TITLE: Frost On My Windows

I believe Nature can create art. That statement is contentious. Discussions have swirled around it since the ancient Greeks began pondering the relationship between art, beauty and Nature. Currently there are those who believe Nature can create beauty but not art, because art requires human “intent,” and those who believe any found object is art simply by declaring it to be so! “Frost On My Windows” confronts this Art/Beauty/Nature issue, asking viewers to ponder, “Can Nature create art?”

I have spent ten winters capturing images of natural exterior light refracting through ice crystals that grow in Winter on my old farmhouse windows. The window frost forms when warm moist air escapes the house at night and comes in contact with the outer frigid glass. The ice crystals are only a fraction of an inch thick, yet their varied crystalline structures profoundly affect the passage of light, producing striking compositions with three-dimensional depth effects. Nature creates the artful patterns and compositions overnight, then supplies changing colors of backlight to create stunning artwork. Often in Winter the light is flat and grey, lending itself to B&W photography. With the new day, this ephemeral artwork melts and vanishes in the sun.

AUTHOR: Peter Jeschke (United States)

Peter has taken photographs since he was a teenager, but only much later in life turned photography into a profession. After pursuing his BSc and MSc in Earth Sciences he had a long and successful professional career as a geophysicist. Peter and his wife of 52 years shuttle between their homes in New Hampshire, USA and Meghalaya, India.

Peter is happiest anywhere quiet, capturing images of ice crystals, bugs, cracks in paint, dew drops, floating leaves or patterns in beach sand. He is currently exploring and documenting “natural art” formed without intent by natural or accidental processes.