Familiar-Unfamiliar

Does this look like a shot of white birch? When I was looking for an image to highlight, I thought this one would work well. In the last entry I used an Asian black birch which had a marvelous silver tone. So, I thought, let’s go with a more familiar white birch, with that brilliant white, peeling bark.

 Yet, when I look at this image, my first thought isn’t “white birch” but rather: “what made all those red-brown rectangular elements?” They initially overpower the familiar white bark. It’s there, no question, and the more you look, the clearer the presence of white birch becomes.

 So in choosing an image because I thought it would be familiar, I ended up with yet another paradox, another visual confusion! I confess I like that for the same reason that so much of my work is around reflections in water: It’s not immediately clear what we’re looking at. I have to work a bit harder to decode the image. And it’s that extra time that pushes me to be open to seeing with new (or at least clear) eyes.