The Gnomes series integrates a gnome-like poem with a gnome-like photograph. A gnomic poem is short, pithy and aphoristic. The photographs, therefore, tend to be of small objects, or tight close-ups of visually small and simple subjects. To add impact, precedence was given to common objects of bright and deeply saturated color. I am aiming for a sort of visual haiku. The text of the poem, again, is intended to create mutual context between itself and the image. Gnomic was first applied to a group of Greek poets who flourished in the 6th Century, B.C. - Theognis, Solon, Phocylides, and Simonides of Anorgos.
     Gnomes later came to mean any poetry which deals in a sententious fashion with questions of ethics.
     A Gnome, then, is a pithy saying that expresses a general truth or fundamental principle; an aphorism, from the Greek, gnome, intelligence, and gignoskein, to know.
     So, Gnosis came to mean an intuitive apprehension of spiritual truths.
     Sententious is to be terse and energetic in expression; abounding in aphorisms.
     To be terse is to be effectively concise.
     Now, an aphorism is a brief statement of a principle; a tersely phrased statement of a truth; from the Greek aphorismos a delimitation, from aphorizein to mark off by boundaries, from apo off, or far away, and horizein to limit, from horos, boundary.
     A horizon is the apparent intersection of the earth and the sky as seen by an observor. Or, it is the range of an individual's experience, observation, interest or knowledge.
     To know is to set limits, to make boundaries around the world, to draw horizons. To say what we know is to make an aphorism. An aphorism in the form of a poem is a Gnome.
     The world that we have is bounded by what we know. The world we would like to create is beyond that horizon.
     That is the business of art, to leap over horizons.
     A picture can be a Gnome too. A Gnomic picture, like the Haiku, tries to say the most about the world and our culture in the most economical way; to show the least and imply the most.
     This has nothing to do with abstract art, which attempts to divorce the image from meaning, from cultural implications, and from what we know. The best reason for abstract art is that if it means nothing, it can't offend anybody.
     I'll take my chances with meaning.
     The picture is bounded by the frame. The frame implies a universe beyond the picture, in exactly the same way that the horizon of our knowledge implies a universe beyond our experience.
     A Gnome is also a member of a fabled race of dwarflike creatures who live underground and guard hordes of treasure.
     The artist is a gnome.
     The treasure is the leap.