Michael Ruth, Angola, Louisiana 17 - 1999

Deborah Luster made this tintype, titled *Michael Ruth, Angola, Louisiana*. It's a photograph, but in my mind, it shares a painterly quality. Look at the gentle sepia, the way the figure emerges from the ground, and the cotton plants that look like dabs of white paint. I imagine Luster, camera in hand, carefully composing the shot. What was she thinking as she captured this image of Michael Ruth? Was she focused on the contrast between the soft cotton and the harsh history of the landscape? Maybe she wanted to capture the quiet dignity of a person in a place marked by suffering. The tintype gives the image a sense of timelessness, like a memory fading at the edges, but lingering with an insistent presence. Like all artists, Luster draws on the work of others to create something new.