Give Me Your Tiny, Discarded, Utterly Common, and Unloved

Mint & tiny bee. 7/13/2011.

Bug's eye view: blue jay feather, grass, fallen leaf. 7/13/2011.

Slug, in the process of scaling the side of a tree. 7/13/2011.

Today, I found myself focusing my little point and shoot (still no macro lens for the fancypants camera, and won’t be until I’m again gainfully employed) on the extremely small (the bee), the discarded (the feather, the leaf), the utterly common (grass), and the unloved (the slug).

I seem to gravitate toward these sorts of things, the sort that people overlook or find, in one way or another, undesirable and/or unlovable.   I have quite a few pictures of weeds in my photo files, because they were visually interesting:  quite graceful in line, or flowering, even dried out, dead, or wilted.  I spent some time photographing the slug this morning, studying the way the light hit it (love how said light hits its antennae), and how its body seemed to flow.  Most people I know would have plunged it to its drawn out and painful death in a bowl of salt.  Earlier in my life, having been taught to do so, I would have, too, but not now.  Having spent time with it, I sort of feel a kinship with the slug.

Maybe my artist’s statement should hearken to the Statue of Liberty: give me your tiny, your discarded, your utterly common, and your unloved ones, and I will show you simple beauty.

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