CURRENT EXHIBITION
July 3 - September 3, 2009
Small Wonders
Photographs by Suzanne Révy
In about the third or fourth grade, late
in the afternoon when I should have been doing homework, I would go
to the backyard to play. I was a pioneer, and I would ride my horse
back and forth across the grass from my homestead to a river. When it
got too dark, I’d be called in for dinner, and be banished from this
world for the day. By sixth grade, the time between visits to my backyard
adventures grew longer. Now, as I look back, these make believe dramas,
seem like explorations of a Garden of Eden, and as I grew up, without
noticing, the gates to it closed.
When children are deeply absorbed in
play, they seem far away. They create invisible worlds through
conversations, dialogs, and theatrics. Their young voices breathe life
into stuffed animals; they see dinosaurs and dragons lurking behind
the trees and under beds. I observe the way they move their hands
and feet, the way they find and handle small creatures, the way they
smell, touch, inspect, and collect dirt, rocks, leaves— and more.
How can they so fully engage themselves in this rich interior life?
Which moments will they remember, and how? Is this instinct, this impulse
to play universal?
I listen to my sons, and I watch them,
but I do not always fully understand their stories, myths and secrets.
When I photograph children—my own and others, I use the lens of a
camera, a window, if you will, to seek clues to the realms they have
created. I am engaged once again in child’s play, if only from a distance,
and I find that I have made a connection between my childhood, and theirs
through my photographs. -Suzanne Révy