Art Drop #8: Sunlit Projections for 2024
Driving and looking for tree stencils + an invitation to notice
PROJECTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR
On New Year’s Day, I drove around with the camera on the passenger seat, lens cap off, extra battery in the cup holder, practically summoning a photograph into existence. Somewhere there would be sunshine, trees and a building waiting for me to realize my vision for this month’s art drop. I had been searching for almost two weeks and time was up.
You see, I’d been noticing things out on my errands here and there, on drives when I didn’t have my camera alongside me – little tableaus of shadow, sunshine and texture revealed by the tilt in the Earth’s axis and where we are in our orbit around the sun.
I can say for certain that I was inspired by some photography seen here on Substack, namely this little gem below by
, which got me thinking about how this low winter sunlight and the projected “little gifts” could be noticed and captured on a larger scale.TREE STENCILS
And so an idea took shape – I presented it to Tom as “tree stencils” and showed him some test shots I’d taken around the neighborhood. I mused about stenciled hands in prehistoric cave paintings where the paint was blown over the hand leaving behind a print. I thought about Andy Goldsworthy laying down as it started to rain and leaving behind a dry print of his body when he got up. Couldn’t trees be stencils, the sunlight be the ink, and a building be the paper?
The funny thing about art is that you may have this clear idea in your head and a vision for what you want to make, but variables which you have no control over have a say in the matter too.
FRUSTRATION/CREATION
The problem was, there was a major hindrance to me achieving this vision: clouds. Just around the time when my schedule opened up (read: after Christmas) to actively seek out these tree stencils, we had about a week of overcast skies. My stress levels and the time left until the art drop needed to launch were inversely correlated. Creating while under pressure is nothing new to me but did I really need this stress to ring in the new year?
Yesterday morning we had just finished eating Vasilopita, our traditional Greek New Year’s bread that at least in our family might also be a cake but it’s not entirely sure. I was tempted to follow up with a Greek coffee but felt this nagging sense of needing to be somewhere else. I realized with a start that the skies were blue, the sun was blazing and I needed to grab my camera and get out of the house immediately.
So there I was, driving with my Fujifilm passenger, looking for tree stencils on New Year’s Day. The roads were blissfully empty so I would drive, see something, park, shoot and drive again.
RED LIGHT MUSINGS
Stopped at a red light I wondered if anyone ever designs with these projections in mind, placing trees so their shadows can appear on buildings and enliven their façades in deep winter. Some shadows looked elegant and intentional, others oppressive and accidental.
Once the light turned green I found my peripheral vision scanning the passing buildings as if I was on a beach looking for beach glass. A collector’s compulsion kicked in to explore just a little further, with hope that an elusive score was just around the corner.
ART DROP #8
In the end, the photograph that really spoke to me was taken at a place that wasn’t grand or worth trekking far for – the back of the supermarket. I think back to Michela Griffith’s willow sprig shadows against her wall in winter sunlight and about how beauty can be found even in the most everyday places and spaces. I must have driven past this spot hundreds of times over the years but it never crossed my mind that it could be elevated to become something artful. I wasn’t on my way to grab some groceries, I was on my way to create, so there was a different intention and purpose behind the way I was seeing.
Everything was brand new in front of me, exactly how New Year’s Day should be.
Behind the Supermarket
Cresskill, NJ, USA
by Diana Pappas
Prints are only available of Behind the Supermarket until January 9, 2024, with no further production of this work for at least a year after the close.
I’d like to close with an invitation to share your own tree/sunshine/building projections – we are curious to see what you see wherever you are in the world and with your permission we will share our favorites next week. To submit, simply restack this post on Notes with your tree stencils so we can see what you see. Hopefully between now and then you’ll have some sunshine too.
Happy New Year from us at PappasBland!
This is so cool, we share a common interest in photographing our shadow and those casted by trees.
The great Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo called them made-up landscapes.
I love the idea of Tree Stencils. I've take a few of these but now having a name for them makes them pop out to me more and will help me remember to look for them, etc. I will retack with mine and with another similar series I took.