Monday, June 19, 2006

My first ever one person show about 12 years ago came about when a show fell through at the Exposure Gallery on Beatty Street in Vancouver. The curator, Brian Lynch, called me up in desperation and asked me if I could put a show together in a week and a half. I contacted model Lisa Montonen and asked her to show up at my studio. Ken Knechtel, of Rainforest Garden, provided me with a variety of hosta leaves. In two hours I photographed Lisa with one light and in some way holding a hosta leaf. She wore nothing and the name of the hosta would suggest the pose. Here she is holding Hosta 'Hyacinthina'. This hosta is really the mother of most variegated hostas as it tends to sport and mutate with frequency. From Hyacinthina we have such excellent hostas as Gold Standard, Captain Kirk and Strip Tease. And some poetic ones, too, like Hosta 'Robert Frost'. I had met Lisa at a beauty competition where clearly she was the most beautiful woman there. She had not won. She had been in tears and I had explained that in beauty competitions real beauty was a disadvantage.