DEBORAH DAWSON, Photographer
"Capturing Beauty:" "Hope in the Land"
The quiet of winter is the time when the trees reveal their bones – showing how they weather the storms that rush in from the sea. In their skeletal gestures, reaching for the fleeting sun, I find grace, beauty and strength. Their example can lift me out of my winter melancholy to find hope in the resilience of nature.
While contemplatively observing a coastal ecosystem, it is often the humble details that reveal the true nature of survival. It could be a wind-swept spruce tree hanging on to the granite shore or a bare twig with withered berries overlooked by the foraging deer. In these details I find metaphorical gestures that help me to find empathy with the elements and relate them to survival in this injured world that we share. In those gestures I find hope.
I found a similar hope in Alec Eames Richardson’s paintings from a heath in Corea, Maine, many miles up the coast from the marshlands that I explore in Southern Maine. Through our conversations, we found a similar interest in recognizing the vital elements of nature’s survival in the most humble of landscapes that are so often overlooked. In the beauty of these humble lands we can all find inspiration and hope for our survival in this fragile world.
In collaboration with Alec Eames Richardson
"Hope"
Archival Pigment Print on Washi paper, framed 12" x 12"
Archival Pigment Print on Washi paper, framed 12" x 12"
"Reach"
Archival Pigment Print on Washi paper, framed 12" x 12"
Archival Pigment Print on Washi paper, framed 12" x 12"
"Grace"
Archival Pigment Print on Washi paper, framed 12" x 12"
Archival Pigment Print on Washi paper, framed 12" x 12"