Photography
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Last year we moved mom to a board and care facility on account of her increasing dementia, and it was while we were emptying out her apartment that I photographed everything in it for my Family Heirloom Project. Among the items was this one: a little ceramic bowl.
I attended kindergarten at Del Mar Elementary School and had Mrs. Kasner. She was an older lady with fiery red hair. I liked her just fine, although she occasionally sent me to the “thinking chair” or, if we were out on the playground, the “thinking step” to think about something I had done. All that thinking; maybe that’s where I picked up the habit that eventually resulted in grad school in philosophy. My cousin Tommy claimed that she once told him he’d never learn to read and that he never got over it.
In any case, we did a lot of art projects in her class. For example, there was lots of finger painting. I still remember the first day when we were told to bring an old shirt of our father’s to wear while painting. We wore them backwards. I still managed to get paint all over myself. One day, we did a ceramics project. I made a small, simple bowl. I remember shaping it with my fingers, over and over again, trying to get it right. I never really succeeded, but eventually got something to hand over to Mrs. Kasner.
So, I made this little bowl, and painted it blue and black. On the bottom was inscribed “Nickie AM”, because I was in the a.m. class. I brought it home and gave it to my mom as a gift. She did a lot of sewing and needed pins to be handy. She was always pinning things up for alterations, or pinning patterns to fabric, and so on. So she kept pins in it. For 40 years or more that thing sat on her sewing machine with pins in it. After we moved my mom, it came to our house and sat on a bookshelf in the office. Without the pins, of course.
Just a few months later I was cleaning up around the side of the house where the trash and recycling bins sit. I saw a little patch of blue on the ground and a wad of neurons jangled in my head. It was so familiar. I picked up a little chard, then another and another. My heart sank.
What one kindergartener made, another demolished. (I know, it’s a metaphor for a natural process all children and their parents go through.) I don’t know exactly what happened, and never will, I’m sure. Somehow Theo got ahold of the bowl and it became a play thing, until it broke. I have to admit that at first I was pretty mad. But when i looked into that sad, confused little boy’s face, I knew I had to just let it go. I might have gone a long time, maybe forever, never thinking about that little bowl. I don’t know what I would have done with it anyway, other than allow it to be another piece of baggage to carry around the rest of my life and eventually leave to someone with no personal connection or emotional attachment, and hence free to take it to the Goodwill with all the other old crap. So, that came sooner in this case. I didn’t have to carry it around another 40 years. Still, I can’t help feeling a little loss, not of material wealth, but of a piece of the story—a little hole, just like the growing gaps in mom’s memory.
Photography Show: Auto Archeology at Chop Salon
Auto Archeology East Bay
The Old Plymouth
Old Plymouth off Broadway #3
I have a soft spot in my heart for Pontiac. Ever since word of its demise, I have been meaning to take a picture of the sign at the dealership on Auto Row in Oakland. I finally got around to it the other day. And while I was driving around looking for a place to park, I saw some other photo ops on the side streets. This old Plymouth was in beautiful shape. And as I just commented over on flickr, I have to admit I find it very sexy in a zaftig sort of way.
Stream of consciousness: Scenic photos
Climbing up on Albany Hill
San Francico Bay from Albany Hill, Sept. 19, 2009 #2
I’m not sure what to call the kind of photography I have been primarily engaged in since getting back into it over the last two years. I just know it hasn’t been landscapes and scenic photography. Indeed, I have not been trying to make images that are overtly beautiful or aesthetically pleasing at all.
Yet, there is something irresistible about nature. Often, it is awe-inspiring. And as we all know, sensations of pleasure, well-being, and the loss of self in the one-ness of the creation often lead to addiction. Gotta get that fix again and again. That leads to wanting it for oneself, even in a puny way like making a picture of it.
That’s not to denigrate scenic photography. I find a lot of it pretty wonderful. I just also see the production of it as beyond my ken–not to mention my lacking the wherewithal to afford the gear and the travel to seriously pursue and produce beautiful scenic photography.
All that said, I’ve had fun working with some shots of San Francisco Bay taken mostly as an afterthought–or just because I always have my camera with me, so why not? And the other night I was at a friend’s home that is on Albany Hill and overlooks almost the whole bay. After taking a couple shots from the deck, someone showed me the Richard Misrach book of the Golden Gate. It was inspiring. I came to see the intrinsic interest of a series of photographs of one thing taken over all the different conditions to which it may be subject. I think I may try my own little series from a given vantage point and see what happens. If only I could get a neon martini glass, or rusted car, or dead cow or something in there…
Blogger’s Block and Art Walk Therapy
Vista Cruiser and Barracuda For Sale
It began with writing. I found it harder and harder to do. The entries slowed to a trickle and then virtually stopped. It spread to the camera. I was able to shoot, but not with any focus or care. Going through the results at the end of the day, or week, became more and more confusing and difficult. And yet, I feel the need to get the expression out more than ever before. There are many parts to the problem, some of them seemingly contradictory. On one hand, I feel at a loss as to what exactly to try to develop in my photography or how to go about it. I feel like I’ve burned out on square format, color-tweaked, cropped cars. Everything I’ve done seems so dull and amateurish. On the other hand, I have so many ideas floating around that seem like good starting points that I can’t focus on any one for very long. Or even get past the contemplation stage. Underlying all of it is a vague feeling that I should not be thinking about this stuff at all, given my current under employment and other life obligations.
A small breakthrough tonight after returning from a “flickr photographers” show at Vox in Sacramento. Flickr friend Tom Spaulding had some nice work in the show. The show was inspirational, as was art at a couple other galleries, and the whole art party craziness of the Second Saturday Art Walk. It was my first time seeing it, and I was impressed by the sheer size of the turnout and number of galleries, music, clubs, restaurants and other participants. It was definitely worth the hour drive.
Browsing and organizing shots from the past month or so, I came back to this shot of the Vista Cruiser and Barracuda and just really liked it. It vaguely reminds me of Robert Bechtle, whose work I really like and whose name has come up in conversation with artist friends a couple times recently. I tried it in black and white, and really liked that too. It feels like the start of a return of clarity. If I can just keep at it, one shot at a time…
Highway Memories
Southbound hwy 99 somewhere north of Merced. Telephone poles along the highway.
As far back as when we lived in Fresno and regularly drove to the Bay Area for shows or to visit relatives, I was enamored of the scenery along Hwy 99. How far back is that? Well, it was before the housing boom and bust, before the first tech boom and bomb. Before graduate school in the Great Northwest gave me the opportunity to appreciate scenery vastly different and yet, at times, strangely familiar. What nature wrought was vastly different. What humanity wrought, strangely familiar.
Before Flickr, before I had ever heard of Stephen Shore, and before I realized the importance of acting on the impulse, I intended to do a photo essay of the road between Fresno and Oakland that would consist entirely of old, usually free-standing signs that no longer had buildings or businesses associated with them. I would call it “The Lexicon of Abandonment”. (I suppose I could now work on a series called “The Lexicon of Procrastination”; perhaps I’ll get to that soon.) Among the most memorable abandoned signs we would pass along the highway was a wonderful old sign at the entrance to a drive-in theater in Merced. I believe it was called “The Starlite Drive-In” and it was, of course, a fabulous mid-century specimen. But even 20 years ago, it stood in front of an otherwise empty field of weeds, tall and forlorn along the roadside.
My intention probably suffered a mortal blow during the recent development boom when many old, abandoned buildings, signs, or other things, were finally torn down to make way for the new and shiny. A new development right along old 99 finally brought down the Starlite. I never shot it. That’s not to say there aren’t still many abandoned old signs out there. But just as in the Little Prince, that Starlite was special because it chose me and I chose it.
There is something else along this strange stretch of road that greets me like a tired old friend each time I traverse it. Just north of Merced on the west side of the road and next to the railroad tracks, runs a series of telephone poles. For a long time, years, they seemed to be in use and maintained, if only barely. But now, many are leaning, missing cross pieces, or simply snapped off. Here and there, wood hangs limply from the sagging wires. Sometimes, it is all on the ground. To me, they look like lonely sentinels along a desolate road somewhere in the midwest. They wave to me when we go racing by on our frantic Fresno excursions to visit family. Now, I’m acting on the impulse and waving back, with my camera. Sitting shotgun, I aim through the glass and get what I get: portraits of my old friends looking just as I’ve always known them, flickering by 65 mph.
Fingado Art Gallery Opening
This is the final set of images I will have in a group photography show that opens Friday at Fingado Art Gallery. Nine is quite a few but the prints are not very big, just 12 inches square. I printed them at Dickerman Prints and had them mounted on aluminum at General Graphics, both in San Francisco. They came out very nice, and I’m pretty excited about it.
It has been an interesting project to try to print and prepare for presentation a small set of photographs. In a way, it seems easier than simply showing things on the web. I think the reason for this is that a physical show has, by its very nature, physical limitations and boundaries. A small set of images allows one to focus on them and the process of getting them where you want them to be. By contrast, putting things up on flickr or another such site is pretty much wide open in terms of numbers and organization. One can drown in a sea of possibilities.
This was my thought about what’s going on with this series of photos. The starting point is an exploration of color. Not color simpliciter, but as it relates to memory, history and the fictional narratives they constitute. The combination of color shifts and vintage subjects recall a generic past and, paradoxically, place the viewer within a fictitious historical narrative by playing upon her memories and nostalgic sensibilities. The deportation is paradoxical since taken literally, these narratives describe a logical impossibility. The images waver between recalling a past as it was, and a decayed, dissolving past as it comes to us. On one hand we are presented with something recalling a snapshot from the family drawer, a snapshot whose color as shifted over time, but whose referent we can conjure through memory as pristine. On the other hand, the subject is captured and presented not as it was in the past, but as it is now, in the present. It is the color, as it were, of the subject itself which has shifted over time rather than the photograph.
My First Gallery Show
El Cerrito, CA 2008. I have no idea what kind of car this is. All the chrome and make and model plates were missing. Still, I love the red accents. Especially with the curtains in the background.
Well, it looks like I’ll be having my first gallery show this summer. I’m really excited about it, and will pass details along when thing are finalized. I want to thank Frank Synopsis for inviting me to participate and helping make it happen. I have been sharing stuff on flickr for awhile now and felt like I got a good response to my photographic efforts. I don’t engage in quite the promotional efforts that are required to put up huge numbers in views, faves, comments, etc. there. But I think moving on to printing and showing physical stuff to people is an important next step.
I have done a first round of printing experiments using dickermanprints.com inSan Francisco. The printing came out great and I received great feedback from the master printers regarding everything from color correction to composition and mounting.
The hardest part may well be selecting a small set of photos, about six, from the first cut of candidates!
The Last Supper with More Than a Grain of Salt 2
The Last Supper with More Than a Grain of Salt 2, originally uploaded by neocles.
This print of the last supper had always hung near the breakfast table in my parents’ home. It was no different here at my mother’s last apartment, although it had fallen off the wall and sat around for a few months. I set it back here the other day, and it seemed a fine place for photo. A detail shot would reveal drops of this and that, and a spattering of tomato sauce.
It is a bit of an odd assortment off things on the cupboard, most sitting for weeks without notice from mom. Tomato sauce, orzo, salt, vanilla flavoring, the Greek coffee pot (the briki), and assorted trivets. A couple times in recent months my mom had cooked food with some odd flavorings, like baked chicken with a heavy dose of cinnamon or ground cloves. Eventually she gave up on seasonings and then finally on cooking much of anything besides boiled eggs, green beans, or broccoli.
Today, we went to Kaiser for an eye check-up and to start the process of getting a new pair of glasses. She had misplaced her only pair. It turns out that her right eye needs just about the strongest lens available. The doctor could not determine a prescription for the left eye at all because she is nearly blind from a cataract. So, we’ll be going back for cataract removal, and then eventually for a prescription for the left eye. Shit, no wonder the apartment was a mess. And no wonder the chicken was seasoned with salt and clove instead of salt and pepper.
The first time I told this story
this is what I said:
“We were getting into our bunks when this strange light seemed to come down from the sky, and there was this rumbling noise and the camper swayed a little. It got really loud, then suddenly–very quiet. And we felt this pressure, and then I blacked out. When I woke up, I was alone.”
tweets
- My mother's two sisters, Thea Thespina (left) and Thea Maria (right) on either side of Theophanis when we visited... http://ff.im/-gYrPs
- Misty Mountains, Mystical Morning http://ff.im/-gwt4w
- Alkher Illa Doffor (The Nectar Remix) by Cheb I Sabbah http://ff.im/-gvl41
- #facebook is having serious problems loading this morning.
- Warm Shift by Jon Hassell http://ff.im/-g6hR5
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