Escaping Artist

February’s vacation to central Florida was somehow unintentionally timed perfectly between two snowstorms that draped a dense white blanket over the entire east coast. Flying down the morning before the first storm, I was thankful for my last minute decision not to fly the day of the blizzard. I watched instead on television in 70 degree weather as airlines canceled their flights to and from cities waiting for the pending snow. Flying from New York to Florida on a beautifully clear and crisp day, following the coastline like a compass south, allowed me to lust after every strip of beachfront property from Far Rockaway to Daytona Beach.

» Read the rest of this entry «

For me it seems almost typical to look for what is missing in places. My latest images, in the vein of the missing, have revolved around looking for “nature” in the “city,” where there ought to be very little evidence of it. I have been interested in this seemingly cliché idea, however, because I live so near the last “forest” areas of Gotham. Inwood is surrounded by wandering, forest-like paths that are intermixed with recreational parks—baseball diamonds, playgrounds, dog parks—and bounded on one side by the waterfront, with all that riverfronts usually entail. Walking down Broadway everyday I have neighborhood shops on my right, and the inviting gates of Ft. Tryon Park on my left.

Throughout the winter it has been amusing to watch how the dropping leaves of fall, followed by the rain, slush, and snow of February, has changed the landscape of Broadway. My interest in the snow is an interest in how we live, or live without, a presence of nature in the city. The appearance of winter seemed to render useless the outdoor activities that gave a sense of life and community to the streets. When I first visited Inwood last summer children were playing with water guns in the park, older couples sat sweating on the benches lining Broadway, and I imagine all the places I have recently discovered were used with the same enthusiasm. Large flocks of geese have taken over the baseball diamonds, the steps leading to the top of Inwood Hill Park are covered with layers of melting ice, the playgrounds left soggy and empty. Winter effects city life but it becomes integrated as quickly as anything else; salt and rain boots appear on the sidewalks, lost gloves and broken umbrellas become the common trash, and children go sledding instead of playing on the wet swings.

» Read the rest of this entry «

It is amazing how a question as simple as “what are you working on” can have such a devastating effect. At the height of productivity it always felt as though no matter how much I made, how many hours I worked, it was never quite enough. While it seemed that semesters and deadlines were in disharmony with the rhythm of thinking ideas through—some of us think about the same ideas for years, and even after don’t get much farther than entertaining different facets of those ideas—the pace of life also feels offbeat. Where one was too fast, the other is too slow. Asking J. Wax how his studio work was going along with teaching and traveling, he said good, but slow. I now understand his meaning, just as I have come to appreciate the difference between slow and a standstill; it might take me twice as long to build a body of images, but at least a body is being built.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Perhaps in winter I should become a devoted photographer of interiors…

In a recent fit of exasperation I was going to write a long diatribe entitled what is wrong with winter?, on the value of having a winter, suggesting that the beauty of seasons—real seasons—is that they provide contrast and therefore appreciation of ones environment. I was spared writing this post, however, by an amusing turn of events. Places (and people) that rarely see snow or truly cold temperatures, such as Southern California or Las Vegas, received a good amount of cold weather long before we did.  A cousin of mine took some lovely, although surreal, images of the Las Vegas strip covered in a light layer of snow, and T-shirt wearing west coasters were holed up for days because of closed roads. All this, happening before it even snowed in Gotham, seemed to lessen the necessity of my argument. There is, obviously, nothing wrong with winter, but now that it has come to stay in Gotham, I remember how problematic it can be for “wandering” photographers.

» Read the rest of this entry «