It is a simple thing, but I really enjoy putting two images beside each other and seeing what happens. It reminds my of a Sesame Street bit, with photos arrayed in a grid, and a song playing over it all, “One of these things is not like the others, some of these things are kinda the same…” When we see two images purposely arranged side by side we look for what is similar and what is different. When I started this series, Jewels, I just wanted to put two images together that shared the trait of having some very vivid particular color contrasting with its background. It was only by chance that the “natural vs. human” slipped in, or maybe it was subconscious and not by chance. In another post I will ramble on about how purpose and chance enter into my process, I’ve got to think some more about it…

Eric Hope writes in a review in East City Art: “Artist and photographer Leda Black proved big ideas come in small packages. While her larger images of biomorphic forms beckoned viewers from afar, her tiny diptychs (just a few inches across) hooked the viewer’s attention up close. These small works function both as delightful studies of color and as more wry observations on the ways in which the natural and man-made worlds coalesce.”

These are wee diptychs with each image 4 inches square mounted on a 1.25 inch deep cradled board. The board’s edges are painted in a shade of the named hue and a gloss varnish is brushed over the colored object in the photo. “Jewel” refers to the vivid hue and to the minuteness of the image.