Serendipitously, in their travels, both Borchard and Stuart came
across beautiful or intriguing windows, doorways, passageways and
facades of houses, buildings, shops - and photographed them. For
Stuart, “Out of hundreds and hundreds of pictures of people, events
and nature,” taken over the course of ten years, “these glimpses” of
primarily facades “emerged as a group,” whereas for Borchard on his
honeymoon in Venice, “wandering aimlessly,” he “became convinced that
the spirit of Venice resided in its windows” and other passageways -
and began clicking away.
Borchard
is most interested in capturing the “elusive quality of light in April
in Venice” and the mixture of beauty and decay in the windows and
doors. Sunshine abounds in these images of polished wooden doors with
heavy ringed knockers, weathered shutters framing a playful windowbox
of pinwheel flowers, stone windows set in a pink adobe wall,
ivy-covered rocks lining walkways, stone stairs leading around a
corner to…? Borchard seems charmed by the “labyrinthine walks of
Venice,” the bright colors of the homes “reportedly painted that way
to direct the fishermen home at night after a long day of fishing out
in the fog.”
Stuart is
attracted to a variety of architectural features, color and shape as
well as the content of her subjects: the grandeur of St. Patrick’s
Cathedral, draped in dark bunting after 9/11, the funkiness of a
barn-red antique shop, a window display of a hair salon in the
Netherlands where the “wildly paper-coifed mannequins notice the
passersby and vice-versa.” Many of her photos are taken from
interesting angles and cropped close giving a more abstract feel to
them. A view of a brick wall and window through lace curtains provides
a nice contrast of textures, a close-up image of the tip of a colorful
sculpture and the walls behind it at the Guggenheim Museum give a
whole new perspective to the work of art as does a photo of rounded
blue glass windows and their reflections, a detail of the outside
walls of a building at Stanford University.
Stuart has
worked as a commercial photographer in black & white and in color for
numerous clients. She has exhibited at the Griffin Museum of
Photography in Winchester and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and
currently at Stanford University, United Parish of Auburndale and
Williams School in Auburndale.
Borchard has exhibited as part of Newton Open Studios and various
local venues. At present his work is on display at West Newton Cinema
and will be seen at Newtonville Books this winter.
