MASON SHOW AT COFFEEHOUSE
Frank Mason's photography show at the Alley Coffeehouse presents a fine cross-section of his talent. The works on view range from landscapes to flower portraits, in both color and black and white formats. Mason has an eye for color, form, and texture and a heart for exploring emotional attachment to his subjects.
His roadside barns and sugarhouses, for instance, are expressive of a whole chapter of the Vermont we love. Not only does he seek a visual balance and solid composition, but also an angle, a shift of light, that expresses the work ethic and stability of the men who built these facilities and work in them. Mason's photographs express the growth of the farm, all the additions over time, like tree rings; and they show the aging and falling away in the faded paint and uncertain ridgelines of the roofs. In sharing his view of barns, we connect with the passion and the regret for the passing we often feel for the Vermont way of life.
In Mason's landscapes, where we are standing back further, we see not only the mountain or shore, but we feel the climate, the air. Mist, or sunshine, or autumn leaf, gives us clues that transcend merely seeing and making intellectual deductions. We don't merely see evidence of fall, we are there for a moment. When he switches his eye to flowers, he brings us up tight and close, the way we see them, when we are children on their level, or when we bend down to sniff their perfume. We are there.
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