Story Telling

Last weekend I went to the Plaza Art Fair with "Stu" of "Stupod" fame.  She is my oldest friend and we only need to tell the opening line of a story to collapse in laughter or nod solomnly as the endings are all in there.
While we wandered and caught up on each other and our families we stopped in on Albert Koetsier and his work is as stunning in person.  But I happened upon another photographer as we whiled away the morning as well.

Cali Hobgood-Lemme was showing her gripping photos of, well, people's things.  I fell for them instantly and it didn't hurt that the first one I saw was the stack of white shirts.

On her site, she talks about the origin of the piece, how these shirts remind her of her well-dressed father and how his shirts came back from the cleaners folded and pressed in a stack - the cardboard, a treasured prize.  I think that is the natural appeal.  They are the first sentence of the story that plays in your head the minute you see them.

Like when your chickens start laying eggs for the first time.
Or the office/guest bedroom where you stayed when you visited that held the typewriter that your sports writer grandfather used when he didn't want to go back downtown to the paper.
Or that fabulous photo of your other grandfather in profile on his front porch in a straw hat.
Or your photographer father's camera collection and how he'll stand in the kitchen and tell you the stories of where he found each one.
And every book that touched your soul and made you see the world in a whole new way from your tiny, yellow bedroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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