The Textures of the Earth: A Review of Verna Todd and Doug Haight at Perspective

Doug Haight, “WTS521515″/Photo: Doug Haight

For the two-person show at Perspective, each artist chose his or her own title, but the work, although made on two different continents, is amazingly cohesive and there is a strong dialogue between the two series. Yet whether in the Sahara or a Chicago neighborhood, this work is made with a keen eye for detail and texture.

Verna Todd, “Kentucky Coffee Tree”/Photo: Verna Todd

Verna Todd engages us in a treasure hunt on her own block. After being struck by the beauty of the bark on a particular tree, Todd researched and learned about bark’s role in the life of trees, which she celebrates in this work. The abstract, textured pieces are mounted on scroll-like panels, increasing their sacred and spiritual quality. Meditative in nature, each image is different, as is every tree, and the images invite us to look at trees as separate and unique. Todd says, “It’s easy to relate to a tree, with sturdiness and style, it offers shelter in the rain or exhausting heat. It raises its boughs, so much like human arms, it whispers in the wind”—poetic words for poetic images.

Doug Haight, “WTS522260″/Photo: Doug Haight

In the image titled “Red Oak 2,” vertical lines are intersected by small lighter areas that Todd explains in her didactic are “lenticels,” little windows that allow the bark to breathe. Regardless of the science, this image is among the most visually enticing, looking very like a Monet painting, waterlilies and all. Another favorite is “London Plane Tree,” in which the dark bark is being shed bit by bit as the tree has grown, exposing the fresh, silvery new bark beneath. Plane trees do us all the service of scrubbing pollutants from the air. “Kentucky Coffee Tree” shows a remarkable layering of colors and textures almost like the layers of the earth’s crust.

Verna Todd, “London Plane Tree”/Photo: Verna Todd

The second artist, Doug Haight created his images in the Sahara desert. Although they are as lyrical as Todd’s, they are even more minimal. The texture is there though—the wind has etched ever-changing abstract patterns and ripples into the dunes creating rhythmic undulations. The sky in some of the photographs is almost blindingly blue and the sand the color of pueblos halfway around the world. Haight has a somewhat frustrating habit of naming each image with a long series of numbers, making it difficult to write about specific images. In the image titled “WTS522260,” there is no sky, a simple sweep of furrowed sand is defined against an area of totally flat and perfectly untouched sand. In “WTS521515,” two posts or poles that appear to have been made of saplings stand, emerging from the rippled sand, seemingly without reason, but forming a stellar composition. Haight says the desert is “alive with the potential to shift, grow, and bury what it pleases.” The natural world is such a treasure, a treat for the eyes at every glance, and these two artists each found inspiration and wished to share their vision with us. We thank them for that generosity.

“Verna Todd: A World in the Bark of a Tree” and “Doug Haight: Wandering the Sahara” are on view at Perspective Fine Art Photography Gallery, 1310 Chicago Avenue, Evanston, through September 29.