Jean Toomer 1925

Here's a photograph of Jean Toomer by Alfred Stieglitz. It’s a small silver print on a large mount – so already, right there, we have a contrast between intimacy and… I don’t know… grandiosity? Looking at Toomer, I wonder what Stieglitz was thinking. Was he trying to capture something about Toomer's character, his kind of cool gaze? What did these two talk about? And in terms of process, it’s interesting to consider how Stieglitz would have coaxed a pose, and tried to get Toomer to inhabit it. I think about how much back and forth must happen between artist and subject. How much does the artist direct, and how much does the subject collaborate? The end result might have been a surprise. Because that’s how art is. It’s a collaboration with chance, a conversation with the unknown. Artists keep inspiring each other across time. What can we learn from them? What conversations can *we* have?