in both Scottsdale and the wider world of ambient anger and ruthless self-interest. Don’t look outside the frame. This is both coping mechanism and abdication." resonated with me and was written with such clear eloquence it put a familiar feeling under a fresh light.
I really enjoy having photographs with the writing it adds this dynamic to the piece between the spoken word and what cannot be said.
Finally, ugh I'm such a fan of Saidiya Hartman, my undergrad thesis pulled a lot from her novel "Lose Your Mother", it made me smile to see her mentioned here