Memo Center with Butterflies c. 1975

Joanne Leonard made this photograph, Memo Center with Butterflies, sometime in the twentieth century. Look at how the telephone cord snakes down the wall, a perfect zig-zag, like a drawing in space. The tones in this photograph are so gentle. It's like the artist is showing us a memory, something faded and real at the same time. There's a kind of art to how these everyday objects are arranged, pinned to the wall. The contrast between the functional memos and the whimsical butterflies is kind of charming, right? They could be fluttering right off the wall. It reminds me of the work of some other photographers, like William Eggleston, maybe. They look at the ordinary stuff around us, and somehow they find something special in it. They help us see things in a new way.