urban ku # 73 ~ a walk in Wadhams

A walk at the Wadhams Strawberry Festival • click any photo to embiggen

As any of you who have been around for awhile know, I have always been a fan of picture series. Seems like I have been picturing that way since forever although my ku body of work is not organized in that manner. While many of the pictures were made in a 'mini-series' fashion - same location, same 'shoot' - they are all just lumped together under the ku banner.

I have created many triptychs from mini-series shoots. You can see many, but no means all of them, here. I like triptychs (mine and those of others) quite a bit, but, as my mill 'walk' series (more to come, just taking a break) demonstrates, there is nothing like employing an extended series of pictures to create a world/sense of place.

Today's pictures are from a very short walk in Wadhams where we spent some time yesterday afternoon at the strawberry festival. All the pictures were made within no more than 100 yards of each other. While they create a small sense of the place called Wadhams - it's really tiny - they also create a sense of the greater place called the Adirondacks by demonstrating how close a relationship man and nature have within the park.

civilized ku # 38 ~ a walk in the forest #6

Traces and evidence of a different world •click to embiggenThe little red things, which were scattered in clusters in some areas throughout the mill, at first encounter seemed to be organic - like small leaves/buds. Upon further reflection it became apparent that, whatever their composition, they were used to make the dyes which were then used to manufacture colored paper. In civilized ku # 37 there is a cluster of black ones at the bottom of the picture.

Before the mill (which was situated up-river from the village) closed, the good citizens of Au Sable Forks knew exactly what color paper was being made on any given day because the Au Sable River was that same color.

I am certain that these little things are not organic in as much as they are still around nearly 40 years after the mill closed. One of the many reasons that the mill closed was because of its inability to meet environmental regulations. No doubt, one of the regs had to do with whatever pollutants the discharge of the by-products of these little things created.

civilized ku # 37 ~ a walk in the forest #5

Traces and evidence of a different world • click to embiggrnYesterday's entry prompted this reply - re: All art works either in service of or as a challenge to the status quo/prevailing cultural paradigm. One way or another it's part of the language of meaning of any picture - from Paul Maxim - 'Horse-pucky. Sadly, you've once again lapsed into making statements that simply echo restrictive postmodernist sentiment. The above is one of those "either / or" proclamations that, when translated, simply means that "you're either with me or against me". There ain't no middle ground here, folks, so pick your side carefully. This is a fight to the (cultural) death!...

But, on the other hand, Tim Atherton stated - '... as you say, all art is political (as is all life)'

Now, I come down with Tim because I actually believe it to be so - all art, as all of life, is political. I don't believe that there is any act that doesn't not have consequence (great or small). Whether you are 'with me or against me' really isn't the point at all - rather, the point is everything you do matters and, as Dylan says,

We live in a political world,
Love don't have any place.
We're living in times where men commit crimes
And crime don't have a face

We live in a political world,
Icicles hanging down,
Wedding bells ring and angels sing,
clouds cover up the ground.

We live in a political world,
Wisdom is thrown into jail,
It rots in a cell, is misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up a trail.

We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank,
Life is in mirrors, death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank.

We live in a political world
Where courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted, children are unwanted
The next day could be your last.

We live in a political world.
The one we can see and can feel
But there's no one to check, it's all a stacked deck,
We all know for sure that it's real.

We live in a political world
In the cities of lonesome fear,
Little by little you turn in the middle
But you're never why you're here.

We live in a political world
Under the microscope,
You can travel anywhere and hang yourself there
You always got more than enough rope.

We live in a political world
Turning and a'thrashing about,
As soon as you're awake, you're trained to take
What looks like the easy way out.

We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all,
It's turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall.

We live in apolitical world
Everything is hers or his,
Climb into the frame and shout God's name
But you're never sure what it is.

Eventually, you do have to 'take sides', either by action or inaction, but make no mistake about it - inaction is a political act.

civilized ku # 36 ~ a walk in the forest #4

Traces and evidence of a different world • click to embiggenYesterday, James Robinson wrote (in part) -'There's no doubt that I bring my own experiences with decay to these photos. I have held jobs that revolved around removing/replacing dacay. Those jobs had a major impact on my life and the lives of the individuals I worked with ... Therefore there is a profound love/hate relationship for me with these photographs that I am so drawn to ... I'm angry at the environmental impact and the toll most likely paid by the workers with their immediate and long-term health. But I think that is what defines true art for me now--gritty reality that makes you uncomfortable because you are so drawn to it and hopefully even a little pissed off by it.'

Tim Kingston also mentioned that he felt '... Sorrow, perhaps , not just for the environmental problems to come, as this scene decays, but a sense of sorrow for the lives forgotten and all the hardship they experienced.'

Both of these comments reflect a sense of the 'political' meaning that can be found in these pictures if one's sense and sensibilities are so inclined to 'find' them. If not, they may be just visually interesting pictures of decay. For me, the pictures satisify both my intents (in making) and my motivations (for making).

Recently, on another site that shall remain nameless, the author suggested that he tends to not like art that is politically motivated because, for the most part, once the 'political' is removed from the equation, what remains is generally 'awful'.

IMO, this notion is flawed for two primary reasons -

1) It suggests that some art is politicial and some is not - at least by intent. While that is true enough, it really doesn't address the fact all art is political whether the intent is there or not. All art works either in service of or as a challenge to the status quo/prevailing cultural paradigm. One way or another it's part of the language of meaning of any picture.

2) It also suggests a notion of 'compartmentalization' of intent and effect - that somehow the 'lanauage of meaning' can be separated from the work itself. That the picture can be stripped of that language and then somehow be evaluated as an object devoid of meaning. This notion is pure rubbish - it suggests that the author has little understanding of what constitutes good/great Art.

Art is art with meaning.

PS - mucho thanks to those have 'given back' to me with comments and feedback on this series of pictures.

civilized ku # 35 ~ a walk in the forest #3

Traces and evidence of a different world • click to embiggenBack in the early 80s, when I was a technical consultant to Sally Eauclaire, author of The New Color Photography, I had my first comprehensive introduction to ... well .... the new color photography. The book was a very complete overview of emerging Fine Art photographers and their pictures - Michael Bishop, Harry Callahan, William Christenberry, Langdon Clay, Mark Cohen, John Divola, William Eggleston, Mitch Epstein, Emmet Gowin, Jan Groover, David Hockney, Les Krim, Helen Levitt, Kenneth McGowan, Joel Meyerowitz, John Pfahl, Stephen Shore, Sandy Skoglund, Eve Sonneman, Joel Sternfeld, Boyd Webb and lots more. A NY Times review of the book (from 1981) can be read here.

My 'job' was to help Sally with matters technical. At the time she was a well-respected Art critic in the field of painting but not photography - she knew absolutely nothing about the mechanics and techniques of the medium. Enter me, to fill that role.

The result of it all was that I had the privilege and pleasure to view the portfolios of just about anyone who was an emerging anybody (see list above). Now, I was not a 'new color' virgin - I had seen some stuff in NYC galleries but for the most part, I was of the what-the-hell-is-going-on-here mindset regarding the stuff. It seemed to be more of an 'experiment' than a movement. A blip on the photographic radar screen.

Working with Sally on her book changed all that - I began to learn how to 'read' pictures. I began to understand that what was visible was not all there was to 'see'. Very much in the fashion of there's more than meets the eye. Pictures started to become deep and rich.

What I realized the most out of this experience was that, how 'deep and rich' a picture was, was up to me - in most cases, more so than it was up to the photographer. What a revelation.

Consider this from Graham Clarks's book, The Photograph - 'The intelligibilty of the photograph is no simple thing; photographs are texts inscribed in terms of what we may call 'photographic discourse', but this discourse, like any other, engages discourses beyond itself (emph. Ed.), the 'photographic text', like any other, is the site of a complex intertextuality, an overlapping series of previous texts 'taken for granted' at a particulat cultural and historical conjuncture.'

In other words, the viewer uses his/her experience ('texts' taken for granted) to construct the language of meaning that they get from a photograph. IMO, the greater your 'experience' in all things, not just photography, the greater your appreciation and understanding of Art, photography division.

Update on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 at 09:53PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comments: Bill Gotz asked: "What is it about decay? Why do many of us find it interesting? ... Is it that decay implies a history and so brings forth a rich set of thoughts and question?"

James Robinson suggested: "...Henry Miller wrote the following, and I think it applies to our interest in dacay, as there is nothing quite so "humble":

'In the humblest object we can find what we seek--beauty, truth, reality, divinity.'"

My comment: good question, interesting answer.

Fyi

I have posted an entry in the Guest Forum.

civilized ku # 34 ~ a walk in the forest #2

Traces and evidence of a different world • click to embiggenIn the introduction to American Series by Neal Rantoul, Joe Deal writes - 'The most basic question any photographer has to answer is what to photograph ... There are a variety of ways to answer that question, but often the first impluse is to try to find something extrordinary and to take a picture of a time and place unlike any other, one hopes ... Another way to answer the question, the one adopted by Neal Rantoul, is to be more open and accepting of the world as it presents itself to the camera and of one's passage through it.'

American Series is a book of 10 image-based chapters. Each chapter is a series of photographs which came from a single walk in a specific space, town or neighborhood. Each sequence reveals the great variety of subjects present in any given place or in the time it takes for a short walk.

Again from the intro - 'Each series unfolds in a way that is similar to the way in which we normally experience a place for the fist time. As our gaze and our attention shift from one thing to another we start to collect impressions that merge into a sense of place.'

Fyi ~ Mr. Lee's world

You just have to love this - it's part ingenious, part genius.