It was late afternoon when the sun was casting a rich, golden light on 8th Avenue. There was a hot dog vendor and persons walking, and the lively shadows they cast on the quiet wall were dramatic. That stationary cart with its graceful umbrella anchors the scene, while persons quickly walking by accent the motion of things.
I’m grateful to Aesthetic Realism for encouraging me to see people and reality more the way they deserve, as a moving drama of opposites. —Vincent DiPietro
This photograph made me think of a question I was asked in an Aesthetic Realism consultation: “Do you see other people with the same depth you give yourself?” I didn’t. People can make other people into shadows and take away their livingness. My purpose in flattening their meaning, I learned, was contempt, “the addition to self through the lessening of something else.” This is utterly opposed to the purpose of art.
Here, the shadows are alive. There’s definition and mystery. Each person’s silhouette is flat, yet conveys something of their individual depths—their unique contours, movement, posture, even emotion. There is a sense of people individually, and together, going somewhere, as we are.
—Donita Ellison