Picture this!
New features on photography and quilts, plus a new tale from the clinic, the Grateful Dead in color, a bird-themed reader poll, and some original music.
IN THIS EDITION of Wild Things, I’m introducing three new visually driven features. Picture with Words will include a new photograph and a discussion of my thoughts on it, and/or photography in general. The title is an homage to my friend Bill Smock, with whom I shared an office for eight happy years—his film company with Hiro Narita was named Pictures & Words. Running with Scissors is an occasional feature displaying one of Barbara’s quilts. And A Little Help from Our Friends shows off creative projects from people we know and love. –Kerry
PICTURE WITH WORDS
What matters
A NEW CAMERA has helped inspire me to re-focus on the poetry of light that I encounter every day. Where my bird photography was based on organized outings with a singular focus, I’m now opening up to a variety of subjects and approaches. I love the summer light on our flowers. I’ve done some portraiture. And I’m revisiting an old love—street photography.
I often hear photographers proclaim that equipment doesn’t matter—the suggestion being that their (or your) unique vision is supreme. No doubt, training one’s eye is paramount, but equipment does matter. No less an eminence than John Szarkowski, the late director of photography at MoMA, wrote a history of photography with that thesis. I’m in love with my new camera, in part because it is unfussy. It favors mechanical controls over endless submenus. The new camera has a fixed lens based on a modest wide angle (28 mm) and a large enough sensor to enable a faux zoom—basically radical cropping.
The ferry is one of my favorite places to photograph, especially during the summer when travelers from all over ride the boats to and from the Olympic Peninsula, where I live. The mid-day sun on this boy’s hair, the dark shadow cast on his neck, and a suggestion of the companionship he shares with his friend make this photograph one of my recent favorites.
TALES FROM THE CLINIC
No thank you
By Barbara Ramsey
AS A DOCTOR at an inner city clinic, I encountered a wide range of people with a wide variety of dispositions. One of my sweetest patients was a guy in his early fifties who I’ll call Lloyd. He’d developed schizophrenia in his early twenties and had been hospitalized on and off for decades. I met him after he’d come out of these experiences relatively intact. Some clinicians would have called him a “burnt out” schizophrenic. He no longer had hallucinations or delusions and was better able to connect with the reality outside his head.
His suffering had gifted him with a warm kindness, an ability to care about others who had also suffered. He continued to be fairly paranoid at times, but wasn’t on psych meds and was able to hold a job. He was a security guard at a local porn theater. Since he was short and scrawny, I always suspected he must have been the manager’s cousin. I couldn’t imagine him successfully scaring off a rampaging porn patron. The theater provided him with a threadbare uniform and a tiny paycheck.
Lloyd also had daughter, a lovely 14-year-old named Kisha, and he was a proud father, frequently updating me with her progress in school. Due to his psychiatric history, his ex-wife had custody of the girl. But as his mental state had improved, she’d allowed him to care for the teenager on weekends.
One day, he came to clinic highly agitated. His ex had decided their daughter could no longer stay with him. She said his ground floor apartment, which the girl had described to her in lurid detail, just wasn’t good enough.
“My ex thinks the place is a dump. She’s worried that the back door doesn’t shut right, that raccoons or rats or whatnot could get inside. She thinks Kisha isn’t safe.”
Many of my patients lived in substandard housing with peeling lead paint, leaky roofs, and decaying floors infested with all manner of things. Though I’d never seen Lloyd’s place, I could imagine. Apparently, the landlord never repaired anything, including the plumbing. Lloyd said he kept it clean but couldn’t afford to repair it himself.
“Maybe you could spend time with your daughter at your ex-wife’s place?” I ventured.
He explained that his ex had a new husband who didn’t want him around. He understood. He hadn’t been a very good husband and now she had a better one. “What can I do?” he asked. “My apartment needs to get fixed or Kisha can’t come back. Can you help me?”
That kind of request was common. As a physician, I was often the only authority figure in my patients’ lives, other than their pastors, to whom they could appeal. But I rarely had either the power or the skill set to provide the kind of help they needed. Fortunately, I had colleagues, including a clinic social worker who I felt sure would know what to do. I’d also recently learned about a new renters’ advocacy group that aided people in predicaments like Lloyd’s. A week earlier I’d heard one of their staff members describe their services with gusto.
I reassured Lloyd we could get him the help he needed. “Thank God!” he said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me, that you’d say it was only in my head—which is why I brought proof.” He pulled out a burlap sack and jerked open the top.
“I found this on my kitchen floor this morning,” he said, holding out the bag to me. I hesitated. The sack was a strange shape. I didn’t want to get too close, but couldn’t help myself. I peered in. Coiled inside was a giant snake.
I leapt backwards. “Don’t worry, I killed it before I put it in the sack,” Lloyd said. “You can keep it.”
Now, I’m not especially afraid of snakes, but I certainly didn’t want this sack. I didn’t want it in the exam room. I didn’t want it in the clinic. Like Dr. Seuss’s Sam-I-Am, I felt like shouting, “I do not like it here or there! I do not like it anywhere!”
Instead, I simply said, “No thanks. I think you should hold on to that. It’ll may come in handy later on.” I suggested that the renter’s advocacy group might want to take a look. I also wanted to dissuade Lloyd from dumping the dead snake into one of our trash cans on his way out.
“Okay, I’ll keep it,” he said, putting it back under his chair. “It’s a big one, alright. Just slithered in on its belly this morning, maybe through that hole in the boards by the back porch. I’ve seen ‘em in the backyard before but never inside the house. That’s just not right.”
“I couldn't agree more,” I replied, and then hurried out to grab the social worker.
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS
I MADE THIS QUILT two years ago for an exhibition at the Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum in La Conner, Washington. A wall piece designed to feature the linen fabric I’d hand dyed the year before, it is nearly a yard high and three and a half feet wide. Knife in the Water is composed of sumptuously mottled blue fabric flecked with green. The vertical streaks of electric red create a shocking contrast to the blue’s cool depth.
Most quilts are straight-sided rectangles. Here, I wanted the curved edges and bottom to echo the slightly curvilinear slashes within the quilt as well as the wave forms of the watery world it suggests. Knife in the Water is currently seeking a home where its vibrancy can be fully appreciated. If interested, please contact me through my website. —Barbara Ramsey
A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS
Alive with the Dead
MY PAL Brian Goodman is a true Deadhead. He has followed and loved the Grateful Dead since his first concert in 1978. So when the Dead recently played Sphere—the new multimedia performance center in Las Vegas with the world’s largest LED screen wrapped inside a dome—he and his wife were among the first in line for tickets. For three nights in a row.
At the concerts, he used his iPhone outfitted with special lenses to capture slices of the images projected inside Sphere. Using both in-camera motion and Photoshop, he then turned the files into gorgeous abstract images that capture the spirit of the band. His new web site showcasing the photographs is entitled Chasing Light Beams.
P.S. Brian and I also collaborated to produce a series of portraits of the local Chemakum tribe. They’re being shown through September in a beautiful display in The Commons at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend.
The score
THIS COMPOSITION by our nephew Paul Carduner is entitled Rivulets of Thought or Paul Discovers Ableton Live. Though he can play the piano, his scores are composed on a computer and often performed by his talented wife, Meghan Urbach. For his Aunt Barbara, Paul recently created a celebratory march to mark the success of her surgery.
BIRDS OF A TYPE CARD
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING a little different with my Birds-of-a-Type Cards. Please vote for your favorite one from this first batch. I’ll announce the results next week and have another batch of four to rate. We’ll have a playoff series with the winners.
TYPE LOVERS should also check out Tom Greensfelder’s comment related to designer Rudoph Koch, who I discussed in the Kabel Kingfisher post last week. Tom has a lot to say about Koch’s typefaces and the man himself. He first introduced me to Koch’s Neuland typeface when we worked together in the In These Times art department decades ago.
And then there’s this catnip for typophiles…
Fonts hanging out - Elle Cordova (full compilation) is a very funny way to start this last week of July.
Cool post! I love the bird cards. Bauhaus Bluebird is my favorite. Are you going to make them into a deck?