Artist of the Day: Autumn Leaves - Jeff Friesen

Autumn Leaves Jeff Friesen www.jeff-friesen.com

I am not a happy girl this week. Somebody messed with my daylight!

Fall back, Spring forward. Grrr. We fell back Sunday when Daylight Savings Time (aka the Uniform Time Act of 1966 / 1986's Daylight Savings Time / the 2005-07 Energy Policy Act) foisted itself on the circadian rhythms of residents of the US, save independent Arizona, whose residents refused to be jerked around by a decision to conserve energy and daylight and let Nature mind it's own business, they'll mind theirs.

If you really want to curse somebody other than faceless, nameless government, how about George Vernon Hudson who started this way back in 1895.

Members of the EU fell back in October, so they've had more time to work their cranky out.

I know this is not that important of an issue, maybe I just need a nap, but I like driving to work in the dark, watching the sun come up and the blue screen of my computer fade as the light grows. What has made me cranky is that the sun has all but disappeared by 5 PM, and there are at least five more peak hours left to the day. More importantly, maybe I'm just wary since it's around this time the blues arrive: the sun gone down dum dum de dum and it's so bad sitting in this here dark.
Lucky thing for fluorescent light, eh? And art.

My first thought, other than gorgeous, was architectural. Architectural is how Nova Scotian artist Jeff Friesen photographs them, with the intent to emphasize the architectural beauty of the mundane, thereby elevating an ordinary leaf. Read his bio and check out his work on his website and etsy site.

Artist Bio:
You never know what we’ll find. I spend a lot of time exploring outdoors with my daughter. One autumn day we were sitting amongst fallen chestnut leaves and I was struck by their resemblance to Frank Gehry’s architecture. We gathered some leaves and brought them to my studio. I propped up the leaves by planting their stems in clay and photographed them from a low angle using window light bounced off of tin foil for a metallic effect. In the camera’s viewfinder the fading leaves became *wabi-sabi towers and temples.

*Wabi-sabi (侘寂) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete."

I enjoy elevating the modest into the monumental. As Walt Whitman said, “I believe a blade of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”

My name is Jeff Friesen and I'm an international award-winning photographer. You can find more of my work here: www.jeff-friesen.com