In Self and World, Eli Siegel wrote: “We all of us start with a here, ever so snug and ever so immediate. And this here is surrounded strangely, endlessly, by a there.…We have to be ourselves, and give to this great and diversified there…what it deserves.”
Here, a snug, isolated house, looking very small, is seen in relation to a wide and surprising world. Three huge clouds cavort above in the blue sky, at once awesome and humorous. They seem to say: “Don’t forget about the world outside you!”
Like this building, we can feel small in relation to a vast universe. But we also can feel we’re the center of everything. Does this photo usefully satirize a false importance we can have? And does it delightfully proclaim, as Eli Siegel wrote: “[W]e have to be…snug and exterior….We have to be ourselves, and give to this great and diversified there, which is not ourselves, what it deserves.”
—Carrie Wilson