Fern Lace
Fern Lace teaches you something about attention: that the closer you look, the more complex the simple thing becomes, and the more rewarding the looking.
I was searching for a clear line of sight through the dense fern canopy to the sky, somewhere I could backlight a fern frond and reveal the extraordinary intricacy within it. It was more difficult than it sounds. Ferns grow in dense, layered environments, and finding one with a clean path through to light required moving slowly and looking carefully. When I found it, I overexposed the sky deliberately to create the contrast that would reveal the finest detail in the fronds: the individual structures, the slight variations in each, the four long fronds that at first appear identical and on closer inspection are each entirely their own.
The pattern is most visible when you step back. The closer you study it, the more the repetition breaks down into individuality. There is always something new to find in Fern Lace. The eye does not arrive and finish. It keeps discovering.
That is what this piece offers a collector: an image you can lose yourself in, differently, each time you look. Not because it changes, but because you do.
