I am haunted (in wonderful way) by the artwork November Gutter Leaves, Pasadena by Los Angeles artist Pae White:
The image of a floor of dried brown leaves has bubbled into my consciousness now and again for over a year now.
On walks I’ll often think of it.
And especially when the seasons change and the leaves create a crunchy brown carpet on the garden floor.
In between leafy greenness and specks of dust, the leaves are ephemeral, lifeless, dry. Lik_e November Gutter Leaves, Pasadena_, I want to freeze the moment somehow before they decompose and rot.
And then the other day over dinner my friend Christian Frock showed me pictures she took of a foreclosed home with dry brown leaves scattered everywhere.
_, 2013
The previous owners apparently left with everything in it - including the houseplants.
_, 2013
The houseplants are a fraction of the loss here, and like White’s_ _installation, the dead leaves shift the scene to the uncanny and surreal.
I love it when a work can be so simple in its execution yet evoke an emotional and personal response. For me, White’s constructed gutter leaves made of aluminum and canvas describe the stillness of loss, a tender and palpable space between grief and beauty. So now the sight of brown leaves allow me to hover in this emotional space, relish in it. Oddly it is affirming to be reminded of my own fragility, of our own fragility, really.
Is there an artwork your mind returns to from time to time?