Three Pots of Inspiration: the 1930s photography of Ilse Bing, current books, and the shining lives of others.
“There are no uninteresting subjects, just uninterested people.”
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This Three Pots of Inspiration writing will cover photography, people I’ve shared a ton of sweetness with lately, and books that have taken me momentarily to other enriched, beautiful (and sometimes tormented) lives.
Photography is such a swirling part of my world, both in my interests and my work. I spent all of June traveling, carving my smile lines deeper, sharing meals with loved ones, and seeing areas of the world that I still have an overwhelmingly strong emotional tie to.
Cameras appeared everywhere. One pulled out of the suit jacket pocket of Preston as he watched veiled Jess walk down the gothic church aisle; a soul-filling in-person catch-up with Molly about her photography work and daydreams of what we hope to see during a Paris trip we want to take this fall; documenting my husband and I’s first wedding anniversary as we returned to the small Basque village we got married in; learning how to surf in France and unexpectedly making a beautiful friend out of the retreat’s photographer, Emily; running to fill up on Portra 400 film with coworker-turned-friend Tauni so that we could photograph the Eames House and Strathmore Apartments together; snapping a flash photo of Macy and I’s leche fritas in Spain; sharing a stack of pancakes with my brother while he loaded his new Pentax with film; reuniting with lots of shining faces in LA and realizing that a majority of them are, coincidentally, photographers.
Just before all of this excitement, my coworkers and I put together an Eames film screening evening in Los Angeles. I loved imagining and selecting the films we presented to the public, as they’re packed full of colorful Kodachrome imagery. After the screening, there was a panel discussion that included Jeannine Oppewall, who worked for Charles and Ray for many years. Something she said about her time at the office really impacted me: “There are no uninteresting subjects, just uninterested people.” It reinforced my pride in being someone who is visually interested in experiencing our world—even something as mundane as a stack of pancakes. Everything is fascinating!
I’m surrounded by people who have turned creating photographs into an undeniably rich part of their existence, and it’s lovely. Surely, none of them are “uninterested people.” ❥
Three Ilse Bing photographs that I want to live inside:
A year and a half ago, I wrote enthusiastically about painter Emily Ferguson after seeing her oil painting of two red shoes. Later, I recognized *the shoes* in a writing by
. An incredibly beautiful foot-laden fate! Katie pointed to Ilse Bing, the original photographer of the scene. Ilse snapped the photograph of the gold lamé footwear and iridescent pleated skirt in 1935.
A young Ilse Bing found her way to photography by accident while trying to illustrate her thesis in mathematics and physics at the University of Frankfurt. She picked up a Voigtlander camera, changed her studies to art history (same, me too!), and then bought a Leica in 1929. She was hooked! Ilse began side jobs for the magazine Dan Illustrierte Blatt, photographed modern housing projects by Bauhaus-ist Mart Stam, and then moved to Paris.
“In November 1930, when Ilse Bing arrived in Paris from Frankfurt at the age of thirty-one, she wanted to live in a city in full artistic effervescence. She was convinced she would find what she needed there,” wrote Franćoise Reynaud while preparing an Ilse exhibition in the late ‘80s. Bing said of her time in the city: “In Paris, I really became myself. Until then, I was like a chick in its egg; the shell was broken, but I hadn’t yet emerged.” Within two years, she was being published in Le Monde Illustré, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar.
In her work, you’ll see movement, a thick contrast between light and dark, and the city from the perspective of someone with true artistic sensitivity. She was a chick out of its egg, who grew into the most delightfully soaring bird, dancing above and around the city of light.
I’m selling a vintage copy of an Ilse Bing photography book! It’s centered on the two decades of her life in Paris, and includes the most wondrous picture: All of Paris in a Box (Tout Paris dans une boîte) from 1952.
And also: a vintage pocket mirror with the city’s biggest and best landmarks. The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Sacre Coeur, and the Louvre Pyramid—they’re historic landmarks that evoke the highest level of Parisian spirit. Visit them every time you want to sneak a look at your own visage.
Previous installments:
Three books I’m currently in the middle of:
I try my best to read only one book at a time. Sometimes, I can’t help myself, and a book begs me to start before I’ve finished another. Also, some books are fun to read in pairs or trios. I mostly read nonfiction, so adding a shorter, quick-paced fiction story in there helps break up the realistic weight of biographies.
Bridget Riley: A Very Very Person by Paul Moorhouse - A biography following the varied life of an Op Art painter, Bridget Riley. Her grandmother called her a “very very person” because she lived in every sense with the volume on high, and that phrase has left a (very, very) big impression on me.
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante - I keep wanting to read Ferrante’s famed Neapolitan novel series, but always end up reading other books of hers instead. As a married person, it’s obviously tough for me to read about a woman’s husband abandoning her abrubptly, but the character, Olga, has such unique descriptions of her feelings! Ferrante, with her true identity a mystery to us all still, sits at the pinnacle of the world’s writing talent.
Surrealists in New York: Atelier 17 and the Birth of Abstract Expressionism by Charles Darwent - If you love Surrealism and/or the cultural strengths of New York City, this is must-read. It’s a little slower to start than other artist biographies I’ve read and loved, but it’s still a ride I’m happy to be on.
Three today-people whose life stories make me utter “WOW!”:
Because I’m often stuck in the past, it’s nice to focus on people out there today who are impressing me in every way imaginable.
- of JENNY SAIS QUOI - She has always been a visually-packed, incredible example of what it should feel like to be alive in a creative, spinning way. Jenny recently purchased a home in the Tuscan countryside, after calling Milan home for a few years. I am seriously loving this peek into her new, more connected-to-Italian slowness form of living.
Scarlett Yaryan - Scarlett and I have known each other since 2016 or ‘17, during my time living in Los Angeles—and gosh—she, like Bridget Riley above, is a very very person. There’s so much brilliance, creativity, and emotional depth to Scarlett. All of these beautiful traits are present in her in a way that shows up like an exclamation mark. I always love every second near her (I’ll admit that it’s been way too long since I’ve been in the physical presence of her magnetism). She just launched her Substack Sacred Fractures and her first post (unsurprisingly) knocked me out.
Scenes from Scarlett's life! Kovi Konowiecki - I met Kovi a couple of weeks ago after watching my two best friends marry each other at a gothic-style church in Pasadena. My friends connected us at a patio table at dimly-lit Sam’s Place in Highland Park: “You have to meet each other!” We talked and talked for what seemed like a time-suspended type of forever (and simultaneously not long enough)! I left the night feeling like I just gained a soul-touching friendship. Kovi moved to Germany at the age of 12—completely alone—to play soccer, did so all around the world, and then transitioned into photography in his mid-twenties. What a life! Taking the time to admire his photography on his Instagram or website is completely worth it.
Related Notes:
This Ilse Bing photography book was born from an exhibition at Paris’s Musée Histoire de Paris Carnavalet. Another French photographer who I’ve really fallen for is Agnès Varda, and the museum happens to have an exhibition up with her photos from now until August 24th. If you’re in Paris, allez, allez, go, go, go! Ugh, I don’t need any more reasons to love that city.
Mental note to myself: one day I would love a copy of Ilse Bing: Three Decades of Photography.
- published her Everything I read in June and mentioned an Elena Ferrante reading club by her friend . If you want to read Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend—the first of the Neapolitan novels series—along with her and her Substack readers, they’re starting in August!!! I’ve been skipping around Ferrante’s writings in a way that is hazardous and gluttonous. It might be my time to finally read the series.
Elena Ferrante’s translator, Ann Goldstein, on the experience of reading Ferrante in English:
I spent hours and hours of airplane time this month listening to a podcast called ArtHoles (
—did you tell me about this??). It’s an obsessive account of the stories of famous artists, told by a guy (sometimes two) who claims to know absolutely nothing about art.
It’s pretty bro-y feeling, but it’s also completely addictive. It’s allowing me to see the artists I obsess about in an interesting way—exposing me more to their human flaws and the intimate details of their origin stories. I listened to the Picasso series first and now I’m on the Pollock episodes.
**
What are you photographing these days?
Kelsey Rose
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*cover and introduction image, clockwise starting at top left: Emily Ferguson’s Red Shoes; Ilse Bing self-portrait in Paris, 1931; Ilse Bing’s The Honorable Daisy Fellowes, Gloves by Dent in London for Harper's Bazaar, 1933; smooching seats by Scarlett Yaryan; Champ de Mars from the Eiffel Tower, 1931 by Ilse Bing; Kovi Konowiecki’s oranges; Ilse Bing’s Bailarina de cancán [French Can-Can Dancer], 1931; Ilse Bing’s Ballet Errante, Paris, 1933.
YES! My favorite pod ever - so bro-y but addicting
I am in the middle of the Neapolitan quartet and cannot recommend it enough - and if the Ferrante authorial mystery is as compelling to you as it is to me, I loved this Lithub piece from a few years ago https://lithub.com/have-italian-scholars-figured-out-the-identity-of-elena-ferrante/