"We both like tulips to be kept well up to their death in a vase, the water changed and the petals collected, all for the beauty of it. I do it still now, although with my eyes shut up, my observation of the process is more like stills by Eadweard Muybridge than running cine film. There are a treeful, a forestful, of these habits budding, grown, fallen, lying in a marriage. Plenty of them irk others yet make the thing that cannot be replaced. They are a language in themselves."
www.ruthrosengarten.com
Drawing and photography are central to my practice. Both make pressing - if sometimes fictitious - claims to the capture of lost moments.
31/08/2011
Reading/tulips: all that is shared, all that is gone
I took these photographs - as of many more bunches of tulips that we kept from sappiness to disintegration - in March-April 2006. The text is from Candia McWilliam's memoir, What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness, and I came to this bit today.
"We both like tulips to be kept well up to their death in a vase, the water changed and the petals collected, all for the beauty of it. I do it still now, although with my eyes shut up, my observation of the process is more like stills by Eadweard Muybridge than running cine film. There are a treeful, a forestful, of these habits budding, grown, fallen, lying in a marriage. Plenty of them irk others yet make the thing that cannot be replaced. They are a language in themselves."
"We both like tulips to be kept well up to their death in a vase, the water changed and the petals collected, all for the beauty of it. I do it still now, although with my eyes shut up, my observation of the process is more like stills by Eadweard Muybridge than running cine film. There are a treeful, a forestful, of these habits budding, grown, fallen, lying in a marriage. Plenty of them irk others yet make the thing that cannot be replaced. They are a language in themselves."
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2 comments:
Beautiful photos, Ruth. I do the same thing - for someone who experiences a lot through her eyes I suppose it is almost inevitable, as long as one's housemates aren't too irritated by the drawn out decay!
How are you finding the book?
The book is astonishing, Ea - thank you for your wonderful email - will respond soon!
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