Dance Parties & Dinosaurs
no one can tell me that living in the country is boring. FAR FROM IT! why just this week we attended a glorious anniversary party featuring a korean feast eaten outside under the stars with a full dance party as dessert! strobe lights, helmets, zip lines and gallons of wine completed the dreamy eve. trips to skinner’s falls (my favorite swimming spot ever) and of course end of the year field trips. yesterday we ended up at Claws & Paws - a random zoo in the middle of Pennsylvania. while it was great for the kids (they really had quite an amazing crew of animals) i always get crushingly depressed seeing wild animals with all of their natural instincts harnessed. i won’t write too much about it because it’s obviously a downer. but send some love to the animals of the world…
more photos from two of my favorite places… my parent’s house in memphis and mildred’s lane artist enclave in pennsylvania.
walking into my parents house is great because it has such a warm and rich vibe. overall. and then you start to notice the little things. all the little things. each individual thing is amazing. collectively your brain starts to shut down a little bit at the amazingness of everything. so you have to look in fits and starts. you have to come over often and usually at dinnertime so you can partake in the pleasure that is Dan’s cooking… but that is another post
i found maybe my favorite thing at mildred’s lane the last time i was there. no, not the sublime velvet couch that i’m obsessed with BUT an amazingly wonderfully weirdly eccentric collection of finger and toe nails that were gifted to the lady of the house and framed. unbelievable. i’m not a huge lover of nail clippings but i am fascinated by bodily detritus as art. i think it started by seeing african art incorporating hair and then was furthered by a piece of art my friend had. it was a “voodoo” doll by an american artist. he had sewn his nail clippings to the chest of the doll as ribs. i thought that was amazing.
a wedding in montauk
we’ve just returned from a magical weekend in montauk. every moment was a delight, even the shocking realization that we had left a perfectly awesome hotel for a truly FUNKY one because someone (me) did not do their due dilligence with a little bit of research. note to everyone - let the Memory Motel stay a memory… Rockin’ bar but the rooms…..
anyway. gorgeous weather, sweet family, magical celebration, delish food and the beach…. glorious!
in re-reading Of Time and Place (Walker Evans & William Christenberry) I was surprised to read this quote from James Agee - taken from “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men”, which I think perfectly reflects really good photography. it was affirming to see it today as i sometimes question the necessity (not of actually photographing, because i couldn’t live without it; but of putting it “out there” since there is so much out there… but then i realized that if you can cause this kind of emotion with an image then it is absolutely necessary.
“There can be more beauty and more deep wonder in the standings and spacings of mute furnishings on a bare floor between the squaring bourns of walls than in any music ever made.” -James Agee
i love it because both photography and music are so important to me. music produces instant and tangible emotions. photography is more subtle sometimes so i appreciate that he experiences the profundity of a photograph so naturally.
it is even more interesting to me because i just photographed a grand old house in Memphis - the Annesdale Snowden House. it was wonderful because it was unexpected… a friend suggested we go since her husband was about to start major renovations and it was a great time to see it in its original state. i was about to leave for a long road trip but since i had no obligations i jumped at the chance to a. spend time with said friend and b. to experience and photograph this historic place - full of mystery, beauty and intrigue. it is the opposite of the Christenberry pics - opulence, wealth and grandness on a scale unimaginable to the residents of Hale county.
I find this interesting (a link to newspaper photos of the house) and mine (notice we notice the same beautiful details):
http://www.commercialappeal.com/photos/galleries/annesdale-mansion/
& more photos of mine of facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Madame-Fortuna/202599657032?sk=photos
hope that works….
enjoy and let your imagination wander
road trip pics. being on the road… especially when you know you have a long way to go… is simply the best. good music, wind in your hair, weather, twilight smells, getting off the beaten path, freedom, spontaneity, adventure… letting your mind simply wander. i.love.road.trips.
so last week i went to memphis to pick up a car. it was a short trip but damn if it wasn’t packed full of emotion. i mean it was hardcore. i love memphis but sometimes the melancholy that seizes me there is hard to shake off. for a number of reasons… the place makes me so happy because it is home. i feel my ancestors smiling while i’m there, welcoming me. but it also makes me sad because so many of them are departed. and it is just a reminder how everything changes, all the time. one of the things i love most about memphis is how it seems to never change. until it does. driving down summer avenue (which is like a sun drenched scene from a 70’s movie) i was shocked at how many places were closed. boarded up. over. still sun drenched and weird. always amazing people watching if you are safely in a moving vehicle. but damn, times have caught up. i found myself examining … well, myself. and trying to see family as people instead of grandmothers and uncles. to see them with all of their hurts and baggage and to try and understand why they are like they are. to try and forgive but to also try and recognize and CHANGE the effects their negative behaviors have had on me. it’s weird to be real honest about that kind of stuff. i guess cause i have just white washed a lot of it for a long time. but hey, it has made me who i am and i am pretty proud of that. and i am so lucky to have grown up in a loving immediate family with amazing taste and an eccentric air. the photos are snapshots of my family home and some of their amazing things…
i love thrifting in memphis. an understatement really. not only do you not know (ever!) what you will find, you never know what characters you will see, conversations you will overhear, ensembles you will observe. it is truly an adventure. like, say the front of this cadillac! now this is a thrift store i only stop in occasionally because for all of the great things i have found there the owner DRIVES ME INSANE! he is a talker, and a follower and just downright annoying to the nth degree. i have a theory that he talks to his (dead) mother at night because he still has her mummied body at his house to keep him company. i know that sounds fucked up but if you met him you would say the same thing.
blast from the past! my dear friend and artistic hero, brett day windham, recently returned a treasure to me! as i always want her visual stamp on anything that i do i had given her a pile of antique photos, death notices, ephemera both natural and printed and so on and so forth. to which she added her own drawings and treasures, style and vision. the project was never completed sadly but i now have all the images that inspired me back in the brooklyn days. anyway, i also found a disc of images she compiled so here are a few of my faves: us, a window she did for my store, Fortuna and some amazing souls…
the place is mildred’s lane…
