Bruce Weber, Bear Pond

Toward evening find a silent shuttered room.
Sit or lie; let your eyes slide shut.
Your heart slows; your mind will likely race-
A smear of pictures, learning sideshows, tunes,
Bodies you’ve tasted, geeks, your private crimes-
All ways to bribe you from the dare you take,
This risk of a trek towards home, a healing journey.
But coax your lidless inward eye to find
The place where you knew broad serenity:
Field or river, woods or boat or room
In which your secret candid voice confides
“For your whole life on Earth, here is home…”

–Reynolds Price, from “Gold Day”

This poem, in full, is the inscription to the book “Bear Pond” published in 1990 to accompany the exhibition at Robert Miller Gallery titled “Figure Studies.” In this volume, Bruce presents an arcadian vision of “broad serenity,” a singularly beautiful collection of male nudes and landscapes. Photographed primarily in Bear Bond and its environs in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State, these images represent the artists’s deeply personal exploration of freedom in nature, the beauty of youth, and the mythically elusive vulnerability of the masculine.