Madeline Koster
Art Gallery Paper
Common Ground
The world is changing every minute of every second of every day. Scott Strazzante
shows with his artistic eye through the pictures that he takes just that. Strazzante brings a whole
new meaning to photography he shows life, stories, and emotions like I have never seen before.
That was before I heard the actual story behind his work.
Strazzante started this project just being a photographer of a 72 year old man who lived in
this house his whole life named Harlow and his wife Jean on their farm that was called the
Cagwin Farms. Their home was surrounded by miles of fields full of cattle and farm equipment.
The Cagwin’s had to sell their property along with their cattle. Eventually Cagwin Farms and the
property surrounded it turned into a subdivision with around nearly 300 houses. There would
seem to be plenty of differences between both farm land and subdivisions but Strazzante finds a
way to bring the two together and have a common ground, hence the name of his project.
The first picture that really caught my attention and subject matter of Strazzante’s work
was the picture of the farm land with the green grass and the open land. Next to it in the same
frame was a picture of the subdivision which had over a hundred houses in it. It does not just
show that they added homes, but it also shows how they took away a living from other people.
This photo makes me upset but lively at the same time. I get upset because I know how
important farm land is to farmers and how important it is for everyone in the world that we have
farm land. On the other hand it goes against that and it makes me feel lively because I think
about all the life that is living there and how joyful it could be to be living in that subdivision.
Photography can be a very powerful use of art if you use it the right way and in a lot of
Stazzante’s work he does comparing and I think that shows something very powerful. The
artwork with Jean Cagwin standing in the window compared to the two children staring out their
widow shows two different emotions. Jean Cagwin seems to look disturbed and lonely which
makes perfect sense all her furniture is gone in the room and she had just given up her house.
The two girls standing in the picture next to her have this bright colorful room that has two beds
in it and it shows joy. They both are young and their lives are just starting and that helps bring
life to the pictures. Strazzante does a good job comparing two completely different things and
making them come together as one.
Lastly the picture that has brought the strongest emotion to me was a picture of Harlow
Cagwin. Harlow who seems to be a strong man emotionally and physically has lost a big part of
his life that he had worked for. This picture is Harlow sitting down on a fallen tree with his head
tilted down while a piece of equipment tears down his home which was his whole life. This is a
place where a boy became a man and made all his memories and had to let it all go. This picture
shows the strongest emotion out of all the pictures it shows a strong man at a weak point in his
life.
Madeline Koster
Art Gallery Paper
This has been one of my favorite gallery openings that have gone past in the last three
years. It had made me feel many different emotions all at once. I think if one gallery shows just
one of two feelings that they are not doing the job right. Stazzante spent fourteen years on this
project and it shows because you can tell the careful details that he put into it. He does a good
job comparing one emotion with another and making them seem similar and that is why it is
called Common Ground.