Wheelbarrow Images: Art or Documentary?
When I am not in the studio working, I enjoy maintaining our landscape and search for artistic inspiration outdoors.
As I unearthed a far corner of our land, I started thinking about taking photos of each wheelbarrow load of debris. Has anyone done it? Would these photos be as exciting as watching ice melt or could they be assembled and viewed as art? Could photos of clearing land featuring the lowly wheelbarrow be elevated to artistic compositions worthy of a gallery show? Are they interesting or yawners? So many questions without any answers. Each week during late winter through spring, I fill a 300 gallon can with forest debris caused by the fall and winter wild Pacific Northwest storms. Cleaning our land requires a good deal of walking up and down a gradual incline through a forest and finally making my way out to the side of the road to lift and toss branches and other woodland debris into a three hundred gallon can. When I stand next to that huge can, I feel like an elf standing next to a Sasquatch. Today I tested the wheelbarrow photography concept just because I needed to keep the land clearing experience interesting. Using a smartphone, I snapped a picture each time I filled the wheelbarrow taking care to move the angle of the wheelbarrow and change the background to vary the shot. I wondered, would a viewer in a gallery be intrigued or bored? Knowing what an art connoisseur is going to feel is usually a crap shoot. Maybe the wheelbarrow images could be art, however, I am thinking the photos lean more towards documenting progress on maintaining an overgrown forest that needed owners who care and love tending land.
You decide whether images of a wheelbarrow full of debris are artistic or just a documented record of another days work. And just in case you are wondering, it takes 15 to 18 wheelbarrow treks to fill that 300 gallon can which means I get plenty of time to contemplate art while clearing land and there is no need to join a gym anytime soon.