Moody Afternoon

Leaves with self-confidence

Diane Shooman

In Haruko Maeda's large tondo, people naked as newborns are swept up in Nature's swirling moods. The surface wood is earth, water, air. Leaves leave their branches and frolic in a free float, dodging stems and limbs. A purple thistle stretches out its long neck to observe the downfalling leaves, swept into the current and disappearing underfoot.

In the small tondo, three contestants hop about vying for the attention of a flowering bulb, leaf tips already fading.

Nymph and Faun meet fauna in the forest of the Pas-de-deux showcase. Two leaves stretch out their stems to stare at the Faun's leafy belt the nymph is pointing at. How alarmed the leaves look when the nymph and faun twirl around. The rabbit is about to hop away.