Review

"Untitled", Digital Photograph.

7 a.m.-4 p.m.
(First Friday reception 6 p.m.-10 p.m.)

Mildred's Coffeehouse
1821 Wyandotte
Kansas City, MO
816.471.1155

Hours after First Friday: 7 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday
Runs through: April 27

Artist's site: http://web.me.com/seananf/Detours/Home.html
Gallery site: http://www.mildredscoffeehouse.com

 Today's featured artist doesn't live in Kansas City. She didn't grow up or go to school here. Seánan Forbes is  a seventh-generation Manhattanite -- the original, not the one in Kansas -- and used to describe herself as "loosely based in New York and London."

Then it became "New York, London and Kansas City."

She visited some years back, fell in love with the place and now knows the city as well as -- in some cases, better than -- the natives. She excels at searching out what others miss: the speakeasy, the off-menu special, a stranger's life story.

That's true of her art as well. She finds unlikely beauty in things that most people pass by without seeing.

As she puts it, "Life is lived in the detours."

Full disclosure: Seánan is my writing colleague, a dear friend and the designer of ARTKC365's logos. It would feel weird to use only her last name on second reference -- so I won't. Even if I didn't know her from Eve, however, I'd be a serious photo-devotee.

Don't take my word for it. Head to the Crossroads tonight and see for yourself.

Her first Kansas City show, which officially opens tonight with a First Friday reception at Mildred's Coffeehouse, includes several readily recognizable images.

There's a dead leaf, flaming with sunlight, caught on a railing. The blue water of Lake Michigan almost mirrors the color of a late winter sky. A squirrel -- perhaps the fattest squirrel alive -- uses weapons-grade cuteness to panhandle for nuts.

That's less than half the story. The majority of the shots lead immediately to a twofold question: What in the world is that, and where in the world did you take it?

Don't look for help in the titles. There aren't any.

"If I put a title on something," she says, "then I'm defining someone else's relationship with a piece."

She didn't say "relationship with art." She doesn't even like to use the word in connection with her photography.

In my view, an artist is a creator, she writes. I’m a witness.  There’s power in bearing witness -- and great power in giving testimony -- but it’s not an art.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to beg to differ on this one, for two reasons.

The first will be apparent to anyone who sees the show at Mildred's. It takes an artist's eye to find the precise angle at which to shoot a spot of rust, a patch of sidewalk or a jag of peeling paint -- not to show the item itself, but to bring out intrinsic qualities of curve, line, texture, pattern and color. (It takes an especially discerning eye to do that without physical -- or digital -- manipulation.)

The second reason is that Seánan is evolving into creating, not simply witnessing. She's mixing media and arranging subjects. You can see the results locally, but not at Mildred's. On Sunday night at the Mission Theatre, she will have several pieces in a benefit concert and art auction to raise awareness of -- and raise money to fight -- human trafficking.

Seánan will be in New York by then, en route to Hong Kong, but she'll be at Mildred's tonight for First Friday. Stop by, share a story, and let your eyes, minds and hearts develop relationships with her photographs.

Allow plenty of time for detours.

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