Accidental Art

We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself.
Look around you all you see are sympathetic eyes,
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home.

 - "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel

I was reminded when a clip of "Mrs. Robinson" played on the radio of how impressed I am with the lyricism of Paul Simon's work.  This first occurred to me when "Graceland" came out in 1986.  It's not that I was unfamiliar with his stuff before (How could anyone who lived in the 60s and 70s not be?) but that I first noticed how finely built the words in his songs were.

It's not that they are musical, or even poetic.  They seem to rise out of normal conversation, but in those moments of golden, accidental beauty that occasionally happens, phrases that flow so easily -- even when they are commonplace, or seem commonplace -- that they become musical.  It was while listening to the songs in "Graceland" that I first thought the Simon was actually an incredible writer of short stories who happens to set them to music.

Not to take anything from Simon -- I'm sure he labors mightily over ensuring just the right word lands in just the right place -- but this makes me think of what I've come to call "accidental art."  In my case, it usually comes in the form of things that have fallen in a perfect place, things that I find it hard, if not impossible, not to photograph.  This is one of the reasons I'm never to be seen without a camera, if not several of them.

Ironically, many of the pictures I make in these circumstances are done with the iPhone, because it's not only convenient but the right medium for the ephemeral purpose for me of many of these pictures.  I shoot 'em, put them on Facebook, and move on.  Others, however, are more permanent and either get shot with the Leica or double shot.

These columns, pulled off and stacked in front of a house undergoing renovation, were an irresistible subject to me for weeks, and I'm sure I will feel delight in their rediscovery when I finally process the film.

But the point here is: It's all accidental.  These things weren't placed or sculpted or planned.  They just fell where they did.  The art comes in the seeing of it, and then the capture.  Paul Simon could have overheard all those phrases in "Mrs. Robinson,"  but were they in that order?  And how the music slides with and compliments them ...