It was during those formative years in Chicago when I would set about to do "some testing", short
for being creative outside the box, experiment with different films, processes and or styles of other
successful and celebrated photographers. And one of those photographers that I inspired me was the
great Jan Groover. She produced still - life's unlike any other photographer of her time.
One of my favorite photographs was her black and white view of kitchen utensils in a draining rack. I hesitate to say her arrangement of kitchen utensils because her still-life's which were often of kitchen utensils were everything but arrangements. They were just there. The prongs of forks, the blades of
knives, strainers with immediate reflections of silvery light and touch. Liquid light of abstract inter-
sections. She herself as written: "I think it's lovely that a knife can be pink. Its shape can be moulded
by light, silver surface picks up and reflects bits of colour - its all very liquid."
Her formal simplicity recalls the classic Edward Weston #30 Pepper image to mind. An everyday object when photographed in the view as only he could heads turn and suddenly we have a new way of seeing. Or take the work of photographer William Eggleston for that matter. His photography and sense of colour as Jan Groover seems to have taken place in relative isolation from other artist. She as he shared a love of painting. Jan Groover was trained as a painter but took up photography and quickly focused on subjects of painters as Giorgio Morandi, Cezanne and Fra Anfelico.
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