DOTS, SPOTS, SPECKLES, AND STRIPES

Unbelievably, Hoban has surpassed her own high standard with a wordless collection of color photos instructing the eye in observation of another set of related concepts. The first few photos seem related to dots and spots--a peacock, an outdoor rack of clothing. But it becomes immediately evident that each picture is a new way of seeing and comparing the four concepts: the spotted lily has petal-length ridges, and what of the radiating marks on the cut kiwi--are they also stripes? A well-freckled nose is compared to a similarly adorned lobster. Patterns are man-made or found in nature; on flat surfaces or in three dimensions, as in a chair's slats; or a result of tricks of light: the shadow of the same chair, a field of back-lit sunflowers with a glowing halo around each dark dot of a center. Stripes may be vertical, diagonal, in the tangled heap left after a ticker-tape parade, or in the parallel curves of the waves pushed by a swimming duck's breast. Each new page is a revelation of the variety to be found in the visual world--if we only know how to look. A feast for the eye, the mind, and the imagination.