To New York.. and Summer

My dearest, oldest friend in life, Summer Kemick, has created a new website to go with a lot of the new work she's been making as of late. I love that we've known each other for 2/3 of our lives, that we've lived in California, Louisiana and New York together, that we traveled the country and lived in a car together for 45 days.. and that I can still learn new things about her and the way she sees by looking at her art. She's moving away from NYC in less than a month, giving me one more reason to flee to CA as often as possible.

Art and Obsession

Just stumbled across Vincent van Gogh: The Letters project, an extensive archive of the letters and sketches Van Gogh wrote throughout his life, commissioned by The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I took quite some time scrolling through this. I wish more like this existed out there in the world. It's fascinating and goes quite well with the book I bought at the Strand recently, The World's Greatest Letters.

In a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to Paul Gauguin dated 17, June 1890

(2 years after a "frustrated and ill, Van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a razor blade. In panic, Van Gogh left their hotel and fled to a local brothel. While there, he cut off the lower part of his left ear lobe. He wrapped the severed tissue in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to "keep this object carefully."- 23, December 1888)





A few translated excerpts -

"Thanks for writing to me again, my dear friend, and be assured that since my return I’ve thought about you every day. I only stayed in Paris for three days, and as the Parisian noise made a pretty bad impression on me I judged it wise for my head to clear off to the countryside – otherwise I would have swiftly run round to your place."

"we’ll try to do something deliberate and serious, as it would probably have become if we’d been able to continue down there. Look, an idea which will perhaps suit you. I’m trying to do studies of wheat like this, however I can’t draw it. Nothing but ears, blue-green stems, long leaves like ribbons, green and pink by reflection, yellowing ears lightly bordered with pale pink due to the dusty flowering."

The two artists never actually saw each other again after the incident with the blade in 1888, but apparently they kept in touch (though kept their distance).

Swarming Birds, 2009


©amy elkins

-

‘Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.

--Robert Frost from The Trial by Existence

"...perhaps one may even come to question himself. For what real
intention should he even pursue? The fastidious and complicated nexus
of each idea that unveils itself and brings forth another effrontery
to an otherwise seasoned semblance.."

Dance marathon couple, ca. 1925
Courtesy Library of Congress

I recently watched a documentary called Hands on a Hard Body. It's a film that documents twenty-four contestants as they compete in an endurance/sleep deprivation standoff in order to win a brand new Nissan Hardbody truck. The last person to remain standing with his or her hand on the truck wins.

As contests go, this sounds easy: Just compete with two dozen other folks to see who can keep his hand on a pickup truck the longest. The promotional event known as the "Hands on a Hard Body Contest," hosted by Jack Long Nissan every year in the east Texas town of Longview (125 miles east of Dallas, 60 miles west of Shreveport, Louisiana), turns out to be a surprisingly grueling event.

You get a five-minute break every hour, a fifteen-minute break every six hours. If you lift your hand for an instant, you’re out. If you’re two seconds late in getting your hand back on the truck after a whistle ends the break, you’re out. The film was made in 1995. The 1994 winner had stood there for nearly 100 hours. Some participants start to have visions and hallucinations, some suffer from heat exhaution (it was in the mid-high 90s during the day).. while others start to report numbness and swelling in their legs and feet.

The one thing they all have in common is desperately wanting to win the truck. Some of them describe needing it to sell so they could afford to live without having to work two jobs while others said a truck in Texas is needed to make money. The documentary made me incredibly sad. Though previous participants described it as one of the best moments of their lives, knowing that they could endure such mental and physical hardship, I couldn't help but be reminded of the dance marathons of the 1920s and 1930s in which people would dance or walk with their partner for up to two months without proper rest in order to win money. Actual footage can be seen here. An act of sheer desperation in order to finally feel like you can escape your own daily struggles. Sydney Pollack's film They Shoot Horses Don't They is a brilliant and sad fictional account of how desperate people can get.

As one of the contestants of the Hard Body competition described, "It’s a human drama thing; it’s more than just a contest, and winning a truck."


Trailer for Hands on a Hard Body
shot in 1995.


Trailer for They Shoot Horses Don't They
shot in 1969.

"Here they are again, folks! These wonderful, wonderful kids! Still struggling! Still hoping! As the clock of fate ticks away, the dance of destiny continues! The marathon goes on, and on, and on! HOW LONG CAN THEY LAST!" ~ Rocky from They Shoot Horses Don't They

My morning movement..

Living in NYC and riding mass transport every day can lead to varying degrees of annoyance or uplift.. depending on who you are stuck in a train car with. Some days you can get shoved in to what feels like a warm and balmy armpit containing an angry, tired herd of jaded New Yorkers while other days there's just a creepy man too close to your body for comfort that won't stop staring. There are the days where there's a mariachi band decked in cowboy hats with large instruments playing sweet songs (those are my favorite train rides) and days when kids too young to be performing for money are doing handstands in the midst of a packed train and getting tossed about by an older "roll model type" who's shown them the ways to making money on the streets. Today was just sort of insignificant. Until I hit 6th ave and a young pregnant woman got on the train and told the car full of commuters that she was living out of a shelter for pregnant women, that she was starving and fearful of being on the streets and if we could please give her any of our food or maybe even some change. I looked around at a car full of people who seemingly didn't hear anything she had said. Nobody moved until the train arrived at 8th ave.. they remained seated reading papers or drinking coffee. She looked tired and defeated. I dug around in my bag for change and noticed then that it were almost as if there were a holy figure on board because before exiting the train people lined up with their offerings (change, dollars, food). I found it really a beautiful and touching communal act of kindness and am still thinking about it. It's sad to say.. but I feel like most people just turn their cheek the other way and hope their ipod is loud enough to drown things out. But today people made me happy. It's nice to be reminded of that phenomenon.

All I've been longing for for quite a while in this hustle and bustle city is for a little stillness. It's pretty much impossible but never-the-less it remains a goal. I got a taste of it upstate this past weekend. In fact the moment this photograph was taken was during the very moment I felt most still. I had swam to the middle of the lake and thought to come back. At one point I got a little tired so I started swimming on my back. I realized that I could float really well so I stopped moving completely and let me ears fall below the water. I couldn't hear much but the sounds of muffled water and my breath and heart... and had my eyes shut so I couldn't see. I just floated on the surface of water completely unaware of where I was for a short moment in time. I'm not sure how long I was floating there... but I heard a very faint calling and finally opened my eyes. I still had water in my ears so I couldn't hear but I saw the look of distress on Kevin's face. Apparently a large water snake had swam up from the middle of the lake right up to me. It swam against my arm and down my side and then across my stomach... and continued on its way towards the rocks at the shoreline. I was so still that a large, possibly poisonous, snake thought I was a log and just passed me by. Had I noticed I most likely would have overreacted and gotten bit. I love that I had such a close call and was just peacefully floating on my back.



There is a point where in the mystery of
existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement
and stillness is not all stillness;
where the idea and the form,
the within and the without, are united;
where infinite becomes finite,
yet not losing its infinity.

-Tagore

"Were all stars to disappear or die I should learn to look at an empty sky."

- W. H. Auden



I am fatigued. Though there has been so many wonderful things unfolding for me this Summer I am feeling in dire need of a lengthy vacation from it all. Last night I was in a darkroom from 7p-1am relearning the ropes of color printing. Though it felt good to involved in the production behind my photography again, it also felt entirely isolating, walking quietly from a private darkroom to the processor and back time and time again. Not sure how many still continue to print traditional C-prints while such wonderful scanners and output devices are at our fingertips.... but being in the pitch black for 6 hours without talking much takes being in the right frame of mind. Today I was thinking about it and was looking for an image of the enlarger I was slaving over all night... googled the word Omega color enlarger and was brought to this set of images which I found far more interesting and relevant as I've been thinking about vast spaces a lot lately while spending my free time in the dark. And after a while when you are looking through a grain focuser everything just sort of scatters and reassembles anyhow.

I'm heading back over for another long evening of printing tonight and again on Thursday, repeating that cycle for the month of August. If I fall off the radar in the meantime know I'm somewhere in the dark being productive. Perhaps my questions of vast spaces and voids will be answered there.

Sweet! Will Steacy's top tens are pretty great. He asked me a while back and I finally got mine over to him. It's featured today. You can read up on all my quirks, joys and more here.

Additionally.. if you are in town next wednesday make sure to rsvp for our launch party by emailng rsvp[at]wipnyc.org. Be there or be square.

Madonna's rejection letter, dated 1981.


2008 has been full of no's so far:

No Magenta Foundation
No NY Photo Festival
No Hyeres Festival

But I can't really ever get too upset about these things... because I look at the work that did get in and I see right away why they deserve attention and recognition. It's a steep competition entering all of these things, far steeper now that I'm out of school. Just more incentive to work harder, reach further, make more work, etc.

Props to Will Steacy for nominations into NY Photo Fest and for acceptance into Magenta. And to all my other friends that got nominations for the NY Photo Fest. Good luck to all of you.
---

Pat On The Back Apparatus
Patent : US4,608,967 Date 1986
Inventor: ; Ralph R. Piro

I'm not sure if it's the season's shifting, the pollen in the air or the abundance of new experiences always unfolding in New York... but I have been having the strangest, detailed, off the wall dreams lately. I wake up and feel like I've been asleep for the duration of a movie that I'm the main character for. Sunday night's dream: being chased around my room by an enormous origami wolfe spider, made of bright yellow and black paper.... only to be left moments later on the stoop of a shotgun house in New Orleans while a small parade went by. In the dream all of us were much older than we are now. A friend of mine I hadn't seen in years came up and gave me a really big hug and said "we're all just getting older, aren't we".

Who knows.... but I'm enjoying it because I go most of the time unable to remember my dreams when I wake.

I looked up origami spiders just to see if there were any out there... and found this one made of dollar bills.

My heart aches...


As a good friend of mine always says... photographers need to keep their "hoppers" full. Meaning... without all that input there would be no output. Lately I've been really diving into a lot of things. Books, music, movies, bike rides, food, lectures, openings, etc.

I know I'm not alone on this. Sometimes a book or an author is so good it's heart breaking to walk away when the last page is turned. You grow close to the characters, you know them and in some cases you perhaps fall in love with them. Michael Ondaatje is one of my favorite authors of all time. His words resonate and mesh with my own thoughts and feelings. Three times in a row I have finished his book and been so torn about walking away that I flip back to the start. His books are poetic, full of wandering, travel, history and emotion. 'Coming Through Slaughter', 'Running In The Family' and now 'In The Skin Of A Lion' . I'm floored.

When interviewed and asked the last thing Michael Ondaatje read that blew the top of his head off, he replied: "I read Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg… the one about Dostoevsky. Really amazing. I think he’s wonderful … such a personal grief book. Everyone thinks he (Coetzee) is a cold fish, but the emotion in that book is devastating."

I just found a link to many more of his smaller works, poetry, essays, etc. Looks like I'll be on amazon a lot in the near future.


Listening to: Eef Barzelay
Drinking: French Press
Wishing I could have: Slept in
Looking at: Miranda July's "Getting Stronger Everyday"

Summer Swelter, Brooklyn, NY. 2007

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." -Christopher Robin to Pooh

This September marks 50 years since Jack Kerouac's On the Road hit bookshelves, stirred controversy and spoke — in a new voice — to a generation of readers. Today the beat travelogue continues to sell 100,000 copies a year in the U.S. and Canada alone.
His books have always been a fairly large inspiration for me... in my travels.. and the way that I write about traveling and experiencing life... as well as in my photographs when I'm on the road.

Snow Fall, Found Flower



Poetics
of
the
Banal?


Also see definition below

Distractions from normal routines. My self portraits have bottlenecked slightly. I have work to do to catch up. For now this Google found image shot in Guatemala could quite possibly describe all that is in me.
Main Entry: Fall
Pronunciation: 'fol
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): fell /'fel/; fall·en /'fo-l&n/; fall·ing
1 a : to descend freely by the force of gravity b : to hang freely (her hair falls over her shoulders) c : to drop oneself to a lower position (fell to his knees) d : to come or go as if by falling (darkness falls early in the winter)
2 : to become born
3 a : to become lower in degree or level (the temperature fell 10°) b : to drop in pitch or volume (their voices fell to a whisper) c : ISSUE 1a, b (wisdom that fell from his lips) d : to become lowered (her eyes fell)
4 a : to leave an erect position suddenly and involuntarily (slipped and fell on the ice) b : to enter as if unawares : STUMBLE, STRAY (fell into error) c : to drop down
5 : to commit an immoral act
6 a : to move or extend in a downward direction b : SUBSIDE, ABATE (the wind is falling)
7 a : to occur at a certain time. b : to come by chance c : to come or pass by lot, assignment, or inheritance : DEVOLVE d : to have a certain or proper position, place, or station
8 : to come within the limits, scope, or jurisdiction of something
9 : to pass suddenly and passively into a state of body or mind or a new state or condition (fall asleep) (fall in love)
10 : to set about heartily or actively

Self in a Field/ take 1
"Canadian geese mate for life, with the male singing one part of their song, the female the other. After a mate dies, the survivor sings both parts to keep the whole song alive. If humans did that, we would call it romantic."
- Diane Ackerman -

Main Entry: spon·ta·ne·ous
1 : proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency without external constraint
2 : arising from a momentary impulse
3 : controlled and directed internally : SELF-ACTING
4 : produced without being planted or without human labor : INDIGENOUS
5 : developing or occurring without apparent external influence, force, cause, or treatment
6 : not apparently contrived or manipulated : NATURAL

Main Entry: de·liv·er (continued)

6 : to come through with : PRODUCE
intransitive verb : to produce the promised, desired, or expected results : COME THROUGH (I can't deliver on all these promises)
To bring to the support of a cause.

Main Entry: raw
1 : not cooked
2 a (1) : being in or nearly in the natural state : not processed or purified (2) : not diluted or blended (raw spirits) b : unprepared or imperfectly prepared for use c : not being in polished, finished, or processed form
3 a (1) : having the surface abraded or chafed (2) : very irritated b : lacking covering : NAKED c : not protected : susceptible to hurt (raw emotions)
4 a : lacking experience or understanding : GREEN (a raw recruit) b (1) : marked by absence of refinements (2) : VULGAR, COARSE c : not tempered : UNBRIDLED (raw power)
5 : disagreeably damp or cold