La Macchina Fotografica

In hindsight, after a tempest I can always see it—the mark on the trail, the warnings, the storm brewing. It seems so obvious. That is the way of the path. Seldom does anything really smack us unexpectedly. When there is trouble ahead, there are signs. Always.

It is the unconscious mind that cannot see the stirrings of life. It reminds me of a mundane conversation I once had while walking the streets of Venice. I was with a chatty friend who insisted on talking and talking and talking. A half hour later I suddenly realized that I’d just missed a half hour in one of the most remarkable places on earth. It’s that way when we don’t pay attention to the path. We just float along, consuming air. It’s like eating junk food.

Walking can be the great tonic. One can walk away most any perplexing situation, any dilemma, any care. I can get lost on a path and dissolve into it. I find there the most amazing things. As if wise gremlins were at work during the long night, I imagine exotic and mysterious symbols along the way. I suppose if I were truly enlightened these symbols might speak to me and tell me what might lie ahead. It’s as if they were the hexagrams of the i Ching.

Life flows when I am aware of what is directly before me. I guess that’s what being streetwise means—knowing the street.

It was raining peacefully on Sunday morning. The streets were washed clean by a storm that had hit the day before. The road shimmered in the weak light, twinkling with each drop from the sky. On a tempestuous Friday before the storm, I’d been hit between the eyes by a hurtful comment from a friend. It left me reeling. Sunday’s gray drizzle seemed appropriate.

Despite the rain and the winter season I went early to the farmer’s market. I was thinking of a baguette. And maybe a wedge of cheese. I wanted to talk to the chili man. And ask the asparagus guy when spring would arrive. I needed the farmers just then. So, I bundled up and went to the market.

This time of year it’s easy to park at the farmer’s market. The fair-weather marketers are long gone, waiting now for their tomatoes and sweet corn and warm summer breezes. Rain doesn’t help bring in the crowd but it does enhance a quiet market day for a man with a bruised soul.

Alone with my baskets I pulled up my collar. I was still grumbling to myself about Friday. But, some Swiss chard caught my eye. Pulling out two dollars for a nice bunch of it, I overheard a conversation at the next stand.

“How is the most lovely jewel of the universe today?” a man with a European accent asked a smiling woman. The woman had been alone at her booth. Before the man with the accent arrived she hadn’t been smiling. I looked at the young woman who had just sold me the chard and we both laughed. One comment brought three smiles—the best market deal of the day. With a spark of renewal I went to see the chili man.

“I want you to know that I sent some of your chili sauce to my friend in Chicago. He said it was the best he’d ever tasted,” I said to him.

“Well, of course!” the chili man replied. He is nothing if not self-assured of his chili-sauce prowess. “I just made some new mash. Try this.”

Down the way, the asparagus man had nothing but potatoes. “The asparagus will be here in about four weeks,” he pronounced. The first day of spring had now been declared. “Are you getting any good pictures today?”

The egg couple saw me coming from their mountain of egg cartons. They had a dozen, extra-large, brown, organic eggs waiting for me. Just the kind I like.

“I had to get my eggs at Safeway last week,” I said. They both groaned. “They were watery. Stale,” I added.

“We have you spoiled,” the man of the couple said, looking up from his stack of a billion eggs. “See you next week.”

The young woman who usually sells me my baguette wasn’t there. I got one anyway from a girl I’d never met. Then I got a small salami from the French charcuterie guy and asked for his advice on sausages. At that point I realized that my basket was overflowing and I needed to stop.

On the way out there was another man with an overflowing basket. Like me, he’d bought his baguette. After making a photo of him I realized that we are all the same. Every one of us can be made just a little happier with a baguette in our basket and a trip to farmer’s market.

The doggie paddle was the first thing I learned how to do in Cook’s Pond, a muddy swim hole in my New Jersey hometown. I dearly wanted to swim with the big boys out to the raft. But keeping my head above water had to be my first priority. The raft would wait. The doggy paddle came before the kick board which came before the breast stroke. I seemed to swallow a lot of water back then. I guess the murky pond was safe. I never did get sick.

Lately, those gulps of fishy, pond water have been on my mind. The massive complexity of today’s world has me paddling, sinking, gulping. Thanks to several acts of fate I’ve been dealing with banks, lawyers, accountants, and government agencies most of the day, every day. Rules. Automated answering systems. Fine print. Press 5 now! The spirit that is my creativity is about five feet underwater.

The other day I realized that I hadn’t gone to see my tree in the park since July, right around when all this red tape started. In the mystery of a foggy morning I looked out the window of my studio. I was dealing with a customer service rep for some credit card company. I’d been put on hold. The hold music was bad, I needed to escape. I hung up—credit card issue unresolved—got my camera and went to see the tree.

I play a game with the tree every time I see it. I try to find something new, something compelling, a different perspective. On this day, the light did all the work for me. It was a Venetian mist in my little California town. I made a photo and suddenly my soul emerged from the water like a bobber on a fishing line. Pond water be damned, everything in the world seemed right again.

An artist knows how quickly light changes. Landscape painters are keenly aware of shadow movement. Painting outdoors is a humbling experience. Nothing stands still. The universe speeds up and becomes elusive, as if it were aware that someone was trying to capture it.

I walk in the canyon early to avoid the searing midday heat. Each step lulls me into the same kind of hypnotic effect that painting en plein air would have on me. Time dissolves into a metronome beat. I look down to make sure of where I walk. Snakes, rocks, cacti and mule poop are all to be avoided. When I look up I see the changes. The light morphs gently yet relentlessly. The canyon shadow shifts, changes color, shrinks. My own shadow looks alien in the craggy geometry of crumbling rock. I am an interloper here.

I come bundled into this alien landscape equipped like a moonwalker. My liquid life support is strapped to my back. Once the water is gone I have about an hour or two to survive, something that I never forget as the shadow shrinks toward noon. The shadow tells me everything as does the color of light. A camera grabs the moment more quickly than a paintbrush, so I keep clicking with fascination.

The golden morning shifts toward a clean whiteness of high noon. All shadow disappears into flatness. My own shadow shrinks to insignificance. White hot. I lose my interest in art. I’m more worried about cactus stings as my legs become leaden and clumsy. The heat starts to press down on me. I make a mental calculation about my water supply.

High noon comes and goes. There is nothing to mark its passage except an imperceptible return of shadow growth. Soon the canyon shadow lengthens again, this time in the opposing direction. Light turns to gold. A slight breeze softens the air. I think about art again as the aching beauty blooms in my presence. Cactus stings be damned, I look up to watch my shadow as it flows across the canyon plateau.

It is time to migrate to a warmer place, at least for a few weeks. Regular readers of La Macchina Fotografica have probably noticed a drop-off on the regularity of our posts as of late. Life has become complex and it’s time for a vacation. When we return at the end of September our posts will resume with vigor. We promise to resume our prolific nature.

Everyone in life needs a touchstone and it is time to return to the bottom of Grand Canyon for a recharge of life energy. We’ll be bringing back new stories and new images to share with you.

A walk around the block—we tend to think of it as a numbing experience. It’s just a walk around the block. It’s the same block with the same cars and the same people and the very same smells and sights and sounds. Like some swinging pocket watch of a stage hypnotist, the sameness lulls us to sleep. We walk and mutter to ourselves that we need a change, we need a vacation.

Yet, beneath the drowsy familiarity of where we live are layers of complexity and subtlety. There are things right there that we might find if we had the right tools. If we were to map the neighborhood, how would we define it’s lines of demarcation? Streets? Landmarks? Trees? What implements would we use? Maps? Surveying tools? A sketchpad? A camera? An inquisitive mind?

As I walk down the street I come to a major thoroughfare. Everything changes at that point. The sleepy familiarity of my street, my block, my neighborhood; it all shifts. The boulevard cuts through the town and divides it. People use it to get someplace else. I feel my pulse quicken as I dodge the traffic and cross the street.

The landmark that I use to spot this point of demarcation is an overgrown palm tree, in the yard at the corner between here and there. I ignored the palm for about twenty years. Then I realized it was there. The best view of the palm is where I am, across the bustling boulevard. It has the most lovely folds of tone and texture. It dances and laughs in the breeze. It yields to wakes of the fast-moving cars. It lays heavy with winter rain and seems dry and still in a summer heat wave.

I’ve tried to photograph the palm for awhile. Each time I’ve failed. It is elusive, harder to photograph than it might seem. Perhaps it dislikes being captured in two dimensions or in shades of gray. No matter. I tried again today, waiting for stillness. Waiting for no traffic. And I finally got an image I felt worthy of sharing. So, here is the tree that divides the neighborhood. Behind it is home. In front of it is the beyond.

Along my daily walk I stop. There is this wall in the park where people practice their tennis. I stare into my shadow. I squint to try to see what is there. It looks like me. I can always tell my shadow from others. My shadow has a certain hunch. “Posture!” I admonish myself. It doesn’t matter. My shadow always has that peculiar look.

To illuminate the shadow of the soul is a grand endeavor. It’s much easier to photograph the shadow I cast onto the earth. Or a wall. I photograph my shadow all the time, fascinated by how it follows me. And haunts me. A cloud moves in, the shadow disappears. I wait for its return. An old friend, enigma, and ghost, my shadow follows me when conditions are right. When it leaves, its departure is only temporary.

After a long couple of weeks, I am returning to my work. Bit by bit, art saves me. The sun returns and I look into back into my shadow and just stare. Finding no answers, I continue my walk. I am thankful for my camera. I am thankful for the life of an artist.

Coming back to the studio, I wonder what today’s art has taught me. Looking into the shadow of my work I squint again. I know something hidden is there but I give up trying for the moment. It’s too close. Work reveals itself with time. The shadow is only illuminated in tiny increments. I shrug and rub my tired eyes. Then, I tell myself that I simply must improve my posture.

In the middle of an art fair I looked up. Atop a canvas tent a plain banner fluttered in a foggy breeze. Below was the spectacle of event. Artists, patrons, food vendors and children mingled amongst artifacts of the creative spirit. Yet, above it all was the homely banner. Boring and ordinary, it captivated me.

It was like a old crow in a field of peacocks. The paintings below it screamed crimson and scarlet with dashes of cobalt blue. Blown glass and sculpture stood propped on precarious mounts and pedestals while the lazy flag fluttered above them. This for sale, that for sale, “Look at me,” said every artist in his or her own way. And then there was the flag. It seemed so effortless in its being. It was a plain, old banner and that was that.

Sometimes the chaos of life makes us look up and see the current of peace that runs through it all. Sometimes we forget and get caught in the rapids. A mouthful of water and we gasp for air. We show off, we try hard, we become human doings instead of human beings. And then a tiny flag teaches us a lesson.

When my friends at Red Door Gallery in Oakland asked me to participate in their July, 2009 show, Shedding, I immediately accepted. Transition and transcendence have always been themes in my photomontage series, Desolation’s Comfort. Whenever I’m asked to participate in a themed show, I try to go with the first impressions my imagination brings to me. In the this case, I had in my mind’s eye the image of a giant snakeskin having be shed and blowing in the wind. Movement and scale are elements that I’ve always wanted to play with and incorporate in my prints. I therefore set out to create large banners to be hung from the rafters of the gallery.

Most people have an uneasiness when they look at old photos of themselves, as if they were peering into an uncomfortable past. You can see the reaction whenever you bring out old photo albums. It is said that we shed all the cells in our body every seven years, and if that is true, we are actually looking at other physical beings when looking at the old photos of ourselves. Maybe that explains part of the reaction to old images. In these two new prints, I juxtaposed young and old versions of the same person—one looking at the other—as a way to portray this concept. The result is, I think, the kind of dream we have when we encounter ourselves in a different plane of space and time. Which version is the real us, the young, the old, the in-between? I doubt that there is an answer.

The prints debuted last evening, July 3rd, and are 24″ wide by 80″ tall. They are on display at:

Red Door Gallery and Collective
416 26th Street
Oakland, CA 94612-2411

The show is curated by my talented friends and fellow artists, Yasmin Lambie-Simpson and Kimberley Campisano. Their Shedding installation is worth a special trip as is the entire exhibit. If you are in the area please pay them a visit.

Looking down I see the traces of those who came before me. Like an archeologist pondering his dig, I wonder what they mean. In the middle of a skateboard park, in the middle of suburbia, I laugh at my own pretensions. But then I realize that every mark is important. Each scratch tells a story. Each crack is an opening. I marvel at the beauty of a random universe.

Abstract painting is easy…until you try to do it. Looking at the work of the great abstract expressionists I wonder where they found their inspiration. What if de Kooning or Pollock had seen these marks left by skateboarders? It’s all about seeing, being open, going through the cracks to the other side.

I pass this park most every day. From an aloof perspective it’s a homely place, an indulgence. Once you make a designated place for kids to play, the play becomes forced. Kids want to skateboard in their own found places, not some fenced-in park that the adults deem the appropriate place. So the park is mostly empty. Yet, there are the traces of play. So, someone was here. I wonder who?

Did the kids that once played here grow up and go away? Suddenly, I’m sad. Perhaps this was once a happy place of adolescent buoyancy. I, myself, have rarely seen anyone in it but my hours are not the hours of an adolescent boy. Hardly. So, the mystery deepens. I proceed to make up my own story of the marks.

The park reminds me of Puff the Magic Dragon, a song that was popular when I, myself, was a young boy. I always found that song to be intensely sad, cloaked in the forced pretentiousness of 60’s folk music. Jackie Paper, the cherished playmate of Puff grows up and disappears. He never returns to play with him. I always thought that Jackie was cruel, but, don’t we all do that to someone in our life? We change. We move on. Someone gets left behind.

The park was built in the middle of the Baby Boomlet. In our town, back then, it was all about the kids. And so they gave them a skateboard park. Now those kids are off in college. The park is left behind. Yet, the traces remain in the widening cracks of decay. Someday a town official with a clipboard will deem the park unsafe. Then they’ll close it. Shut it down. One day, like poor Puff, the park will “…slip into its cave.”