A Signal Exhibition

The signal events in our lives, a birth, a death, an accomplishment, moving to a new city or another part of the world, meeting someone new or an old friend again for the first time in years, sometimes have ironic consequences.  For example, upon the death of my uncle some years ago now, I found myself reading letters and an essay I’d never known existed.  The letters were written when he was a pilot in England during World War II.  The essay was a description of taking-off for a night mission.  He was twenty.  The writing was extraordinary.  It was painfully bittersweet unforeseeable gift during a period of terrible loss.

More recently, I had the great good fortune to reconnect with an old friend and his wife as a result of his efforts.  She’s an artist; she creates Bromoil images, an elaborate and delicate photographic process which transforms photographs, revealing the quiet, sometimes extraordinary beauty that can hide in the mid-range light.

Bromoils can be as witty as an Edward Gorey cartoon, or revelatory in spite of an apparent simplicity of composition.  Sometimes looking at a Bromoil is exactly like that moment in a great mystery novel when a seemingly innocuous clue transforms your view of the characters and provides the essential information to resolve the mystery itself.

They can affect you like those unexpected consequences of your life’s signal moments.

 
Our friend, Elise Lajeunesse, is exhibiting her work at the Finch Lane Gallery, 54 Finch Lane in Reservoir Park beginning this Friday, January 16.