Apple Blossoms, Woodstock 1936

Curator: "Apple Blossoms, Woodstock," a 1936 photograph by Dorothy Norman. My first impression? I find it starkly beautiful. The sharp lines of the architecture are softened ever so slightly by suggestion of something just out of frame – that title speaks volumes about a hidden, hopeful aspect. Editor: Windows are powerful symbols, aren't they? This feels like more than just documenting a building. Those gothic arches, even shadowed by closed shutters, pull at something deep. Churches often use the same arch – suggesting light and transcendence. It invites you to meditate on the promise and failure to achieve perfection or escape. Curator: I wonder about the title, "Apple Blossoms, Woodstock." Is it Norman's playful counterpoint? Woodstock in the 30s suggests a specific community. Is this quiet shot of geometry acting as a shield or revealing that utopian yearning to start anew which we so desperately long for today, much like Dorothy Norman did during this period in American history? Editor: Right. And what does it mean to capture a place? Is this structure an embrace or does the near perfect order deny an easy welcome, leaving the observer ever wondering, always separated, never quite invited? Perhaps Norman's working with that very tension...that promise always, tragically unkept. Curator: It is tragic isn't it, that so few of these social and political hopes ever truly came to pass, though, in a certain way, it's nice that the photo keeps all of those options available. Editor: Well, I'm sure these questions can seem tiresome, but I do believe the architecture allows itself to be imbued with a great range of experience – even at first glance, these window arches, these linear patterns...they all say more than their shape suggests. Curator: Absolutely, symbols, even if unintended, burrow into the piece nonetheless. Looking closer now I wonder whether Norman hoped to capture just how fragile "Woodstock" actually was in that moment of early springtime growth? Editor: Possibly, yes, though whatever the impulse or emotion the artwork can inspire awe even in such controlled geometries.