April 19 2006

Text By Catherine Jamieson

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 1:9. Whatever religion or life philosophy one follows, it is likely that somewhere in its teachings will exist the notion that we exist in a cycle of events, that all things eventually repeat - or catch up to - themselves. Artists, of couse, exist in that strange space between knowledge and hope and many of them spend much of their efforts in life trying to disprove the theory.

I say this is our strength, not our weakness - a boon and not a curse. Yes, certainly ... there are a hundred, a thousand, maybe a million photographs of red poppies. But there is only one Nathan Kendall with his range of experience and his creative vision. There is this red poppy, in this field, on this day and taken by this photographer. My notion of a red poppy is a little different today, this vision is laid on top of all the others and its meaning is ... fuller to me. Maybe Ecclesiastes is right and maybe that's a good thing.