Enso: What Is Beheld. This item is unavailable.Enso: What Is Beheld

Quarantining during the COVID pandemic offered photographer David Scheinbaum the time and focus to embark on a long-desired path to work camera-less. Creating enso art is contemplative, the drawings meditative. The word “enso” in Japanese refers to a circle that is hand drawn, often in one single brushstroke movement and one single breath. Using the tools of a Zen calligrapher and darkroom chemistry, Scheinbaum’s creative process involved exposure of photographic paper, using various brush types brushing on chemistry under a dim safelight, sometimes using fixer, other times developer, at times both. His technique varied with each image. This beautiful book presents a selection of Scheinbaum’s enso drawings with an insightful essay by Zen monk and poet Ninso John High and an introduction by Zen calligrapher, teacher, author, and Buddhist translator Kazuaki Tanahashi. The book includes examples of Tanahashi’s and High’s recognizable vibrant colored ensos.

David Scheinbaum's photography has been exhibited internationally and is in numerous museum collections. He is former Director/Chair of the Photography Department in the Marion Center for Photographic Arts at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and Professor Emeritus at the College of Santa Fe. He is the author of numerous books including Varanasi: City Immersed in Prayer (George F. Thompson Publishing, 2020); Bisti, (University of New Mexico Press, 1987); Stone: A Substantial Witness (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006); Hip Hop: Portraits of an Urban Hymn (Damiani Editore, 2012); and with his wife, Janet Russek, Images in the Heavens, Patterns on the Earth: The I Ching (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2005).,