Photographer finds art in the lost

One of the pieces from Ryan Lely’s exhibit at the Sunflower Caffe.

“38º29’ N x 122º46’ W” might seem like a strange name for an exhibit of photography, but for Sonoma Valley Sun photo editor Ryan Lely, it’s a statement of precision – the only one, in fact, represented in the show on display through August at the Sunflower Caffe. The numeric sequence is the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of Sonoma, CA on the globe. Everything else in the show, however, has the effect of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Comprised of eight different large-format photographs, the show was created by Lely, who ventured throughout Sonoma collecting bits of detritus, from used plastic cutlery to a broken pencil and a mysterious blue mesh, which he later photographed at close range over a light-box. The effect is both compelling and slightly disorienting – exactly Lely’s intention.
“Making the mundane seem foreign was a sort of mantra for this project,” recounted Lely. “What’s interesting to me is how this process, in many ways, refreshed how I perceived our local visual environment. Obviously, Sonoma is a beautiful place, but what I’ve found is that the reach of that beauty is bottomless.”
Lely took his creative process a step further when he enlisted frequent collaborator and Sun contributing editor Daedalus Howell to supply captions for the images.
“Daedalus was an obvious choice not only for our working relationship but for his ability to create prose that is both meaningful and esoteric. It further complemented the abstraction of the show,” Lely observed, pointing to an example of the collaboration in which a pencil appears like a desert isle, its graphite peeking from the broken wood such that it suggests a geometric form. The haunting image is drolly underscored by the text “Aspirant monolith atop stick. Prognosis grim.”
The exhibit has already struck a chord with locals and out of town visitors of the café, who have been both enamored and befuddled by the juxtaposition of abstracted images and words.
An artist’s reception begins at 7 p.m., Friday, Aug. 15 at the Sunflower Caffe, 421 1st St. W., Sonoma. Wines will be generously poured by Robledo Family Winery.