Meeting was so much easier...

at Stony Run Friends. Am in New York for Davis’s graduation from Brooklyn Friends. The first time I have been in a meeting house since Upper School at Baltimore Friends Lifer that I was there, meeting was something that I had come to look forward to, 30 minutes of quiet every fortnight. A time to actually take into account what had occurred and anticipate what was to come.

Remember walking up the steps to what looked like a pretty non descript suburban type of building on Charles Street near the edge of campus completely engulfed by the Catholic Cathedral next door and from 9 to 9:30 simply sitting, supposedly waiting for the inner spirit to speak but my inner spirit wanted silence.

At this time of year the trees would be in full bloom the windows open so during the silence maybe a bird would be heard. Charles Street far enough away that cars were only a murmur.

We’d then file out down the hill back to classes.

The Brooklyn meeting house looked more like the meeting house further down Charles Street - federal style, up the stairs the room was bright airy and austere – benches and white walls. More facing benches, bigger room but and brighter than the Stony Run meeting house but familiar enough to sit, be quiet and let the world assume the proportions that it really warrants.

Except that being not far from Flatbush, with car horns, police sirens and people shouting, I could see that while this place is even more needed than in big lawned Homeland, it would be harder to actually have the spirit move you except to yell shut up.

I have a good relationship with the post office – well except for the one that serves the house. The peasants pissoir post office belongs to the same universe as WKRP in Cincinnati, Hogan’s Heroes and Gilligan’s Island.

So in I come to the Bristol Post Office with a package that is 48x43 inches act like it is a postcard and ask to have it posted. It was too big.

I misunderstood this idea of girth. Nevertheless we stood there staring at it the ceiling was too low to put it on the balance. I left.

I am told that the way to send things to the rock is via Fedex never UPS. Who am I to question that.

I go on-line, it seems that I have to register with Fedex to do anything – three hours later I am registered have an account but can do nothing with it as what I want to ship keeps getting bounced back.

There was a time when I could go to the airport in Milwaukee and there would be a Fedex Office that would do anything as long as you had a bank card. Look on-line for this and all I can find is Fedex Kinkos who cannot handle this size of package I have to do it on-line.

I am more patient now so on-line I go once again and get all the way through the process when it says that I have to ring a number.

The person on the other end says yes I do. Do I want to schedule a pickup? No as the packages aren’t ready yet is there a place where I can drop them off?

The airport in Milwaukee.

This will be a problem as the packages will have to be balanced on the top of the machine while driven along I-94.

I have run out of glassine paper so I plan my next day on getting these packages out as time is running short.

After picking more rolls of glassine paper in Chicago, heading back I pass I real Fedex office.

No they won’t take the packages they are too big it is not the weight it is the girth. But there is this place…which so happens is only three miles from peasants pissoir down wind from the landfill.

I stop there – the place doesn’t look like a customer oriented place at all, I park outside the gates and walk into the equivalent to walking out on the runway of a major airport. All is see are gigantic juggernauts.

Go into the first door I find and yes I can send things from here.
-Do you have the papers I need to fill out?
A silence as she goes off to get the papers. If I get the package back by 8pm it will go out that day.

go home make the final package seal it try to fill out the paper work and cannot as I need a customs broker.

Go back with the paper work with all of this balance on the machine and ask her about this they can provide one but they are closed and I would have to ring to-morrow.

Go back home. Phone Fedex who tells me that my trouble is that it is my first time and it will get easier. They also confide in me that it is really for businesses they don’t expect people to send big stuff so there is no provisions on their form or the a box marked gift or personal effects. But if I go back on line and try again I’ll find that my account is activated and I am ready to go.

go back on line to see if I can try it that way but once again it refuses to accept the contents. I get back on the phone and talk to another Fedex representative who tries to walk me through then says that I’ll need a customs broker. The other person said nothing of this. I ring my evil twin to see if he has one.
-why?
I give him the story. He has one.
Type it in but still cannot get any further.
Everything is closed by now except – UPS

Ring them – they’ll take the package and I can even drop it off at the UPS shop not three miles away.
Are you sure?
Yes?
It is 48x48x3 and 48x43x3.
No problem it will be there in four days.
Don’t trust them and decide to drive to Windsor to run contraband photo across the border.
Ring UPS.CA and the package is too big
-but but but UPS.US will take it and send it to NEWFOUNDLAND and Labrador.
-they will?

What do I have to lose, I cannot get through to the automatons at Fedex so I head up to The UPS store snaps balanced on the machine.

The woman checks has me fill out the paper work she say it will be there yesterday.

I say that it just has to be there by the 25th

I get home to find that the date has been pushed back to the 18th as it left Illinois.

Right now it is in the True North Strong and Free – well sort of Québec –due to arrive 15 June.

I hold my breath.

It was the wrong way ...

to start the day, racing about getting ready to run errands, but having time to develop the four rolls that were sitting from the Leiquinhas. Feel like some bad fibre student taking photo for the first time but all four rolls were ruined. They were ruined as I don’t use the developer for the Leiquinhas all that much and it was way past its date. Four perfectly clear rolls – no markings outside the frame at all.

Was glad that it was 35mm as I never remember what is on the rolls too many images and I guess that this hints at me not taking the format seriously even though I try.

Then I did remember some – a pity someone I hadn’t seen in three years, the biker messenger that I had chatted with outside Cal’s. I also realised that recently being so indecisive that I had made the same images – more or less in colour.

This happens at the wrong time as I have just booked a ticket to Baltimore to head up to NYC for my nephew’s graduation and had thought about robert franking it with 35mm only – in truth thought about only 35mm as I wouldn’t have time anyone on the eastern seaboard and thus might as well try to really make some charm city post cards.

Headed out wondering if I should take a Leiquinha at all. Reckoned that I better get up and try immediately or I would never use it. Took Joãozão also. The fifty miles into Chicago took 40 minutes to the Kennedy then another 60 minutes to get downtown. A gasbar was selling a gallon of regular for $4.00 but it didn’t seem to change any habits.

Little errands made major – prescription for the cat, up to the Main Magazine Stand in Evanston to pick up some art magazines instead picked up Orion, 8 and Art on Paper.

Made a snap – using Joãozão - of an entryway to a condo blocked from the inside by a tree.

Over to Paper Source to try to find a match for one of the remnants I have on hand to finish making a portfolio for Pouch Cove. Paper Source is more a shop for the fake blonded decaffed lattè drinking Starbuckians looking for something whimsical for their next tête-à-tête more than a source of handmade papers.

Saw a cicada – that makes eight.

Raced over to Bristol to drop off the daily postings and was on the way when along County Trunk C just east of County Trunk MB there were two women waving at passers-by from their long driveway.

Circled the block – which is about three miles – and pulled into the driveway . I could see the “oh oh what have we done” look on their face. Went through the same spiel I give on the rock – translated for people south of the 49th. No “yes b’y” no “lovely day” There was the giggle a trend toward no then yeah sure – this is cool.

Two photographs made with Joãozão – only remembered the Leiquinha when it was all over – told them that they know me at the Bristol Post Office and I would leave word there if the snaps turned out.

-This was the best yet, I heard as I got back in the machine, hoping that they would turn out.

A good way to begin the evening.

As they were spewing out of the service bureau, I was thinking – so this is it eh? The process was all so professional and, I am guessing, so 21st century artist. I would try to drop the file off on Wednesday, look at the proof on Thursday and lo and behold the next Wednesday when I was ready to drop off another file a print would be ready.

I became so bold as to drop off two at a time and so obsessed with the cost checked and doubled checked the file so that only one print had to be done again.

I don’t think I would ever do this again though. I am pleased with the way the snaps look, particularly pleased with the spotting and smoothing the water in Pete’s at night that was ruined making platinotypes – and due to when it was made didn’t make a duplicate.

Since size matters, those who have seen them are impressed and this isn’t a tirade against things big, it was simply not satisfying.

I cannot see why this method of working is any different than waiting for the snaps to come back from one-hour photo lab at the Dominion. It is more money but in essence it is still the same passive way of working.

I am fully aware that in current art practice – seeming detached and farming out all unnecessary work is de rigueur. I reckon that I don’t see as the actual craft of making the snap as unnecessary.

It has nothing to do with proving my skill, or making the image mine as in the end these arguments are only valid for those who nothing else to argue about. It is about my practice how I want to make my work and this simply isn’t this.

This was a compromise – the wgas eschewing anything that would look retro and knowing that the future is digital. The mural room became the mural closet that was too small to do what I wanted.

I thought that I should practice what preach and not hate the hands off approach in ignorance. In truth handing things off is easier and printing digitally is significantly easier. Work on a file when it is ready print ad nauseum. Dust is a one time problem as is nay negative flaw once it is fixed it is fixed. it isn’t faster but it is easier.

Topping this was the cost factor - 22 prints that will be seen by maybe 100 people at a cost of $70/print. For the price of one print I could make 45 of my livrinhos of 17 snaps and send them out. 990 livrinhos for the same price. If what one does has something to do with communication rather than covering gallery walls, this exercise seems to be a big misstep.

But – even though I get off the point it is not about that, it is about me, it is about me feeling as I have been a bit more enlightened when I finished the work. To me the passivity of making work this way gained me nothing in fact my life carried on while the work was being made. Heading into the darkroom where I can do nothing else but listen to Paul Kennedy go on and on about he being Paul Kennedy and this is Ideas, on the radio, I am forced to either think and or concentrate on that snap coming up and thinking if it is really worth it. it is a forced 5 minutes with that image and realising what may have to be done, honestly assessing whether I want to continue. I have missed that and now that this exercise is over can go back to it.

crated and ready...

why i never ask for interns...

it would only spoil the myth of the working "artist"

print preparation stations.

while picking up the new york times at the speedway gasbar…

i found out that gasoline is so expensive now because the japanese own all the pipe lines in alaska and send all the oil off shore to penal colonies where it is refined and then sent back to the states – so stated a geezer who was informing the counter staff while paying for his gasoline for his buick regal.

non-sequiturs

heard on the cbc that a military imaging technician had been killed in afganistan. the newsreader obligingly translated from the military jargon - a war photographer.

filling up at a gasbar in sheridan road a lexus s.u.v. stopped behind a motor that had seen better days.
the woman started yelling at the top of her voice - you bitch, you fucking bitch, you bitch, you fucking bitch - it became a mantra. while she was screaming she was also reaching around to the back seat to get her baseball bat and was beginning to swing it in the car i am guessing for the benefit of the worse looking car in front of her.

the light changed she went into oncoming traffic to pass while still screaming you bitch and swinging the bat.

it is published

bem...

The anticipation of a road trip has its usual consequences, in writing about the long stretches of the trip to Pouch that would be less than thrilling, I looked for ways to avoid them.

I know that I wouldn’t take the Northern U.S. route as it is nothing but tolls and I cannot see paying money when I don’t have to – remember being a backwards, hateful skitcher, I still have to support my film habit.

I could go further north, however. This was a fantasy a couple of years ago racing to the overly crowded border at Sarnia and then replacing NPR with CBC. In a moment of pure lunacy I did check to see how out of the way going via Thunder Bay would be – too far – a pity – missing all of lower Ontario up to the Québec border.

Returning to the possible. I could see turning the trip into the type of outing that I like to do. While having to head through Toronto and Montréal, I could some of my secret drops at houses along the way – an international version of what I do around here, drive up, drop something off and leave without detection. There are still packages that haven’t been found up and down – well down – the east coast.

Three drops in Toronto, one in Montréal, the southern shore of the St Lawrence – being tempted to cross over to the northern shore and my ultimate outing through Labrador.

I would miss northern Maine and thought about an even more obscure crossing not at I-95 but at Calais, but that would be balanced by even more time on the Trans Canada and being tempted by a diversion to the Gaspé – as well as being away form the national paranoia of the land above Mexico, would more than make up for that.

Need to be in Chicago for 30 minutes. I have to approve a test strip and pick up one more print for pouch. Problem is I have to head down at 8AM and wait until 12:35 when the train returns.

Think about getting down at Clybourn to head over to Bucktown for a wander but the area is rife with artists and I cannot deal with them this early in the morning – although Filter was tempting as it would be after nine with little coffee.

The lots for the train in Winthrop Harbour are full so have to park “downtown” and walk which gives me the incentive of trying out the new coffee house that everyone seems to steer clear of. I reckon that it is because the coffee not looking like tea is either too strong or not burnt the way they do it at the Clark gas bar.

After getting coffee, it could be due to the fact that there is a picture of the last supper above the coffee bar and I interrupted the barista’s bible reading. It could also be the “You are holy" refrain from the jesus rock station.

The coffee was good – triple shot of espresso French roast in 20 ounces of hot water – lovingly made as I almost missed my train while the espresso maker actually did drip the coffee drop by drop – needs cleaning perhaps.

It was to be a simple day only the leiquinhas wasn’t expecting much. Since I didn’t have to make the pilgrimage to the WGAS, I was free to make another way through the loop and thought about heading down to the crumbling college. About six months ago my ex-departmental assistant rang on the phone from her machine and I summarily hung up. Thought enough time had passed.

Along Van Buren by Cal’s I see two coffee cups half full and make a snap. The last of the roll as I am reloading, I find out that one of them belongs to Tim, a 45 year old bike messenger who has been one for about 16 years.

It seems that to-day wasn’t the best day. He left his keys at home and had to go back for them then realised that he had locked some other keys in the pizza delivery van of a friend of his and was drinking coffee awaiting his arrival.

We chatted, he introduced me to people along the block. Made a few snaps and after about 30 minutes headed south again promising that if the images came out, I would drop them off.
Wandered the South Loop making my way to South Wabash staring at the loft conversions and all the bank branches.

Always get nervous entering crumbling college as I can simply walk in. I am not strip searched, fingerprinted, photographed or tackled by the guards the way one becomes accustomed to at the WGAS but then again – crumbling doesn’t pretend to be that. After all there isn’t all that world’s greatest art to protect and being more of an urban college are more comfortable with diverse peoples.

One would hope that crumbling would follow the methods of the school up the street and stop all their renovating and upgrading – they don’t seem to realise that all they have to do is make plans and never follow through – as I couldn’t find the art department nor my former assistant – but then again that may have been her doing.

An exchange of opening insults, tea at the Dunkin Donuts – noticed that she had started smoking – trading of bragging – she won as crumbling is sending her to Firenze for a month - exchange of horror stories, making me glad that I am at the WGAS as there is no expectation from anyone there – it seems that people where she was were expected to work. Faculty actually carry a full load. Reminded her of the good life in the slacker Valhalla up the road but actually preferred being at a lesser institution – go figure.

It was time – headed up to the Ivory Tower in South Wabash – luckily there was one of the old guards - to look at the proof gave my ok picked one print that was ready and made it to the train – two rolls down wandering back to the train.

I notice that no one asks me for anything – no Streetwise, no spare change, no having to buy a poppy - when, I am carrying a 40 inch roll of paper, maybe they mistake me for another middle aged messenger who cannot afford a bike.

morning marl

am listening to a certain week-end am morning programme from the regional service of a coast to coast to coast broadcaster. not sure why as while the programme is supposedly about the local arts scene most of the music – and there is a lot – is off island. the standard format is one interview then 10 minutes of music but since three hours have to be filled, instead of going into more depth with the interviews, the host plays more music.

so here i am listening and my ears perk up as the host is going to interview a photographer who is documenting fort pickering/pleasantville before it is turned into condos. hold out no hope though when the interview starts. the first thing is – of course – the camera. she mentions that it is something that looks ancient with bellows and wood, something that hasn’t been seen in a century.

the photographer follows suit and talks about the camera for a good five minutes – it isn’t in fact old at all, it is made by wisner who is a harpsicord builder, who bla bla bla.

i may have zoned out but don’t remember any description of the snaps at all, except they are in colour and one was sold to THE ROOMS. i know that they are based in some sort of personal history – some yank ancestor was at fort pickering during the second war, when newfoundland was a republic.

didn’t hold out too much hope as the local presenter was given a national programme during the summer holidays in which she would interview artists from coast to coast to coast but instead of asking anything about the work and why it was made, she decided to find the wacky and accentuate it.

one person dresses in the clothes of people she is interested in so what does this presenter do? she doesn’t go into why the artist does it or how she is turning what was an interesting idea into pastiche by doing the same – and doing it on the highly visual medium of radio.

the programme – which i only hope was canned – only reinforced the public’s view of artists as those wacky characters doing wacky things.

i was thinking of taking the deardorff up north again – it is this strange nostalgia for 2005 and the manner of printing large format negatives even though yesterday i was pulling my remaining hair out trying to get a decent print – but fearing running into her and one cannot help it as she is constantly on the prowl for spots to fill up the six hours every weekend, am sticking less conspicuous modes of photography.

am surprised she hasn’t hit on the macadamia nutted swiss cheese head playing in the tidal pools along cape st. francis as she would be perfect. she could talk about the underwater camera and the fixation on tidal pools. they should have cross paths by now.

because everyone loves a sequel...

Picture this: two years later, faced with carting a lot of stuff North and East, the option of driving out to the Rock is viable – not that I need a viable excuse to do anything.

It is the hate of aeroplanes, the carting of overstuffed bags for miles in airports, the overcrowded late planes. It must be that or else why would I put up with Northern Indiana and Ohio, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Being a sequel things cannot be the same. The travel mate, now ensconced in the real world and living in Twin cities, means no human books on tape sharing the trip and sharing of things surreal that are passed along the way – the illegality of the importation of bees,into Nova Scotia, Marine Atlantic's poster proudly proclaiming three days accident free - leaving the hernia causing large format cameras and all its paraphernalia and only taking the gang – Ubaldo, Ziquinho, the leiquinhas and mounds of film. No worries about passports, taking off shoes, or x-rays.

The machine will be different – the now nearing in on 200 000 mile Saturn - which won’t return. It will be left to be sold – would like to keep it as a way of getting about when I had to use airports.

The excuse is having to ship mural sized prints – 20 of them – to a place where things arrive or not and if they arrive they do so on their own time. There was the worry of customs thinking they were valuable opening the packages with less care than required and worse charging some sort of duty.

I reckon that my excitement on driving has more to do with the distance and the near goal – nothing was better than driving north through Maine, the entry into New Brunswick and the Newfoundland lite feel of Cape Breton.

I have forgot the frustration of the first day where after driving forever we were only in Scranton Pennsylvania. I don’t think that I can take yet another trip along the turnpikes of the Midwest.

Again there is this irony. With little time, I would think that I would want to get there but the flights make the next day almost useless as I am running about trying to get my normal bayman’s life back – car, Montréal bagels, drinks at the Duke, cracked eggs at Bruce's. Driving I don’t mind – I think that I would mind if I had to do two days of Midwest turnpikes. As soon as I realise that I really don’t have to make time – well I do have to make that ferry – I can press on when needed then divert when I have time on my hands.

Then there is the freedom of a machine when I am there I can then motor to my hearts delight – or desire or content.

Since the beginning of the semester, I have been printing the murals for the show up at James Baird > Pouch Cove in July. I have been staring at snaps made on the rock for big chunks of the day, places that are familiar and almost intimate.

At the same time, when the sun has finally decided to become a constant, I have been running out into the gardens – depending on the time of day – making platinotypes of the time in Gros Morne to make three artists books, stop survey the snaps and make constant edits.

With my philosophy of why do one thing well when I can spread my thin and do a lot with mediocrity, made two books more rock based books.

My screensaver is of the now closed Seabreeze.

Despite constantly being surrounded with snaps of the North Atlantic and no matter how much I want the images to bring back not only memories but the experience, they don’t.

I am driving down Route 50 between Paddock Lake and Wheatland between some chore, driving almost automatically, I remember an e-mail from a macadamia-nutted-Swiss-cheese-headed transplant about a dead seal in the cove and I am there. I see the town, Henry coffee in hand, preparing to head back with his Canadians, Hap looking over the ocean, the kids getting ready to take over the park as Percy, and Sam head home.

(for those nitpickers the snap is of grate's cove)

It started,

I think with seeing all these books come from the crumbling college down the way from the WGAS. It seemed that being on faculty meant a book from the Centre for American Places. Wondered if it could be Centre for NORTH American Places.

I tried to suss out how this was happening and if one not of that august institution could do the same – I must admit though they do kick ass when it comes to photography – something that is considered a dirty word six blocks north – only to hear stories of having to back the production oneself with half the funds. I heard that down the street the department having people who can raise funds, actually bankrolls part – don’t know how true this is though.

Then over at Daiter Gallery, in disguise as no-one from the recent incarnation of the WGAS would deem to be seen in a purely photographic gallery, where I found that they were publishing a catalogue along with the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection via this company called lulu.com.

It looked good and was inexpensive. I was also told that they are using lulu to layout other books saw another and except for the brown tint to the images again the quality was impressive.

In a moment of weakness when I was missing my days as a plastic camera person – one feels like such a pro when lugging a brightly coloured bit of plastic that makes duck calls when winding on – bought LIGHTLEAKS out of Toronto and lo and behold they are published by lulu.

Was wary here though as I didn’t care too much on the print quality – looked more like the layering one would find with an inkjet printer on glossy paper. Now I don’t know what to think.

Browsing one of the sites I look at with regularity – Flâneur – out of Argentina, I noticed that he has a book coming out via lulu.

I was sold. While I hesitate in pressing the return button on my computer to start the printing – which is on demand and can be ordered via lulu – I have laid out and everything is ready to go.

I have to gather the courage to do it soon as I want my book to come out before that foodie/Ideas presenter comes out with his. I suspect that since he has been writing his for the last century – he was sequestered away in Martin and Gabrielle’s back in 2004 supposedly working away – that it is a ploy. After all The Rooms have invited him out to talk about it. Living NL - pronounce it quickly – has had him on to make a dish – something with vegan caviar - and I am sure he uses the line whenever he enters the Duke and wherever Upper Canadians drink when they are at home.

Limited the text so no Guardian type typos, checked the images three times…
Hope there is a take back…

Intercoursed

Postage went up. I was prepared for it what is 2¢ it is just part of inflation, I thought as I made a ceremonial effort to get everything over to the Bristol Post Office before the increase on Monday. What I missed I missed.

Then picking up a chart to see how much those cards Europe and the True North Strong and Free, I noticed that it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I can afford even the 6¢ rise to the rest of the world outside of North America but hidden in all of this is a new rate calculation – size – well size and thickness – anyone outside of Mercedes SUV driving artists notice the similarity to pricing porn?

It seems that my clear wraps are fine as first class but the mailings of the books of wander will go from 39¢ the first ounce to$1.13 as it is no longer a fat letter but a parcel and thus will cost more.

It won’t be nearly that bad as they usually weigh between three and four ounces at four ounces it is only 33¢ more while not quite the sticker shock I first saw this will make my already national debt sized postal bill out of control.

It is time to cull.

life as a fibroid

racing the postal increase

It was becoming common place, popped Joãozão in the bag grabbed ten rolls of film and headed west when I left the train. Another day at the fair grounds and I had 90 minutes to kill.

The plan was to get as far north as grand - past the Italian bakeries -and as far west as Ogden – trying not to buy a coffee at Sip - before wandering back. Didn’t want a coffee at Sip as I wanted to be close when I had my coffee and I actually wanted to have it grazing but seated calmly before heading into MFA fair.

I was conscious before all this West Loop wandering, that I was mindlessly rushing to school and had recently noticed that I hadn’t sat outside before the madness started at roughly nine o’clock – give or take an hour.

I had planned to walk through River North when I didn’t have to be at school early to return to a morning stroll through areas that weren’t as busy as Michigan Avenue. Of course no self respecting photographer – in fact if one were a self respecting photographer at the WGAS one would never say it, as the word has such a bad connotation that one should simply say the “ph” word – no “ph” would be out and about anyway. For as we all know one goes to one’s studio and experiences the world outside via osmosis, then recreates like ol’ Henry Peach Robinson. And if they were caught outdoors there would never be a camera – marling and skitching don’t mix.

This was better. Even though, with its rectilinear streets, it was becoming harder to be surprised, I tried to walk where there was a chance of change and surprise. Randolph Market where restaurants were closing as quickly as they had opened. Photographed safe things – the outdoor cafés not quite ready to go – ah eating within smelling distance of the meat packing district just two blocks away. Photographed things left by closing restaurants.

Tried to work along Fulton Street – for some reason trying to dodge giant juggernauts as they are barrelling down on you gets the observation juices flowing much more so that the mere merchant lorries, I am pretty sure that I would bounce off one of them.

This day it seemed that the spirit of Richard Wentworth had taken over my psyche – kept seeing his works everywhere – the same bit of fence mended three times in different fashions seemed to be the culmination of that experience.

Did a lot of zigzagging, thinking that if I made some sort of drunken oval I would hit just about everything I wanted. Did a better job than I had expected as with only 30 minutes to get to the fair grounds on time – a novel thought at the WGAS where on time is seen with the same guidelines Amtrak within the hour – while I hadn’t made my destination – too many alleys – I was pretty close.

This meant radical steps to get back – familiar route to cut down on the gawking – large coffee and cranberry muffin – I pretend it is a partridgeberry - to take away. I try to walk and chew muffin at the same time.

pool at a doggy day care - lake street

The MFA/4H Fair this year is certainly going to be an anticlimax as once again I have to head over there for crit week – the crits are happening before the show actually opens.

This time I don’t even think, I pick up Joãozão, 10 rolls of film and head west when I get down from the train. Back to the way it used to be one camera – pretty trusting considering how rickety Joãozão has become – limiting non-productive options.

I wander. I try to wander streets that I usually don’t go down, but again try to choose those that seem rife with potential. I went from areas with people heading someplace else to begin their day through areas empty, to an area where the day was well underway.

I did try to get past the area that I had parked when I had to head out to the western suburbs. Having time to kill I did venture down cul de sacs. I tended to stay away from the main drags and the meat packers. Away from the Starbucks but wandering the mix of rotting meat with exposed wood loft condos.

Don’t remember much in particular, simply swarving, gawking and skitching taking the longest way possible to the fair grounds. . The darkest roasted largest sized black coffee at the Morgan Street Café to fine tune my shakes.

in an unrelated development...

we of the greatest photography department of the wgas, in planning the new lab space, forgot to set aside a room for the development of large format film. we were blinded by the lure rows of luminous computer screens.


most think that no one will notice.

possible future site for the manipulations and extensions class.

Am all enthusiastic on my second foray in to wandering before work, again I have to head over to WGAS’s Fair Grounds where the annual MFA/4H fair takes place but don’t have to be there until 11 AM. Even better I’ll have to walk between the exhibition grounds and the school twice.

I see all sorts of potential in wandering the West Loop except that it is raining. The type of weather that Joãozão and the leiquinhas seem to rebel against. Besides I am tired after the evening on the Island and three hours sleep. My constant companion - the below 49th headache - was stronger than usual, defeated, I head to the school.

For some reason three hours to waste at the school didn’t seem all that appealing and it is now only a drizzle and the headache would be there walking or fuming I decided to walk. With two hours to make it to gallery, I headed south of the Loop hoping that I could get away of the utopian fortresses – lots of glass, lots of guards one non governmental building even has x-ray machines - of the Loop.

Wasn’t good, was seeking out situations rather than walking receptively. I can tell as I fall back to the formal. Walked along Harrison knowing that at a time there were smaller shops and by the river encampments. No longer. The area is so tarted up that restaurants are now banks, and everything else is a condo. Nothing that would actually be found in a real neighbourhood – tavern, food shop etc.

Daley has cleaned up the homeless. There are at least three a block outside the utopian fortresses but where they live has been obliterated from sight. I used to be able to count on some encampments on the banks of the river - better view than the usual underpasses.

Walked in a daze until I got to Clinton then decided another ploy that works in rectilinear cities. I looked up and down the streets to see if anything peaked my interest.

Headed south toward Roosevelt Road – more because it seems that I could see a new utopiaville being built. I also wanted to photograph a café that had been on the corner so long it had become an ikon, a beacon of safety in the area late at night.

It was still there, sandwiched between the Starbucks and the soon to be built Wholefoods just down from the Panera.

I was getting exercise but nothing much else.

Turned right in Roosevelt and entered a different world. Local shops, trades that I thought were dead - schmate, wigs, nail parlours, furriers - remnants of what Maxwell street used to be crushed into one block as across the road was a Home Depot.

Could tell I was out of the Loop as a cop hops out of a car and tells a nattily dressed chap to move on.

-i am waiting for a bus.
-wait for the bus over there. move it.

now I wanted to slow the pace but the time of the meeting was approaching. Didn’t dally –except to let the cop know he was being watched (like he cared). Walked up on the east side of the Dan Ryan hoping to find some possession stored in the relative safety on the verge of the interstate. It seems that one person had escaped Daley’s clean-up.

A vest pocket park here, a graphically numbered building dock there formalism at the Citgo station. No chance of choosing streets due to the expressway. I was at the WGAS Fair Grounds ready for the five minute meeting.

wondering...

with the arrival of the new nomadic c.f.a.
the impression of a regional airport crowded at midnight thirty
when the scent of pine will noticed.
if my evil twin passed himself off as me.
when the nod with be grasped.
when the realisation comes that the rest of the world that is 30 minutes out of kilter.
the answer to “lovely day” when there are gale force winds stinging rain and fog. (we love thee windswept land)
if percy, henry, and sam will be understood
notice the difference between yes b’y, yeah b’y and yesssb’y.
when the screeching in ceremony will be – it is only a matter of time.
if it’ll be bayman or townie - am betting bayman – yes b’y
how long the five minute walk to bruce’s will actually take.
how staring out at the north atlantic horizon looking for greenland and eire compares with new zealand and asia just beyond the horizon in the pacific.
when “kiddie viddy” will be understood.

Place

I read an entry from some living fossil hinting at a sense of belonging, a macadamia nutted cheese head who seemed to have found it so much so that she was gaining recognition and acceptance, but – life being what it is – had to give it up and move on.

It seems that I am constantly being drawn to what sense of belonging of means and have even wondered if searching for it dilutes it.

I tried in a comment section of some fragmented weblog to state that we who talk of it and look for it cannot achieve that sense of belonging as it seems to be those who are born to a place, don’t leave and are intimate with their surroundings is what we are looking for. Something we are not.

I cannot presume to speak for others but there seems to be this delicate balance, I don’t want to be part of an ex-pat community away in essence bringing my lifestyle to a more hospitable environment. I also don’t want to be subsumed by the place of choice – going native. With few exceptions we who seek will always be the “from aways” but in the best situations no one cares. I say for the most part for there are places where everyone seems to be from away – usually because the indigenous population has been killed off or marginalised – Alaska, the Florida Keys and frontier towns around the world.

Then I ring a hospital in Toronto to assure the second tiered – CBC announcer – that I didn’t scheme to place him there in order to take his place at his workplace and have a place to stay in July.

When assured that while his situation was serious but manageable, we diverted to small talk which while linked to Pouch, it was more of a common point to diverge. Hong Kong, the Arctic. The confluence of others – my evil twin dropping by to see how he is, the Newfoundland Swiss, the Irish Swiss the care and upkeep of a place the cable internet service he put in, ironic as we don’t put in television, me making it wireless. Discussing the loss of his temporary studio overlooking Duckworth Street and Signal Hill as CBC radio moves to the television facilities and less grand vistas. The coincidence of a friend of his from Vancouver and a frequenter to the west coast of the island buying a print of mine at an auction in T.O.

Pouch is our Ram’s Head, our Duke, even our Spur on a Friday. We stop in chat, compare, plan and leave until the next Friday. And I am thinking that maybe my idea of sense of belonging’s location is too small.

updated dispatch from the island

not so fast, the sky was clearing but as i was to quit the wgas, a downpour so a rush to leave became a little more time spent helping students.

and the rain stopped. i found though that there is a big difference walking from lightly populated areas to heavily ones than vice versa. the constant tripping over people as i was trying to escape the loop – trying to find a new way of doing so – meant when i was finally past the train stations. i had a hard time slowing down and i worried about the traffic on the eisenhower.

i tried my best – particularly since the light was better now. i did stop to photograph the usual subjects – places where it looked like people had gathered. did go through a roll of film. did fall back into some formalism. did try to vary my route - even took a longer way in a attempt to calm down and look better - but what was easy going seemed more forced coming.

i had hoped that some of the restaurants and bars for the meat packers would be closed by now so that i could photograph their façades no such luck.

now i fear that i am putting too much stress on the next wander.

re-wander

Figures, I think waking up this morning. It is pissing rain I have to drive to Chicago as it is session two out at Dominican University – lovingly known as the Island - west of the city.

Driving I thought that I would start a new leaf or regain an old one by doing a wander before heading to the WGAS. It would be a retracing of the one I did a fortnight before when the Leiquinha decided it had had enough.

Driving was worse than the last time due to the rain. When it was relatively easy going the first time it thought people who commute crazy I cannot imagine enduring this daily.

I never learn. Wanting to wander an area where I missed some things one would think that I would go with a reliable camera this time but instead I take Joãozão that also has “issues” with the “not winter” weather.

It doesn’t really matter I think as I get closer to Chicago it rains harder.

Then it stops, it doesn’t brighten the sky is doing a good imitation of London in winter but at least I can walk more than a without being soaked. Drizzle is acceptable.

I was here I the search of the chesterfields. One was there as before and like before I stepped in a puddle to make the snap – a man passes hesitantly.

Found other hints at human habitation a bill fold left, someone sleeping under the Halsted Street viaduct – wanted his possessions not him.

Noticed how much I mistrust 35mm as I remade snaps with Joãozão that were perfectly acceptable in 35mm – or I think they would be if I every bothered to print them. Again never learning, one would think by now that I would simply leave the Leiquinhas at home. But no, hope springs external. Hope for what, I don’t know, as I am not sure what is accomplished doggedly sticking to 35mm.

The second davenport was gone which I used as an excuse to vary my route. As I actually found a street I hadn’t walked down. Not in the meat district but not in the Loop passed construction workers for the new condos being built in between.

More discarded davenports behind places that were still under construction. Eateries and bars already open but empty.

Then people crossing Desplaines, they were everywhere. I returned to commuter mode and walked efficiently to the school.
But a habit has been broken – I hope – plan on taking a different route back to the machine. I don’t have to be on the island until 7PM, which gives me two hours of swarving. The sky is clearing.

To-morrow I don’t have to meet anyone until 10:30 and it is in the area of wander.

an attempt at a ceremonial sense of place

A planned wander in homage to an artist who relocating again – odd because I remember her wandering the remote areas of the Pacific being in a place only long enough to become familiar but then moving on. I forgot the relative fixed abode of the last couple of years. Still when I think of sense of place she comes to mind.

A planned wander – like I need an excuse – between two turfs beyond the flat regularity of eastern Rock County into the hillier curvier land beyond the river. Over places we both would have travelled decades apart to reflect the overlapping of places but not time once again. Playing tag with roads with great names – Swamp Angel, Salt Box, Temperance Trail,– towns of Avalon, Bradford, Tiffany – crossing I-90 on the Beloit/Rock Townline road trying to show no preference for either of the cities.

I wanted to go through Afton, Hanover Footville, skirting Orfordville - too big, heading toward Newark.

A wander in curved roads away from the familiar to mimic the hopeful surprise of the new the curiosity of what is around the corner to respond to her relocation in a new found land Mine, though, had vague references to the past – tutoring a student from Footville in Portuguese when I was a resident of the Rock River Valley, an attempt to find Newark in an earlier ramble.

Plans to keep it simple but not too – Joãozão, the camera chosen, complicates anything -a handful of film. Perfect day – 20C warm enough to keep the windows down – sky a bit overcast big clouds making sure that I would not show a bias toward the land. Nice, even, deep, light.

I would make an odd circle to as not to retrace my route – perhaps north to Milton, Lima Center, La Grange, a break in my routine shadowing a break in hers.

Instead an outing along the Tri-State speeding down to Hinsdale to pick up my snaps from the art centre my break not so successful. Hope that hers – more daring – will have a better outcome.

I can hear the Yinser Morman now screeching that I should have seen her Midwestern New England boyfriend – I am bracing for the cackles and told you so’s between the Iron City spewing out her nose.

Am coasting along on the fact that my evil twin gave me all this space for the show. Been systematically scanning, spotting and correcting prints so that I can turn in two a week to the service bureau so that by the time I head to Duke I’ll have twenty prints to cull down when I am in the space. Am proud of myself for except for a week in there someplace I had been able to work to the schedule and have two prints done.

Before heading to Balamer I decided to try out this new paper that is being offered, silver rag from – which I have used and normally wouldn’t have thought of switching but I had finally printed all – but one – of the 10x8 and was now starting on the prints from Ubaldo and Ubirajara. A logical time to try something new.

That was a mistake – I am new to all this digital machinations and don’t feel that anything should try to be something else but instead use the traits that come with the technology to broaden the vocabulary.

So when I saw that greys seemed to be sort of solarised out when using Moab Entrada on the Roland printer – supposedly a better printer – I thought chalk it up to digital.

So imagine my shock – yeah yeah yeah yinser! – when the silver rag had none of that – the tones were smooth the areas looked better and the slight warmth of the paper made what I thought was a nicer image over all. not mimicking a silver gelatine print but a large hand coated type of feel.

The next two images the first of this group –will be on this paper. There will be 10 in all.

I was now thinking about the ten already completed images ten images that cost me $56 each to make – that is 9 pints of Smithwicks in Duke money - I had a moments hesitation. Being at the WGAS had me thinking that I should declare the series conceptual and thus image quality not important it’s the thought that counts.

I snapped out of that lapse in rationality quite quickly and decided that I would have to re-do the images. The rationalisation would be chalked up to the learning process, it isn’t all that bad and I wouldn’t have been aware of it even if someone had explained it to me. I would have had to see it.

The files are ready there is plenty of time I simply have to divert some funds.

For no reason I switch light rail trains at the Yards – well Convention Centre in the lame hope that I can make some snaps from the trip – but clearly not enough for a book of wander or even a series of post cards. Weak attempts at (C)harm City formalism at Pratt and Howard facing both north and south before the next train arrives.

BWI/THURGOOD MARSHALL AIRPORT

The penchant of my cameras to take a break if they seem to feel that I am working them too hard had me rethink my plans for the trip to (C)harm City.

Since Balamer needs a new set of postcards – haven’t seen anything that portrays the new complexity of the area, its place as the murder capital of the world, the STD capital of the world – well except for the MARYLAND IS FOR CRABS t-shirts – that romantic blue glow of the police cameras along Pennsylvania Avenue - I would go about making them.

I also wanted to venture into the areas of the city that made up my past – riding the metro to the condo, I was passing under that history – my father's family, Upton Market –my mother's, Penn North – me, Mondawmin – all of them dodgy.

Leiquinhas mimic the aspect ratio of postcards. After the gallery chat, I knew that I could never catch up in the size game – even if I wanted to – so 6x4 inches seem fine. If you are not going to sell might as well not sell inexpensively. I was also hoping that the portability would mean more images being made.

The equipment malfunction had me second guessing and over compensating. Once warm the camera was working again, but I wasn’t sure. The evening before the flight I went through many packings and re-packings of my courier bag. Every camera option was tried at least twice in an attempt to cover all possible outcomes. In the end I over packed taking Ubaldo along with the leiquinhas turning the bag into a device for testing hernias.

But it is not as simple as that. I also wanted to photograph structures that seem to be disappearing – taverns, small churches, corner shops – those establishments that make up a Balamer neighbourhood. It isn’t simply something unique to Baltimore – I would have done the same in Boston or any city with identifiable neighbourhoods.

I have found that cameras do matter – not brands but type. While making the snaps of structures I didn’t want it to look like I was sneaking through these neighbourhoods. I didn’t want state the obvious photographically but instead wanted to treat them with some respect but still be portable – unless the camera can stop a stray bullet in a drive by I prefer ones that don’t slow me down. It’s that juste milieu that so often escapes one. A larger format seems to imply a stroll rather than a race, it seems also to imply consideration rather than a sketch – the reason it is used –until recently - with people on the Rock.

I used that as a justification for lugging Ubaldo along. While the images won’t be large, I still like the detail as was seen by recently scanned snaps made while in Rio – but that is another entry.

So once again I lack the strength to be decisive and carry more than I can possibly use knowing full well from those times when I had to limit myself, I was fine – better than fine - as I actually concentrated on the reason for the outings – making snaps.

All of this is moot – a nor’easter wipes out the week-end. Might as well be in, say, Richmond.

I was lamenting to someone on how things change without perception and mentioned the time when arriving in Chicago in the morning, I would walk up to Michigan Avenue – when reading The Guardian meant buying one – making snaps all along the way. Talked about the rake of the early morning sun and, if I picked my streets correctly, the quiet.

This ended way before The Guardian unlimited was viable.

So here I was in the loop early – drove down as I had to make it out to a remote catholic university to make their undergrads cry for art crits – found free parking more easily than I had expected – expectations lowered as I parked a good three miles from the school and now I had to see I would race for coffee and arrive early or wander a bit arriving at the usual time.

I tried to aid my chances of wandering by not loading the bag down – but the weather wasn’t helping. There was this little pissing rain.

Thought that if I didn’t take the walk seriously I would be more likely to have some success so I brought the leiquinhas.

Did the usual, when I found an empty space I parked the machine – got out looked around thinking that it was a trap, reckoned that it was since no one else was parking in the area, and move on. Did this twice.

When I finally parked and went back to check that I had locked everything thrice, I wasn’t in the mood to make any snaps at all – it was the rain.

Thought that I would compromise by wandering the area looking for potential future snaps that I would return to make some time in the nebulous future.

Walked thinking that would be good, over and over, usually when I saw something that straddled the public art graffiti line. There was a torn poster from a gallery no longer in existence behind an almost locked fence.

I stopped, though, when I saw a chesterfield at a diagonal. I wasn’t sure if it was being discarded or made into a place of relaxation for the homeless in the area. there wasn’t anything around where this could have come from.

The day changed out came the leiquinhas, snaps made – in the indecision that comes from plenitude, made snaps in both black and white and colour. as it was 35mm and thus of no real import while I made the snaps I thought about coming back with a real camera.

Having broken the inertia, I then returned to photograph all the things I had noted but passed by.

Because no way is really longer than any other way in a city that is so boringly rectilinear as Chicago, I chose streets that I hadn’t been down in some time. Those which were going to be closed by the spread of condos.

Found a davenport, this one surrounded by trees. Repositioning myself the camera made this strange tearing sound when I wound on.

Tried again the same noise – not so much a tearing but gears being stripped.

Wander ends, wondering if older cameras yearn for retirement in Florida.

BWI/THURGOOD MARSHALL AIRPORT

getting lost...

intimately

South Hofstrom Road
Bradford Township - Rock County - Wisconsin

why the post is better than e-mail

on the way to the post officeCOUNTY TRUNK ML NEAR 94TH PLACE COUNTY TRUNK Q(104th Street) WEST OF 136th AVENUE

COUNTY TRUNK D ( 184th avenue) BETWEEN COUNTY TRUNK C (wilmot road)
and 83rd AVENUE

even though it is now a $2000 plastic camera...

- worse for with a real plastic camera there is always something - i still use joãozão as it is still the camera for flânerie guess i should swarving as flânerie is way above its station now.

gallery chats

I feel sorry for gallery owners, they are so lonely most of the time. When there isn’t a opening, one can enter a gallery and be alone with the work, the owner behind a desk either on the phone or staring blankly into a computer.

Being that starved for human interaction they are willing and wanting to chat.

A marl through the two gallery districts to see work that I hadn’t had a chance to see due, I was looking at perfectly competent work that followed the checklist for contemporary photography to-day – cinema sized, attention drawn to the framing, colour, images that can be understood in a microsecond.

The gallery owner said hi. His mistake. I kept looking that the work, talked about the weather and realising that I was seen the way that women are seen when they enter Central Camera, pretended to be an art instructor asking questions in behalf of my students addressing certain concerns about the gallery world. Mentioned how impressive the work was, found a few other things to talk about – as I said the work was good, a bit obvious but good – then mentioned the size and wondered who buys something this big.

- Oh no-one.
-What about museums?
I was told yes but how often does a museum buy work? Worse when this show is over it goes back to the artist that there was no place to store the work in the gallery which means that the chance of selling this later in the year was practically nil.

Asked why then was the work accepted if there was no chance of it selling or why the director didn’t tell this to the artist. She was told but the artist is influenced by what she sees and this is what photography looks like thus this is what was wanted. The time slot was determined over a year ago but not the work.

Mentioned that while I make work –assuring the gallery owner that I wasn’t going to bring it over – and feel very out of place as I can make entire portfolios with the material made in one image, that it would be lost on the wall and looks so dated due to size – among other things – that I don’t really bother anymore. He sort of agreed that the market is run the way that one buys a lottery ticket, even though one almost is never really successful, one sees that someone has been so the formula is followed.

It was then discussed that it seems the work is big also because the artists feel that people would miss the subtleties if it were smaller. The irony is the complete lack of subtlety. Everything done led the viewer immediately to the main point of the image so much so that they were poster-like in the time it took to see the work. there were no counter points in the image no place really to look other than the “subject”. Those parts that would usually be used as a method of enhancing or questioning the “subject” were diminished by the usual contemporary method – the swings and tilts of the large format camera to limit what was in focus.

The gallery owner - now really happy to vent - also mentioned that the idea of varying sizes has disappeared also so that a potential buyer who didn’t live in an aeroplane hanger could actually buy the work and not have to go to a storage facility to see it. Sales – and thus fame – were being lost because the artist wouldn’t consider offering the images in different sizes as the perceived size of the work is really determined by where the work will be and how much space is around it.

Left not knowing what to think, except my datedness as even the large images being made for JB>PC this summer are still wallet sized in what I just saw.

Joãozão, however, had no doubts, once out in the streets again making snaps heading to the next gallery the shutter froze.

just sent out six deficiency notices - err progress reports - what fun!!!

Security breach.

It seems that I unwittingly came across an area of importance in this country’s war against terrorism as I was making this photograph in Janesville – I won’t mention the location as one is never sure who is reading this and would hate to have the information fall into the wrong hands.

I had just left Traxler Park heading downtown when an inordinately long train went by and stopped over the Rock River. Don’t know why I stopped in Main Street just North West of Centerway Street by the ice machine depot to make a snap. Cannot even remember why I made it as I see nothing worthy of the stop now except maybe nostalgia as it was a Santa Fé wagon – the railway company was Canadian now.

While trying to make something interesting out of something boring, a car slowed, a pick- up stopped and did a u turn headed back toward Traxler Park made another u turn and waited about 50 metres behind me. Done I hopped back in the machine – with that strange flag on the back – when another car came by made a u turn and stopped beside me.

- you look familiar do I know you?
- Don’t think so.
- Is your name george?
- Nope
- Oh
- Inshallah
He drives off. The pick-up starts to tail me. I head downtown. He turns right to go over the Rock.

Janesville’s alert is raised to orange.

an important date

It was there, on the counter, waiting for me as I came back from the BFA. An envelop with the yellow and green chevrons, a postal machine cancellation, “via áerea”. It was thin but I am used to thin replies and know fully well what it means.

Put my stuff down took out the “souvenirs” from the BFA show and then opened it.

I was wrong. It could be the fact that more things can be done by internet to-day that these sorts of letters don’t have to be a fat as they once were.

It was from the Faculdade de Comunicação da UFF - Universidade Federal Fluminense - from their new campus that blocked is build on the landfill outside the house in Passo da Pátria in Gragoatá which moved the beach from the front door to a goo 500 metres away. The same UFF that had turned me down as a communication student back in the 70’s when I wanted to move to Brasil. The same UFF that was down the way from the last place that I stay when I lived in Icaraí, next to the Gruta da Capri.

It was letter of acceptance to teach there full time in that every same department that found that being North American during the regime of Costa e Silva wasn’t what they were looking for.

Even if it weren’t more than I am getting now the difference in cost of living makes me rich. I can now daydream on whether I want to take up my former fluminense status and live in Ingá or or São Domingos – won’t live in Icaraí anymore - too chi chi or xi xi – or head out further toward the Atlantic - Piratininga? Itaipuaçu?

Or do the reverse commute – become a carioca – live in Sta. Teresa – better butequins cooler summers and take the ferry across on the days that I have to be there – the irony of reversing the 70’s when I would race over to Rio.

Cafèzinho instead of espresso no Starbucks yet, not having to complain to Jamba Juice and their watering down the drink when I need my açaí fix – better still not having to try to taste it through the other fruits that are included here. Two cities made for a flâneur and a society that still takes to the streets.

Come October…