Wichita artist merges decades of photography with haiku

Bob Benson has been a photographer for more than 70 years.

And he’s been writing haiku poetry for the past 12 months.

He melds those two art forms in “Haiku and Color,” opening this weekend at Gallery 12 in Wichita. An opening reception is from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday.

As a poet, he’s joined by Elaine Yarbrough, who also contributes her four decades of haikus, each paired with a photo from Benson.

Besides the exhibit, which continues throughout the month, the collaboration has resulted in a book, “An Authentic Life in Brilliant Color,” available at the gallery.

“Somehow, we got the idea to put my pictures in that book, one for each haiku, an explanatory photographic image that would carry out the theme of the haiku,” Benson said.

There are 120 of his photos in the 133-page book.

Yarbrough, a former faculty member at Colorado University who became a consultant in organizational development and conflict management and diversity, has been friends with Benson’s wife, Noreen Carrocci, retired president of Newman University, since they were in the grad program at the University of Kansas, he said.

She will be attending the opening.

It was Benson’s task to pair his photos with the haikus.

“We had 35 years of photographs to choose from,” he said. “Every picture is wonderful of course, but you have to pick the right one among wonderful candidates.”

Haiku, a traditional form of Japanese poetry, is structured with 17 syllables – five in the first line, seven in the second and five in the third.

Benson said that for him there are three parts in writing a haiku.

“Part one is getting the idea, the sense of what you’re trying to say. Part two is actually writing it. Part three is fitting it into the structure,” he said. “You have to then make the hard decisions to make the words carry out the message in the context of that limit.

“That turns out to be tricky, particularly if you’re conveying something that has nuances,” Benson added. “Once you’ve done it, it’s really a simple representation of the context you’re trying to represent, the emotions you’re trying to get at.”

Benson, 82, held various positions at Washington University in St. Louis, including vice chancellor, and worked remotely for Tilburg University in Holland. From 1990 until the mid-2010s, he was a consultant for management and computer systems.

“I want viewers to see a scene to which they can relate and that simplifies the scene into its most straightforward essence,” he writes in his artist statement. “This, of course, fits with the simplicity, directness and power of haiku.”

‘HAIKU AND COLOR’

Where: Gallery 12, 412 E. Douglas

When: Through August; hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; noon to 9 p.m. on the first and final Fridays of each month, and noon to 6 p.m. other Fridays