LAST 10 MINUTES print heading

LAST 10 MINUTES

Becoming an Artist

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, it never occurred to me to me that I would ever create something that would hang in the Carnegie Museum.   I understood art, I just didn’t understand being an artist.  Didn’t understand it at RISD.  In many ways, still don’t understand it.

Today I got a note from Ellen Fleurov of the Silver Eye Gallery that the Carnegie Museum of Art has acquired a print of mine for their permanent collection.   That must mean I have become an artist.  It makes me very  happy.

I do not try to be an artist.

I try – always – to do work that is me.

Now I have to become a better artist.

or…as Bob Dylan says,

“An artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he’s at somewhere. You always have to realize that you’re constantly in a state of becoming. As long as you can stay in that realm, you’ll sort of be alright.”



05.14.12 Posted in Personal Work, Something I Heard, Something I Took

Print this post
 

Are we missing anybody?

Jackson and I were driving to Montclair this morning.  Jackson had his agenda – apple cider doughnuts from the apple stand, sausage samples on toothpicks (a kid’s gotta eat), and soccer with his dad whose flight was cancelled last night and got up in Columbus, Ohio at 4:30 to fly home for this Saturday morning adventure.

We are listening to a recording of Bruce Springsteen from the night before at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.  “My City of Ruins” comes on – one of my favorite modern gospel songs.  Heard it in Asbury Park the first time Bruce ever sang it, when that town was falling apart.  Heard it at the first Jazz Fest in New Orleans after Katrina.   Heard it after 9.11.   Now, hearing it again on this sunny, cold Saturday morning driving to Montclair.  Towards the end, Bruce yells out, “Roll Call!” – and introduces the band.  This is the first E-Street band show since his sax player of 40 plus years, Clarence Clemons died early last summer.   When Bruce gets to Clemon’s usual spot to be introduced – Bruce yells out, “Are we missing anybody?”  He repeats that line over and over enough to bring tears, and draw the audience into a frenzy.  He then resolves his question so elegantly, “If you are here, and we are here, then THEY are here.”  He repeats that, too – opening the door wide open to the future.

I tell Jackson, “We miss Clarence.”   Jackson asks where he is.  We have been talking alittle more about death.  It comes up.  Sometimes I bring up how much we miss my Dad and Stephie’s Dad.    Sometimes Jackson wants to know where someone is.  Jackson asks, “Is Clarence going to come back and play?”  Just drop the needle and play.

I always feel alittle embarrassed talking about Bruce.  I am not that into the music – although I listen to it once in awhile and go to the shows.  But I am really into the man.  Is there any better advice in dealing with losing someone you love than, “If we are here, then they are here.”

Here is the mp3 of City of Ruins – “Are We Missing Anybody” comes at 7:12

My City Of Ruins – Springsteen – Apollo Theater – 3.9.12

The video clip is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH8vKjxX1Uw

This post is for our Uncle John in Indiana who is 92 and has his heart talking to him tonight.  It is for Jack Lange and Steve Cook.  For Natalie & Louis Meyers and Myron Markel.  For all the people we miss so much who live inside of us.  That is my Dad up top.  There is a gold watch in my closet that is engraved with my birthdate and the inscription, “Hi Dad.”   My mother gave it to my father on the day I was born.

03.10.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Personal Work, Something I Heard

Print this post
 

Normal is really art

A friend said, “You don’t edit your blog!”   But I do.    A part of me wishes that I didn’t – but it all sounds so self serving if I don’t.    Although….in the process of editing I am leaving something out.  I have left it out for years.  It is the part where you take your work out into the world and say, “This is important.”    Doing the work has always been my passion and pleasure.   Considering it important – let alone imagining it as “art” I have always kept at arm’s length.   Yet now, as I finally come to grips with the body of work, as opposed to the daily creations, something very new seems to be emerging.

Two weeks ago I spent several days talking about the experiences that feed the photography at Workman Press.  They made me sit and  explain what had happened in each picture and how they all relate.  Part of me is so uncomfortable doing that – yet – it freed me.

Last week I met with an incredible group from Hall & Partners gathered in Chicago.  It was the first time showing the new videos to a large audience.   Their response – calling out, laughing, crying – all felt like a validation I had never heard before.

Then Pedro called again today from Paris.  I was scribbling madly as he told me what I could never admit to myself until these last weeks:

“I know you see your work as normal, but you need to understand what you think of as normal is really  art.”

So here is a picture from this last Sunday morning.

Tomorrow Stephie and I are off to Columbus to direct our first video for Google.

The work still leads to the work….but now…maybe…there is an afterlife.

03.06.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Personal Work

Print this post
 

Keeping the cat

A friend asked me how things were going.   I told them this story from last Sunday:  Jackson and I were running to catch the train to New York.  As we approached the platform, the train was already waiting, and we watched as the doors closed.  Jackson looked up at me, “Daddy, we missed the train.”    I then saw one door stuck open.  That never happens.   We ran over, jumped up onto the train and looked back as the door closed behind us.   “Daddy!  We made it! And it is a double decker!!”

That is how everything feels right now.   Like the door is staying open just long enough to let me jump in.  So much momentum.   So many doors.

At Workman Press this week digging into our photo book with my friend Scott Mowbray, Stephie, our agent Mark Reiter, and the great editor Suzie Bolotin.   It is like watching an olympic sport as they take my work and ideas – and spin them into something I could never have seen so clearly from my perch.

All those years,I fought the process of explaining what comes so naturally.   I deflected praise and special attention – feeling that I was photographing universal ideas everyone shared.   I did not want to think too much about  something that seemed inexplicable and was making my life so rich.   Felt my skills were exploring and understanding the experience right in front of me – rather than making sense of the whole body of work.

Mark thinks of it like comedy writers sitting around a table.  I am astonished finding myself in a room with such invention and brain power working on this project.   Lorne Michals says you never want to be the smartest person in the room.   I love how the best collaborations make the work so much better than you ever could on your own.

Getting back to that train ride to NY.  A couple of seats in front of us, there were 4 teenage girls telling the whole car about their lives, loves, and then this story:

“Our cat peed on the carpet and my father said he was going to get rid of the cat.  So I peed on the carpet and asked my father if he was going to get rid of me.     We got to keep the cat.”

This shot is of my good friend Shlomi and his daughter Zoe.

02.28.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Personal Work, Something I Heard

Print this post
 

Open today

OKAY 2012.  The pieces of the puzzle are on the table. My hands are full of pushpins and you  are on the map.

It is finally cold.  We are back here in the bright white room in New York City.  The year  began with Patti Smith singing over a muted tv next to a burning fire.

The first song you play in a new house is always a big decision.  The first song you really crank in a New Year sets the table.  Here is the song: Of Monsters & Men – Little Talks

Happy New Year!

01.03.12 Posted in Everything Is Connected, Personal Work, Photos, Something I Heard, Something I Saw

Print this post
 

RSS FeedTwitterFacebook