ELIZABETH LEITZELL

Kitchen Light, Summer and Fall // Undoing

Havertown, Pennsylvania • eleitz.com

  • Our kitchen window in the Brooklyn railroad apartment had sharp lines of sun at the beginnings and endings of the day. I loved watching it cut hard triangles into the walls and the floor, the morning light especially. We were about to move away and I wanted to always remember that light. Some colorful samples appeared in a freecycle pile, and the produce from the market asked for to be admired. The parameters of specific timing, objects, light and color had created an obvious invitation.

    At the same time, it was the time in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Depending where you were and who you were that could mean a variety of moods - for myself and my community, the despondency was hard to avoid at times. My mother told me that my grandmother had covered herself in bright colors in her adult life, because as a child she was only allowed to wear neutrals. I thought that instead of wrapping myself in color, I would feast on it with my eyes (and then of course later, literally!). Chasing the kitchen light (became a joyful refuge from the constant political heat and violence, for a time.

    Later, there was increasingly very little time to explore the kitchen light any more, especially with the impending move. I still looked to that kitchen light for support, though, and this time chose to seek out the magical glowing hazy side of it, which did not arrive in sharp lines but usually mid day. The series that developed from the mid-day light, Undoing, traveled with me to a new kitchen in Pennsylvania.

  • Digital color photography. These exist within a printed portfolio book sized 15x13" containing three series of still life work.