Maybe this is an essay about craft, about words and pictures. Maybe it’s an essay about politics. Maybe it’s about the color of perceptions and our fears, our imaginations. Maybe it’s just a catalogue. An inventory...
I'd encourage everyone - no exceptions - to read this panorama by Jeff Sharlet. Take the time, it's worth it.
I wanted to cite something from this epic in my comment but doing so would inherently distort the necessary continuity of the picture itself. Focusing in on a particular point is tempting with a work containing so many worthy objects. But the seemingly individual objects here become one as Jeff so brilliantly dusts off the perceived seams, revealing not a patchwork quilt, but a graceful gradient of life as it truly is - interconnected.
Thank you for not flinching, Jeff. Thank you for revealing some of middle America's troubled sides, for asking why, for doing it all artfully and with heart.
There’s something about Jeff’s writing that is both breathtakingly broad and yet personal and intimate. I never tire of the feeling from his writing that I am suspended both in, and outside of, a perfect view of a perfect object in a perfect timeless space. Magic.
Thanks for musings Love seeing the undertow sentence/pics in color, and reading your list of photographers. Not easy to finesse the word/pic usage and clearly you are. Very satisfying read/looking.
Agree to disagree about your supposed incapacity for producing artwork.
I'd encourage everyone - no exceptions - to read this panorama by Jeff Sharlet. Take the time, it's worth it.
I wanted to cite something from this epic in my comment but doing so would inherently distort the necessary continuity of the picture itself. Focusing in on a particular point is tempting with a work containing so many worthy objects. But the seemingly individual objects here become one as Jeff so brilliantly dusts off the perceived seams, revealing not a patchwork quilt, but a graceful gradient of life as it truly is - interconnected.
Thanks, Jon.
Thank you for not flinching, Jeff. Thank you for revealing some of middle America's troubled sides, for asking why, for doing it all artfully and with heart.
There’s something about Jeff’s writing that is both breathtakingly broad and yet personal and intimate. I never tire of the feeling from his writing that I am suspended both in, and outside of, a perfect view of a perfect object in a perfect timeless space. Magic.
I really appreciated this post, Jeff. I still need to read This Brilliant Darkness!
Thanks, Andy. I'll send you a copy. I think that's the one that'd be of interest.
Please do!
Thanks for musings Love seeing the undertow sentence/pics in color, and reading your list of photographers. Not easy to finesse the word/pic usage and clearly you are. Very satisfying read/looking.
Have you read Robert Goolrick's brilliant novel, "A Reliable Wife," based, in part, on "Wisconsin Death Trip"?
I've not -- didn't know about it! I'll check it out. Thanks!