never quite understood how my images have ‘tumblr followings’ completely independent of my own blog
Siberian huskies belonging to musher Mike King wait for him to return outside of the Ace Hardware store in Traverse City, Mich.
Photo: Keith King / Associated Press (via SFGate: Day in Pictures)
Bruce Wrighton
Yesterday I saw a parking attendent who had just the right look in his eyes. I didn’t even introduce myself, I said,’Can I take your picture?’ And either because I was so forceful, or he was so open, or there was something in my sincerity, he just said, ‘Sure’.
He was a fairly young kid. Weeping eyes. Eyes that really spoke of the pain of having to struggle versus really wanting to find a home. As I chatted with him as I was making the picture – again setting up the 8 by 10 is not like the snap-snap of an SLR. It takes 16 minutes to get the whole thing together. It’s a comittment and it’s a building relationship.
I find that important because I need to develop some kind of rapport with these people. So during that rapport building session, he mentioned he was going in the army. I said to myself, ‘Gee that’s just so fitting’. To me when a young kid tells me they’re going in the army and they’re working in some parking lot or something like that; I don’t know for certain, but I say’This kid’s looking for direction’. But in his eyes I got the sense that the direction had to come from within him.
Anyway, the kid had a nice pink shirt and red hair and a red hat. There were aesthetic reasons as well (he laughs), the psychological and the spiritual element have to be there, but as well a successful image for me has to be aesthetically balanced.
(via jesuisperdu)
Vl.T., 35 years, chronic alcoholism. In the psychiatric hospital did repeatedly in connection with recurrent alcoholic psychoses. His illness was aggravated by a dysfunctional family history - a sister suffered from schizophrenia. All drawings, reflecting the psychopathological experiences made at the output of psychosis and in the bright interval (out binge.) The author had an unfinished art education, professionally mastered techniques of painting.
Underscore, our new feature series that surveys undervalued artists, eras, and scenes of the musical past, kicks off with a deep analysis of Portland punks Wipers by Nick Sylvester.
My dad knows these guys. In fact, they’ve collaborated musically in the past. Greg Sage is (from what I remember) a strange, slightly eccentric genius of a dude. I remember him being around here and there when I was a little kid. I have a lot of early, random punk rock memories, like watching my dad’s band (The Stiphnoyds) practice in a basement with big headphones on as a toddler, and going to shows at Satyricon and the X-Ray Cafe in Portland.
Anyway, The Wipers and their music are so interwoven in my childhood memories that I’m always surprised and thrilled when I remember that they existed to the rest of the world, too, at least to those cool enough to discover and appreciate their music. Maybe some people have memories of taking roadtrips in a Buick listening to Journey at full volume and I do too (I’m looking at you, Mom!) but I also have these awesome memories of my dad’s vinyl collection and of driving back and forth between my rural hometown and Portland with my father, maybe in his seafoam green Volkswagen bus or one of the old Subarus he had listening to punk rock. He would teach me about Oregon geological history, like the Bretts floods, about politics and current events, why 1968 was the worst year of his life, or whatever else was on his mind that day. We’d stop at Burgerville and I would always get a root beer.
I’m not sure if all these were intentional lessons or if he just rambled the tale of the day unaware that the words would stick with me for years afterward but either way I’m glad we had those weekend drives. When I grew up enough to have a driver’s license and a car I started taking the trip to his house and back on weekends myself, and sort of missed those drives we used to take, even the ones where we ran out of gas.
