Month: March 2012

Bicycle, Jack’s Outback Antiques, Cambridge, N.Y.

Photograph George Forss is an internationally-known legend among photographers. He was discovered by  Photographer David Douglas Duncan peddling his photographs on the streets of New York City, and Duncan got Forss published by McGraw Hill – New York, New York, Masterworks Of A Street Peddler –  and he took his stunning and innovative black and white images of New York City for decades. I was walking around Cambridge, N.Y, taking pictures when I ran into a friend, who told me that Forss’s gallery in Cambridge, Ginofor, was right nearby. I had heard of Forss and knew he lived nearby but never met him. I was surprised that he  knew of me and had seen some of my photographs and had some generous things to say about them. Forss’s style of photography has been shoved aside by the explosion in digital and cell phone cameras – everyone in America is a photographer now, including me. Before the digital camera, is was another world. But his work holds up beautifully, it is striking and inspiring to me.

I loved his stories of peddling his street shots, even getting arrested for working without a permit. When he got to court, he saw that the Judge had lined the courtroom with his pictures. He still had to pay the fine. Forss has a darkroom in the back of the gallery. He lives upstairs.

I asked if he might consider doing a photo show together with me, and he agreed. We might do it at the Pig Barn Gallery at Bedlam Farm this Spring or Summer if Maria will agree to it. It would be a great privilege for me to show my photos with George Forss. He uses all kinds of cameras, and has even made some of his own. We spent the next couple of years yakking about photography, and we are both excited about showing our work together. Forss’s work is shown by the Park Slope Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y., and you can see it here. I am happy to know George and he says he’d love to come out to the farm and take some photos. I’d love that too. Stay tuned for details of the show.

More than a week after the fox attack, Meg and Toots are both laying eggs again, and this is really the point of having chickens for me. They do taste very good and I love their shapes.

I discovered this week that worms have magical healing powers, if you are a chicken. Took my first walk on the road of the Spring – two asses on the road – with Simon this morning. Going to see “Hunger Games” Sunday. Farrier Ken Norman is coming Sunday afternoon.

Struggle stories are embedded in my consciousness and in the culture around me. I was so used to seeing my life in terms of struggle that I nearly drowned the story of my own life. A friend tells me that men are seeking to control the lives of women, even as the men in her life are unfailingly sensitive and supportive. A man tells me he is afraid to bring a child into the awful world, even though he has a rich and loving marriage,  and a close and affirming family. Another friend tells me his doctors and medications leave him feeling angry and poorly, yet he makes appointment after appointment, and is  creative, productive and active. A relative complains that her vet bills are outrageous and unfair, yet she acquires more and more animals who are sick, needy or aged. A woman tells me God cannot live in a world in which her beloved mother dies at 78, and I wonder if the definition of a loving God is eternal life? If so, we are all atheists.

A reader tells me she mourns her late dog every day, and has for the past five or six years, yet she never mentions his good life or the life of the four dogs she loves and lives with now. I get messages every day telling me how awful it was to lose Rose, how sad it is,  yet that lament does not come from me or my heart – I celebrate Rose and am grateful for her, but my life is filled with people, dogs, donkeys and friends and work that love. Why should I be in perpetual mourning? Is that my story, or the one expected of me? Do we mourn every animal that dies? Are we stricken by every one that is hurt? Shocked by every death?   I do not feel sorry for myself. I am working on another script.

It seems that the very nature of life is a surprise and disappointment to people, the texture of our lives complaint, argument,  struggle. Do these stories match our own lives? Are they surprises, and injustices, or are they the very essence of life itself, inescapable and universal? What do we expect from life? I don’t wish for a perfect life, without loss, death, and struggle. Everyone and everything I love will die, if I don’t get to it first. I am grateful for every one. To me, a life without loss and challenge would be a meaningless life.

I love the stories of people who set out in the world to find themselves. I am reading a good one now, “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed, a young woman who set out to hike the Pacific Crest Trail after her divorce and the death of her mother. I relate so much to this story, as I did another version of it myself, coming to this remote farm in Upstate New York with a bunch of dogs, donkeys and sheep to try and find myself. I don’t yet know what finally happened to her, but as for me, I fell right off the cliff and crawled back up.

My struggle story is  not to tell struggle stories any longer, or enable them.