Images: Postcard for Ordinary Curtains by Tate Shaw, Postcard for “Anodyne” by Stephanie Costa

Lawrence Weschler’s book Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences really messed with my head. His book – which began as a series of articles in McSweeney’s – weaves together impressions of images from all eras and shows the reader how our vision is constantly repeating and informing how we interpret our world and our images.

For instance, he interviews Joel Meyerowitz and discusses his photos of the clean up of Lower Manhattan following 9/11. In an image of firefighters working around a glowing fire Weschler sees Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, while a mustachioed welder becomes a dead ringer for Velazquez’s Mars from 350 years prior. Weschler places the images side-by-side and the effect is stunning; the book left me looking everywhere for convergences.

The convergence above is likely the best I’ve been able to pull out of the stream of images that pass my eyes each day. The postcard on the left advertises Tate Shaw’s book Ordinary Curtains (Preacher’s Biscuit Books, Rochester, NY, 2006) while the other is an image from Stephanie Costa’s exhibition “Anodyne” (Seattle, WA, 2003). Shaw’s more recent postcard tugged at my sleeve with it’s visual familiarity; it wasn’t until recently that I unearthed my copy of Costa’s card and the light bulb was illuminated. Once you see Weschler’s book, you inherit a heightened awareness for these similarities and you wonder how you missed them before.

My hope is to make this a sort of “series” here on the ol’ blog; I’ll keep my eyes open and hopefully post some more in the future. Meanwhile, here are some links to stew the juices: