Thirty one

I didn’t know Walker Evans also drew. I celebrate his photographs as much as Anastasia’s. Is pink the colour of Florida? Seems authentic, but I also saw blue, rusty red, Tyrian purple and all the others. His photographs and paintings, in black and white, muted blue, green, gray and brown; hers, a kaleidoscope of rainbow splashes. How her Barge Reflection reminds me of a Xinjiang scarf, the mirage of a metropolis, and all the green pastures, rising. She always gives more; her density and vibrancy leave me in awe. Which comes first, her eyes, her heart, or her camera. I once saw Evan’s picture of a Resort Photographer, she and her woman sitter, her props an ocean liner, short palm trees, two or three pelicans, and, an alligator. She bent down, with both hands securing the tripod, she inspected the horizon, the pristine blue water of the Gulf of Mexico. Anastasia’s alligator in Gatorama baths in a pink brick; blue-tiled pool of water jetting out from a tube. From Evan’s ladder to Anastasia’s ladder, from John Rybovich & Sons to Michael Rybovich & Sons, from 1960 to 2021. In the rendezvous in Florida, she’s encountered the American south, signs and letters, light, patterns, layer by layer. Her viewfinder finds more–there is order in chaos, and chaos in order. Is this delusion or reality? In this picture of a dome house, where a horizontal flag flying on its pole, she spotted the upside-down America.