kitchen life # 41 / civilized ku # 2480 ~ as seen around the house

Remains ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggen
Stems ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenWhen last I wrote about rhopography and megalography, I wrote as an explanation:

Rhopography relates to the portrayal of objects which lack immediate significance - the basic mundane objects that surround us in our daily environments. Megalography relates to the depiction of ‘importance’ and themes in the world which represent 'greatness'.

I also wrote that I am much more a rhopographer than a megalographer - that is to write, I like to make pictures of the everyday / commonplace as opposed to grand/iconic referents. In doing so (in the manner in which I do so), I attend to the world ignored by the human impulse to create 'greatness'. That is, to attend to, in the cause of exploring what ‘greatness’ tramples underfoot, that which is excluded or passed over.

I follow this picture making path - in part, but not exclusively - because I truly believe we live in a culture which exhibits a fetish-like pursuit of 'greatness', aka: the next big thing, and ignores the unassuming material base of life. In that pursuit, many (most?) live a life of constant boredom, killing time as it were, while looking / waiting for the next big 'rush'. As a culture and as individuals, we are the poorer for it.

IMO, picture making wise (as well as life) ....

... the enemy is a mode of seeing which thinks it knows in advance what is worth looking at and what is not: against that, the image (of the unassuming material base of life) presents the constant surprise of things seen for the first time. Sight is taken back to a vernal stage before it learned how to scotomize the visual field, how to screen out the unimportant and not see, but scan. (from an essay, Rhopography, Megalography, and Chardin)

Just thought you might be interested to know how (and why) I see it.