Change is the Only Constant: Evolution of a Project

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed that the natural world was in a constant state of movement. People age, develop habits, and change environments. You can't step into the same river twice; even rocks are subject to changes by the elements over time. Change is the only constant. It’s the same way when making art. A large project will evolve over time. If you’ve followed mine, you know that’s true.

I started this project (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil) in September of 2021. It’s fast approaching two years now. That’s not very long for me to work on something photographically or on any kind of creative project. The time isn’t relative to me. I couldn’t care less if it took me one year or ten years to complete a project or bring my ideas to some kind of meaningful creation. My point is that this project is ever-evolving, as it should be, and may have one more huge evolutionary step taking place over the next few months.

Lately, I’ve found myself wanting to push the work in this project farther. The words “tactile” and “tangible” come to mind often as I look at the work. I’ve loved the craft of photography for decades. It’s given me so much, and it’s always been a great outlet and very therapeutic for me. However, over the past ten years or so, I’ve wanted to push my art-making farther. And this project has revealed that this is the perfect time to do that.

“It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation.”

— Herman Melville author of Moby Dick

So how do you make photography tactile or tangible? That’s the question I’ve been thinking about a lot. I see art-making as a series of problems to solve. It’s a lot like life itself. We’re faced with a series of problems to resolve every day. My tactile problem centers around two ideas. The first is to represent (abstractly) the landscape here. Specifically, the great mountain Tava-Kaavi. This is a big challenge. The second is to represent the colors. In essence, it’s the textures and colors of the land that I’m addressing. I don’t want the photographs to be taken out of context. These are the problems that I’ll be trying to resolve over the next month or so.

I’ve been reading Otto Rank’s book, “Art and Artist.” How the artist uses material to transfer their anxiety into and onto it is a powerful idea, but it does have some downsides (such as rejecting cultural constructs and being ostracized).

Ernest Becker’s interpretation of Rank’s writing in his book “The Denial of Death” has greatly influenced me as well. I really connect with Becker’s conclusion about his theories—the best answer that he could give. He said, “The most that any one of us can seem to do is to fashion something—an object or ourselves—and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force.” I’ve been thinking deeply about that idea. It’s affected the way I want to approach this work.

I have to be honest and say that “straight” photography is a little bit repetitious for me. Don’t misunderstand me; I love photography, and I’m over the moon about the work I've been able to make for this project. I just feel that these ideas need more than straight photography to be represented in a meaningful and powerful way. I’ve been working on ideas to try to make that happen.

“Just as conscious contents can vanish into the unconscious, other contents can also arise from it. Besides a majority of mere recollections, really new thoughts and creative ideas can appear which have never been conscious before.

They grow up from the dark depths like a lotus, and they form an important part of the subliminal psyche.

Forgetting is a normal process in which certain conscious contents lose their specific energy through a deflection of attention.When interest turns elsewhere, it leaves former contents in the shadow, just as a searchlight illuminates a new area by leaving another to disappear in the darkness.

This is unavoidable, for consciousness can keep only a few images in full clarity at one time, and even this clarity fluctuates, as I have mentioned. "Forgetting" may be defined as temporarily subliminal contents remaining outside the range of vision against one's will.

But the forgotten contents have not ceased to exist. Although they cannot be reproduced, they are present in a subliminal state, from which they can rise up spontaneously at any time, often after many years of apparently total oblivion, or they can be fetched back by hypnosis.

Besides normal forgetting, there are the cases described by Freud of disagreeable memories which one is only too ready to lose. As Nietzsche has remarked, when pride is insistent enough, memory prefers to give way. Thus, among the lost memories we encounter, not a few owe their subliminal state (and their incapacity to be reproduced at will) to their disagreeable and incompatible nature. These are the repressed contents.”

Carl Jung

“Five-Star Flower and Berries,” 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4cm) RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print, August 7, 2023.

I only get this light in my studio between 0800 and 0830 in the morning (this time of year). I was so pleased when I saw this come up in the darkroom. It’s emotional to me; I can feel the geometry in the flower and the light. The small circle of light (reflected onto the background) feels like an alien looking on.

The Diversity in My New Book

In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil (expected to be published sometime in 2024)

You’re going to start seeing some "comps" posted here every once in a while. These are ideas that I have for my book. As I look through the images, some of the pairings absolutely astound me; they are more beautiful and aesthetically pleasing than I could have imagined.

I’m still undecided about how the final layout will look, but I wanted to play with mixing them up—POP with RA-4 color—living with them and running some ideas through my head. I think it looks stunning. I’ve never seen POP prints paired with Color Reversal Direct prints. Gorgeous! 

Right now, it’s a 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) hardcover, full-color book. I expect it to be about 250 pages with over 100 images: RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Prints, Palladiotypes, Platinum-Palladium, Kallitypes (both K1 and K2 variants), Cyanotypes, Calotypes (Paper Negatives), Photogenic Drawings, and much more. The POP prints are from both wet and dry collodion as well as direct contact printing from plant material (photogenic drawings), like Salt prints.

“What do we mean by the lived truth of creation? We have to mean the world as it appears to men in a condition of relative unrepression; that is, as it would appear to creatures who assessed their true puniness in the face of the overwhelmingness and majesty of the universe, of the unspeakable miracle of even the single created object; as it probably appeared to the earliest men on the planet and to those extrasensitive types who have filled the roles of shaman, prophet, saint, poet, and artist. What is unique about their perception of reality is that it is alive to the panic inherent in creation.”

— Ernest Becker

“The Great Mullein” Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative and a 10”” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print

“Antlers Are Bone: Profile,” 10”” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print, and “Mountain Stone Water Dish,” Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative.

“Three Aspens” Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative and “Ponderosa Pine and Five White Daisies” 10”” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print

“Antlers Are Bone” Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative and a 10”” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print

“Dead Ponderosa and Granite Rock Face” Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative and “Dead Daisies in a Glass Graduate," 10” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print

“Red Rock Formation-Fremont County, Colorado,” a 10”” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print and “The Great Aspen Man” Whole Plate Palladiotype from a Calotype (paper negative) Greenlaw’s process.

“Turkey Feathers and Antlers,” a 10”” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print and “Medicine Wheel," a Whole Plate Palladiotype from a wet collodion negative.

“The Great Mullein,” a 10”” x 10” RA-4 Reversal Direct Color Print and “Meadow Barley",” Whole Plate Photogenic Drawing from the plant itself (direct contact print).

A stack of prints—almost 200 prints—color, pop, calotypes (paper negatives), photogenic drawings, etc. And I still have about 3 months of image making left this year!

Finding Meaning in the Meaninglessness

“Light” This is dead Rocky Mountain barley and a small cactus flower that is blooming. This is a 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25,4 cm) RA-4 color reversal direct print (made in the camera). This is about 1 second overexposed - I really like the diptych of these.

““Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning.””

— Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

This coming Saturday, April 22, 2023, I’m going to read the sixth chapter of “The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life” on my YouTube show. This chapter is about symbolic immortality. What is symbolic immortality? It’s the flip side of the coin of human desiring or striving for immorality. One side of the coin is literal immortality (last week’s read), and the other is symbolic immortality. It’s a big driving force in our lives. And it’s very interesting in terms of terror management theory. If you can, join me for the reading, I’m sure you’ll find something vaguely interesting if you’re reading this.

The book really starts to take off with this chapter. To this point, the authors have laid the groundwork for the reasons we lean on repression, denial, and the transcendence of death. They’ve addressed how we use our parents when we’re children for our self-esteem, and then we separate, or individuate, and lean on culture for the all-important tools to repress or deny the knowledge of our impending death and to build self-esteem (which acts as a buffer to death anxiety). They’ve given both historical references and modern empirical evidence about how we respond to death awareness. For me, this is where these theories really take off and we begin to connect the dots.

“Humans are incredibly intelligent. On consciousness: It takes a ridiculously sophisticated cognitive apparatus to render yourself the object of your own subjective inquiry. ”

— Soren Kierkegaard

Since human beings acquired consciousness or became aware that they existed, nonexistence has become a frightening reality. Mortality is on our minds and in our thoughts; it consumes us, and we need a way to buffer, repress, or transcend it. This is true, whether we know it or not, and most don’t (it’s an unconscious activity, like most psychological events). We are so embedded or ensconced in our cultural worldview that we’re blind to what motivates our activities, shapes our desires, and drives us on a daily basis. For me, this is the most revealing feature of these ideas. We’re so far down the rabbit hole (repressing the anxiety) that we can’t make sense of these theories; we don’t understand them. That’s what they’re designed to do: keep us from thinking about becoming worm food. And over tens of thousands of years, they have become so deeply embedded in our psychological landscape that we are shielded from the knowledge of death—at least for the most part.

One way we deal with the terror of death is to transcend it; we mainly use culture to do that. Technology, religion, art, ritual, myth, family, politics, relationships, money, etc.—these all provide some form of immortality for us or ways to repress or buffer existential dread. Why are we so afraid of dying? It’s not the actual event of death that gives us anxiety (some do have anxiety about how they will die), but the knowledge of it. We are living and existing in a meaningless world. We won’t be remembered. It’s the impermanence and insignificance that give us anxiety and dread. We want to be remembered; better yet, we don’t want to die!

“Ernest Becker called this desperation ‘the ache of cosmic specialness.’ Becker states what is patently obvious to most: as humans, we constantly put ourselves at the center of the universe.”

— The Denial of Death

“Life & Light” is a 20” x 20” (51 x 51 cm) these are RA-4 color reversal direct prints (made in the camera).

As Ernest Becker, the author of “The Denial of Death” (1973), pointed out, Freud was wrong. It’s not our sexual drive that motivates our behavior and psychological gymnastics; it’s our fear of death. Peter Zapffe, a Norwegian philosopher, also addressed these theories in his 1933 essay, “The Last Messiah.” Zapffe cites four coping mechanisms we use to repress death anxiety. For Zapffe, our becoming mentally over-equipped has resulted in us becoming “fearful of life itself" and of our “very being." The degree to which we are conscious of reality, which is unlike any other species, also means that we have become acutely aware of the suffering of billions of people and sentient life on the planet, as well as the planet itself.

“The Last Messiah” starts like this (bold for emphasis):

“One night in long bygone times, man awoke and saw himself.

He saw that he was naked under cosmos, homeless in his own body. All things dissolved before his testing thought, wonder above wonder, horror above horror unfolded in his mind.

Then woman too awoke and said it was time to go and slay. And he fetched his bow and arrow, a fruit of the marriage of spirit and hand, and went outside beneath the stars. But as the beasts arrived at their waterholes where he expected them of habit, he felt no more the tiger’s bound in his blood, but a great psalm about the brotherhood of suffering between everything alive.

That day he did not return with prey, and when they found him by the next new moon, he was sitting dead by the waterhole.”

Sublimation, which Zapffe calls “a matter of transformation rather than repression,” It involves turning “the very pain of living” into “valuable experiences.” He continues: “Positive impulses engage the evil and put it to their own ends, fastening onto its pictorial, dramatic, heroic, lyric, or even comic aspects.” He also notes that the essay "The Last Messiah" itself is an attempt at such sublimation. For Zapffe, sublimation is “the rarest of protective mechanisms." Most people can limit the contents of their consciousness using the previous three mechanisms (isolation, anchoring, and distraction), staving off existential angst and world-weariness. But when these forms of repression fail and the tragic cannot be ignored, sublimation offers a remedy, a way of turning the unignorable “pain of living” into creative, positive, aesthetically valuable works. (Partially Examined Life) This is where I find myself—deep into sublimation.

Meaning and Meaninglessness
Everyone has the responsibility to create meaning in their lives. There is nothing inherently meaningful in life. Life is primarily a biological process; it goes on whether we believe in something or not; it simply doesn’t matter; the world goes on. When people ask, “What is the meaning of life?” They are missing the point; there is no meaning; you have to create it, find it, search it out, apply it, and live it. The question should be, “What is the meaning in life?” Your life. Whatever that might be, I believe whatever you do to create meaning is a good thing as long as it doesn’t hurt or infringe on other people's ways of creating meaning.

If you’re religious or have a certain faith or belief in an afterlife and believe in a deity, no problem. If you belong to a sports club or a political group and find meaning and significance there, no problem. If you have a hobby—gardening, cooking, sewing, writing, painting, or photography—that’s great! If it bolsters your self-esteem, makes you feel significant, and gives you meaning, you’re on the right track.

The problem is that, a lot of times, unconscious beliefs infringe on other people's cultural worldviews; it creates hurt, discrimination, oppression, and even death (this usually happens to members of marginalized groups). Everyone needs to find something that provides them with meaning and significance. This isn’t about being right or wrong; it’s about being human and feeding self-esteem to buffer death anxiety. We all suffer from this condition (the human condition). No one gets to say, "That doesn’t apply to me." It applies to everyone.

I’m not a nihilist, but there is some truth in the “nothingness” that nihilists ascribe to, especially existential nihilism. Nietzsche said, "To live is to suffer. To survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." I do ascribe to that idea.

William Shakespeare wrote:
"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I titled this essay “Finding Meaning in the Meaninglessness.” It’s a difficult thing to admit, but everything is meaningless. Everything. For context, when I say meaningless, I mean it in the cosmic sense, not the personal sense. For me, all of my pictures, all of my writings and books, all of my thoughts, my degrees, my life experiences, all of my accomplishments, even my existence, are all meaningless. It’s true, and I’m fine with that truth. What I’ve found is that, while I understand this fact in the cosmic sense, it doesn’t preclude me from finding meaning and significance for myself. All of the aforementioned things are very meaningful, significant, and important to me, including my wife and daughter, who are at the top of my meaningful list, and my friendships and relationships outside of my family.

I’ve created, experienced, and lived all of it for my mental health and well-being, not for some bigger purpose or to change the world. It’s wonderful to be alive most of the time. I’m in awe of the beauty where I live. I’m amazed at the progress human beings have made over the millennia. It’s truly amazing. I’m grateful to wake up every morning.

On the surface, it may seem that I’m trying to change the world through my work, but I’m not. If no one ever read a word I’ve written, looked at a picture I’ve made, or listened to my philosophies about life, it wouldn’t matter—because it doesn’t. They’re not meaningful or important to the bigger scheme of things (cosmic); I get that, and I’m okay with that. I’ve come to terms with it. It doesn’t depress or demotivate me either. In fact, in a lot of ways, it’s freeing and maybe even emancipating in ways. It encourages me even more to express and create.

The only thing I’ve tried to do (intentionally) in my life is encourage people to consider people who are different from them as fully human and try not to do harm to “the other.” And now, with my new work, I’m trying to help people understand what these important ideas have to offer. It would be a much better world, at least for the time we’re here, if we could come to terms with our mortality. As Albert Camus said, “There is only one liberty, to come to terms with death, thereafter anything is possible.”

Mt Evans Workshops 2012

I’m getting excited for the summer. Rupert Jenkins from CPAC suggested I offer a field course in Wet Plate Collodion. Great idea! Not only for the people that attend, but also for me! I need to mix it up this year.

I’m still working out my next project idea. I don’t really like to say too much, because things change all of the time. I’m not even sure what process I’m going to use!  However, I’m excited about living in Colorado and what that means photographically. I want to get out of the studio, too.  So, for right now, I’ve decided that I’m going to offer two VERY special workshops this summer. I’m calling them the Colorado Wet Plate Collodion Field Workshops.

These will be special for at least two reasons. First, not only do you get to make photographs by hand in a wonderfully revealing process (and get away from the computer for a while), you get to spend time in some of the most beautiful landscape in America.

The details will come in a few weeks, but I’m thinking about taking a group to Mt. Evans. There’s a paved road (the highest paved road in North America, by the way) that goes to almost 14,000 feet above sea level (that’s 4.300 m for my European brothers and sisters). Has anyone make Collodion plates at those elevations before? I don’t know.  The scenery is spectacular and to spend a day making plates there sounds fantastic!

I’m going to offer two workshops; a direct positive course (not an introduction), where we will make Ambrotypes, Tintypes, and Alumitypes.  And a negative making course where will we make negatives and then spend a day back in the studio printing those negatives on Albumen, Salt and Collodion Chloride paper.

Here’s what I have so far: The Colorado Wet Plate Collodion Field Workshops: Direct Positive Images: Friday, July 27, students will meet at Studio Q in Denver, Colorado at 4PM for an overview. They will cut, clean and prepare four pieces of glass; two clear and two black. Two metal plates will be ready to go, too. Saturday, July 28, students will meet at Studio Q early (not sure maybe 0600) and depart for Mt. Evans. We will spend the day making six plates each (in portable dark-boxes). We will return to the studio late in the day and look at and talk about the images (maybe have to varnish the plates in the studio, too). This course will have a prerequisite that you have worked in the positive Collodion process before.

The Colorado Wet Plate Collodion Field Workshops: Making Negatives & POP Prints: Friday, August 10, students will meet at Studio Q in Denver, Colorado at 4PM for an overview. They will cut, clean and prepare six pieces of glass. Saturday, August 11, students will meet at Studio Q early (0600/6AM) and depart for Mt. Evans. We will spend the day making six negatives each (in portable dark-boxes). Sunday, August 12, students will meet at Studio Q at 1200 to start the printing out process of their negatives. At the end of that day, students will varnish their negatives and we’ll talk about what we did throughout the course. This course will have a prerequisite that you have worked in the positive Collodion process before and understand it well.

The Colorado Wet Plate Collodion Field Workshops: Direct Positive Images: $595

The Colorado Wet Plate Collodion Field Workshops: Making Negatives & POP Prints: $695

PayPal add 3%: sales@studioQ.com

The American West Portraits; Hanging

I was very pleased with our trip to Paris to open my show. The photographs were received well, attendance was great and we had a wonderful time. 

We'll go back to close the show in June and do some more teaching, portraits and research for my next body of work. It's all very exciting. Thanks to everyone that helped make this possible. All of the sitters, the gallery, and most of all Jeanne!

These are some images that Fabrice Pejout posted on Facebook. These show the space, you can see why I get excited about my work hanging in this gallery. 

Here's an English article about the exhibition: France Revisited  

All 16"x20" Wet Collodion Positives - raw and real. photo by Fabrice Pejout

The main hallway - but there is a lot more to the catacombs that the images show. photo by Fabrice Pejout

Two 16"x20" Wet Collodion Positive plates. Photo by Fabrice Pejout

AKV | St. Joost Art School - Breda, The Netherlands

Recently, I had the opportunity to present my work and do a Wet Plate Collodion demonstration (I call them performative lectures) at AKV | St. Joost Art School in Breda, The Netherlands. 

Quinn talks about the details of the historic photographic processes. Photo by Philippe Moroux

Bruno, the sitter, listens as Quinn explains what will happen. Photo by Philippe Moroux

Bruno's plate ready for the fix. Photo by Philippe Moroux

Varnishing Bruno's plate. This is a 16cm x 16cm Black Glass Ambrotype. Photo by Philippe Moroux

Students and guests watch as Quinn shows the process and talks about his work. Photo by Philippe Moroux

Quinn varnishes a plate of a sitter with tattoos. This is a 16cm x 16cm Black Glass Ambrotype. Photo by Philippe Moroux 8" x 8" (20cm x 20cm) Black Glass Ambrotype.

"Wait! I thought you were leaving Europe, Quinn?"

I'm trying! There's been confusion about when I'm leaving Europe (because of what I've said/posted). To tell you the truth, I thought I would have been gone by now. I'm not.

The process of leaving is like a roller coaster. One day, everything is in place and the next day it's all changed. It's not quite working as smoothly or as fast as I thought it would, so I'm still here. At least for a little while longer.

It's very complicated to explain, but it has to do with the economy, my own desires and hopes for what I want next and patience. So, for right now, I'm going to resume living and do what I do best. Life's too short to put it on hold.

"A Photographic Heritage" by Benoît Boucherot

Yesterday afternoon I received a call from Jeanne. She told me I had a surprise in the mail and wanted me to guess what it was. I had no idea. As I rifled through my mind, trying to think what it could possibly be, she said, "It's the DVD from Benoît and it is amazing!" I couldn't wait to see it. 

The backstory goes something like this: When I was in Paris this year (March - June, 2010), I was approached by an artist/filmmaker named Benoît Boucherot. He asked if I would be interested in allowing him to make a documentary about my time in Paris and my photographic/artistic life. He explained to me what he would do and what his intentions were and I said, "Yes".

The result of his hard work and incredible talent is this, a 44 minute documentary about me, my family, my work and my time in Paris. I think he did an outstanding job capturing the feeling and the passion behind all of the hard work and incredible fun we had in Paris. 

When I get permission, I'll upload a clip or two from the DVD. I hope to offer this in my store at some point, too. The front and back of the DVD. It's in English and French, depending on who's talking.

Un documentaire non commenté de Benoît Boucherot
44 minutes - HD 16/9e PAL - VOSTFR
2010 - Les productions Rwann Hearn

" Photographe américain vivant en Allemagne, Quinn Jacobson a exposé ses ambrotypes et alumitypes au Collodion humide pendant 4 mois à Paris au Centre Iris pour la photographie. Depuis trois ans, son van bluesy parcourt toute l’Europe pour transmettre, lors de workshops, cette technique héritée de Frederick Scott Archer, l’inventeur du Collodion humide en 1847, contemporain de Daguerre et Talbot, disparu totalement oublié dans une immense pauvreté. Assisté de sa femme Jean et de leur fille Summer, il invite également régulièrement les chalands à être photographiés lors de séances de prises de vue réalisées avec ses chambres traditionnelles. Et la magie du procédé ancestral, et l’émotion de la révélation de l’image unique se rejouent ainsi sous nos yeux lors d’instants fugaces frappés d’une stupéfaction sans cesse renouvelée. Il a accueilli mes regards, ma caméra et mon Leica, dans son studio éphémère au mois de Juin. Cela peut bien se passer de commentaires... "

 

French 3 Television

France 3 TV's piece about Quinn's exhibition in Paris at Centre Iris Gallery.

France 3 TV just aired this piece this week. The spot is about my exhibiton and work in the Wet Plate Collodion process. They also show a lot of images from my exhibition in Paris at the Centre Iris Gallery. It's a really good piece - very "top shelf". I'm very pleased. Enjoy!

“In Honour of Archer” Just Another Exhibition? I Think Not!

 

Next month, on May 1, the exhibition, “In Honour of Archer” will open in London. There will be close to thirty Frederick Scott Archer, 1813 - 1857pieces of artwork in the show. All of the work is Collodion or Collodion-based from artists all over the world working in the Collodion process. I can’t over emphasize the importance of this exhibit and event. Not only for today, moreover, for posterity.

Every once in a while, there’s an opportunity to contribute and be involved in something that will be far more important in the future than it is today. The problem is being able to recognize those opportunities and then having the chutzpah to make the sacrifices to get “some skin in the game”.

“In Honour of Archer”, is one of those opportunities that I can say with great confidence, will take its place in history. It’s bigger than all of us. It’s its own thing, like a mountain so high that it generates its own weather system. It has its own energy, we’re just trying to keep up.

The work presented in the show will have a certain gravitas, too. A provenance, if you will. In this case, the context of the work is much greater than the work itself. I don’t mean that in the pejorative, I really like the work that has been submitted, I mean that in the way that this isn’t “just another exhibition”. I mean that the photographs in this exhibition are forever connected to this event. It’s the connection that gives this purpose – that’s what makes this so important. I wonder if people get that.

A hundred years from now, no one will know or care what you or I did today. We may see what we’re doing in our daily lives as important, but no one will remember. No one will care. John Popper, from the Blues Traveler band, has a great lyric in a song called, “100 Years”. It sums up the ephemeral nature of our day-to-day existence. He says,

“Big angry man in the doorway there
Just keep on walking like I don't care
Why you giving such an evil eye
Could it be you were ignored by every passerby
And it won't mean a thing in a hundred years
No, it won't mean a thing in a hundred years”

Our death denial illusions are exposed and open for G-d and the world to see them when we talk about our achievements for future generations. However, in my opinion, this event transcends those illusions. This is one of those things that we all know is the right thing to do. So why has it taken 157 years?

I feel neither allegiance nor indebtedness to anyone except Archer when it comes to the Wet Plate Collodion process. Without Archer, and some others in the 19^th Century, Collodion would have been a shelved process, at least as far as we know it today. He’s never received the recognition or the proper acknowledgments from his country, the big photography museums or the academic establishments. They should be embarrassed and ashamed. I'm glad, however, that like people us, the Collodion Collective, were able to come together and make his commemoration what it should be.

Unfortunately, as Parker and Stone said, "Sometimes what's right isn't as important as what's profitable." In that context, this is not, “just another exhibition”.

Thank you to everyone that participated in any way – you’ve done a great thing!

Spanish Magazine Features My Work

If there's one constant in life and art, it's change. And I'm learning to embrace it.

After some serious soul searching, I've come to the conclusion that my work falls under one main idea - one thought - “the other”. I can't distinguish any longer between a portrait of a mentally challenged trash man in Utah or an image of a smokestack next to a (former) concentration camp in Germany. The theme and ideas are the same to me now.

To my mind, my work is about difference (I often refer to this as, "the other") and memory. It's an investigation about how we see each other and what that means in our daily lives. The memory is both personal and universal - do we learn anything from the past, or is it something we ignore and/or deny? I want my work to question self-consciousness, too. I request that the viewer think about themselves from the inside out, not outside in - a unexamined life...

I heard a comment about the words, "equal" and "the same", last night on the radio. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so it was a good time to reflect on equality, difference, and sameness.

I came to realize that I don't want everyone to be the same, but I want equality. In a perfect world, we would all be equal (rights, respect, etc.) and we would embrace one another's differences. That's in a perfect world. I suppose that's what I try to do. In a circuitous way, I try to celebrate the differences between us. I enjoy a unique face as much, or more, than a "beautiful" face, etc. etc.

I am infinitely infatuated with difference (in a good way). I think I equate difference/uniqueness with awareness somehow. I don't mean that in the sense of trends or fads, but in the sense of being who you are, fully aware of that (internally) and letting the world deal with it - not the other way around.Excerpt from 1:1's website - "War Damage".

That brings me to the intent of my blog; a Spanish online magazine called, "1:1Foto Magazine" out of Madrid has featured some of my work in this issue. You can see it here or click on the image to go to the site. They are a great group of people and actually understand what I'm doing and have done. Muchas gracias!

I'm very happy to be making work, thinking, dreaming and living more as an artist now. I will continue to work toward being more self-aware and not being disconcerted about being who I am. And I'll continue to make work in that context with the hope of teaching myself, and others, tolerance.

Thomas Huxley said, "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."