A tapestry is “a heavy cloth woven with rich, often varicolored designs or scenes…”. The earliest known Western tapestries were woven in the tranquil seclusion of monasteries by the devout seeking to beautify the house of God. Over time the art of tapestry making became one of the major visual art forms alongside painting and sculpting.
Each day you and I are surrounded by the tapestries of nature – ones not woven by human hands. In the fall, these tapestries take on a new palette of color: from vibrant yellow, red and orange to more subtle shades of brown, gray and green. These tapestries are not hung on walls, but lie at our feet, surround us in the trees and clothe the hills. You don’t have to live in the country to find them, they can be found as a vine on a city wall, a canopy of intricate branches in the business park or in the fallen leaves and pine needles below.
My “Autumn Tapestries” seek to capture that finely woven design of color and line that permeates nature and reveals the infinitely artistic hand of the creator – from the intricate intermixing of the colors in the forest to the varicolored designs of the leaf. Many times photographing these tapestries requires me to search for patterns, rhythms and design in the midst of apparent chaos. In some ways this is not unlike searching for meaning in life, where only those who intently seek will find it.