Mirrored Music 1945

This black and white print called Mirrored Music was made by Jack Bookbinder, though I don’t know exactly when. I can only imagine Bookbinder at work on this image, building it up from a series of marks. There are deep blacks and soft greys. I wonder, did he work from dark to light? Or light to dark? Maybe he was using a photograph, or maybe he had a model playing the flute in his studio. I feel for him in this moment of creation. He’s capturing this woman’s gaze as she concentrates on her music, her mirrored music. What was he thinking as he made this image? How did the music affect him? It's like he wants to capture not just her portrait but also something about her spirit, too. There is an ongoing conversation between artists across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. “Mirrored Music” is an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations.