Kitchen Counter with Scale in Foreground, Berkeley, California c. 1976

Joanne Leonard took this photograph of a kitchen counter in Berkeley, California. I love how it captures a real space, a lived-in space, not a perfectly styled kitchen, but a countertop full of stuff: jars, cans, appliances, and smack in the front, a scale. I wonder what Joanne was thinking when she made this? Was she attracted to the geometric forms, or was she interested in the story that these items tell? It looks almost like a still life painting. I feel that this scale in the front speaks to ideas about measuring and weighing, but also to photographic composition: What to leave in? What to leave out? What to highlight? What to conceal? She’s composed the objects just so, like a painter arranging objects on a surface. Artists are always having conversations with one another across time, riffing on the same ideas, approaching them from different angles. It's a process of constant exchange.