Reflections on My Wife's Studio Tour

My wife Amy was part of our town's artist studio tour yesterday. Her participation meant the first floor of our apartment was turned into a venue for a one-person exhibit. She didn't accomplish this venture alone: Donna Compton generously spent hours organizing the images and giving Amy's opus its conceptual logic and presentation oomph.

I thought I knew the images well. I've been present for the shooting of nearly all of the nearly seventy hung pictures (hey, find your own link for off-color jokes!) and nearly as many photographs contained in bins. Over the years, Amy and I have discussed the images. I've understood her thinking as she modified them in a darkroom or via Photoshop. We've discussed further directions her photographs might go. Yet, their unique magic almost -- almost -- seems hopelessly elusive to me.

Sometimes, I know what she saw the moment she snapped the picture. That's a very satisfying feeling. However, more often than not, Amy saw something that required her innate talent to grasp, and grasp immediately, without reflection or calculation. When I look at them now, I don't know how she did it, even though I was a witness and intimately aware of my wife's thinking. For someone who cares about the person, the artist, the photograph, this puzzling feeling leaves one wondering how much one can truly understand about any person, and about the act of creation itself.