Still: The Art of Noticing by Mary Jo Hoffman: A Review

What happens when you assemble and photograph found bits of nature every single day for 12 years and counting? Mary Jo Hoffman calls her art—as well as her blog and her new book—Still and writes that her practice is not only “a respite from the enervating buzz of contemporary life,” but a way of paying attention. “Finding each day’s subject requires me to live more often than not in a heightened state of awareness that makes me extraordinarily happy.”

I can relate: I have a similar daily habit that evolved from collecting leaves on dog walks (see How I Became an Accidental Botanical Artist). But though we’re admiring much of the same foliage—I’m based in a bucolic patch of the Bronx and Mary Jo lives on three acres outside Minneapolis—our work is quite different.

Her photographs, whether of a single feather or an elaborate seed composition, have the satisfying completeness of solved equations. Mary Jo, you see, is a Stanford-educated applied mathematician and worked for 20 years as an aeronautical space engineer. “There will always be some engineering, more or less evident, behind what Mary Jo crafts of her materials, and what she crafts of herself,” writes her husband, Steve Hoffman, in the prologue to Still: The Art of Noticing.

Here, a look at some highlights from the book, which, when I last checked, was the best-selling volume from Phaidon Press’s spring catalogue.

Photography by Mary Jo Hoffman, courtesy of Phaidon Press.

Still arose from a desire to develop a creative practice while her two kids were young. Mary Jo had just left her job as a rocket scientist and had patches of free time. Wanting to join an online art community, she decided to begin with photography, something she was already good at, and to spend time in nature. She committed to making her art daily for a year back in January 2012—and has never missed a day since. “It’s like my daily yoga; I find it too life-enhancing to stop.”