Once there was spring
The stitched flower photographs of Susan Hyde Greene
“Once There Was Spring” is the title of one of Susan Hyde Greene's photographs that appear in her exhibit at the Monterey Museum of Art. It begs the question— Once there was spring? Isn't spring a seasonal promise annually kept? Isn't it what makes winter worth slogging through with your hat brim down low? Despite the many human-caused disruptions to the earth's reliability, one season still follows on the heels of the one before it, more or less like clockwork.
But, as we all know — and some of us better than we wish we did — the seasons of the heart are often not determined by the calendar. The heart has an unruly ability to blindside and startle us with its demand for our attention, no matter the weather. Anger can whip up the wind of us before we know what's happening; joy makes summer come no matter the temperature of the air, and grief is often a long season of cold rain.
Hyde Greene's work is on view through April 16 as part of “Constructing the Photograph: Diane Pierce and Susan Hyde Greene.” When I entered the gallery, having some familiarity with her work, I was startled by how quickly an odd mixture of grief and calm overcame me, along with the more anticipated feelings of delight and curiosity. There was nowhere else that I wanted to be. Walking beside her pictures, staring at them, one and then the next, I felt met and recognized in a preverbal, dreamlike way. Susan Hyde Greene's photographs are transfixing.
The close-up flower photographs are of mostly roses, some tulips, a few others. Being so close to the flowers, seeing them larger than life, created a shift in my sense of proportion. Georgia O'Keeffe knew, “Nobody sees a flower — really — we haven't time — and to see takes time…” Susan Hyde Greene takes that time and by doing so, invites viewers to do the same.
Through her use of Photoshop, which she likes for the flexibility the program offers her, Hyde Greene can meld her flower images with images of fabric, in particular, lace. An artist who has always worked with textiles, the attraction for this merging may come as no surprise, yet the effects are certainly surprising. In some
of the pictures, instead of a familiar cluster of yellow or pink petals, the flowers appear more intricate than they actually are, as though embossed with pattern and texture, in a delicate, subtle way.
Hyde Greene joined me for my second visit to see the show and we sat before the largest piece and talked — comfortably and intimately — for an hour, me with notebook and pen in hand, trying to capture her words that came unhaltingly, yet with a vulnerability and honesty, I was moved by. The wealth of emotion that I'd felt during my first visit and again this time, became, as Susan spoke, obviously not coincidental.
“Heartbreaking Beauty” is a large paper quilt made out of rectangular edge-toedge, close-up photographs of roses. None is of an entire flower; rather Susan shows us individual and groups of petals. Nearly every shade of pink I've ever seen is represented, along with yellows and reds. Most are inclusive of shadows made by one petal touching another. Some petals look like the blossom is just opening while others have seen better days. Some resemble pursed lips, some like lips nearly smiling, while others made me think of one person resting their arm against a loved one's. If you saw some of the images singularly, it might take a minute to realize that you were looking at flowers. Each picture is stitched to the ones surrounding it with fine gold thread. Hyde Greene told me, “I like puzzling, piecing together.”
And as if that weren't plenty for the eye and heart to take in, on the floor directly below the quilt is a vase of dying roses. If that vase were on your dining room table, you'd have thrown the flowers out days ago. Surrounding it are shards of rose photos and among them are scattered dried rose petals.
The way the light shines on “Heartbreaking Beauty” creates shadows so that it looks as if the quilt is rising from the wall, as though it had somewhere to go. Hyde Greene said, “I didn't think beforehand about the impact of shadows on the work. They add another dimension, another layer… and also movement.”
She tells me, “I'm interested in mending and repair, the idea of transformation. Something is broken and then you repair it, but differently, not as it was.” As Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”
For Hyde Greene, the time she spent creating much of the work for this show was one of grief, and of mending and repair. “When my husband Jim was very sick, and I knew it wasn't going to turn out well, I received the invitation to participate in this show, and I accepted because it was an honor to be invited, and I knew I'd need something positive to be involved with after he was gone… I made the decision to create this work in his memory.”
“Anytime I make art, it calms me … When Jim was so sick, I'd sit beside him and do the stitching on the photographs … And when he was in the hospital, I brought drawing materials and drew sitting beside him.”
During her husband's illness, which was going on simultaneous to the pandemic, Hyde Greene took over filling the bird feeders in their garden for Jim who loved birds. She recalled, “The birds and the yard didn't know about the pandemic and every day something else was in bloom. It carried me through.”
That's another thing about the heart, isn't it — its wild, sometimes unfathomable insistence on blooming and regeneration. For as much sorrow as Susan Hyde Greene has lived through over these past few years, grief she clearly accepted into the work, the photos have also been pollinated by her resilient, vibrant imagination and finely honed craft.
“Deconstructing the Photograph: Diane Pierce and Susan Hyde Greene,” Monterey Museum of Art, through April 16: https:// montereyart.org/uncategorized/constructing-the-photograph-diane-pierce-andsusan-hyde-greene/
Del Rey Oaks writer and poet Patrice Vecchione is the author of several books including, most recently, “My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry & Speaking Your Truth” and “Step into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life.” Her titles are available wherever books are sold. More at patricevecchione.com