The old stone walls are easy to pass by, they are mostly forgotten, rarely used, part of the lost landscape of rural life, but they are not to be taken for granted I think, they call out for remembrance, they deserve to be noted. I do take them for granted, it has been more than a year since I photograph them, I call them the old fold, the quiet ladies and gentlemen who tamed the place, marked land and boundaries, kept animals in, people out.
Putting up a Sunday album on Facebook.
I drove by Bedlam Farm today, it had been awhile since I had seen this place and I was happy to see it looking lived in and well cared for, we have wonderful tenants who love the farm and keep it up well, there are children there, which is wonderful, and a dog and cat. They are thinking of getting some donkeys to help keep the pasture down.
I always feel a pull in my heart when I drive up that road, so much happened to me there, but this time it was different. I am so relieved to see the farm occupied, and so fortunate to have this family as our tenants, I can see they love it as well. I was invited inside, but really couldn’t bear to go in, it is still a bit raw for me. I loved that Jeff keeps his snow plow truck in the back pasture pole barn where Elvis, my 3,000 lb steer lived, and where Simon came to recuperate from his awful injuries.
It was a great symbol of the transition, it just looked right to me.
I plan to enter Mickey Forss’s world over time and enter it and capture it. I found Mickey in town today at 1:30 p.m., Mickey lives in his own world, in his own head. I often see him, he is always alone, I never see him speaking to himself, rarely to others. He is always neat, clean and dressed warmly, he always has a cap or hat on, he is often smoking a cigarette, always holding soda or coffee. Sometimes I see him sitting in front of Battenkill Books, there is a network of cashiers, waitresses, shop owners who keep an eye out for him, he is polite, well-mannered, avoids dogs, causes no trouble.
Mickey sleeps little, watches TV at night, has his meals with George. George does not tell struggle stories, he does now dwell on his hard life or the challenging responsibilities he has undertaken. I look forward to entering Mickey’s world and capturing some sense of it.
Meet Mickey Forss, half-brother of George Forss, my friend and the famous New York landscape photographer. Mickey lives with George in Cambridge, N.Y. and he can usually be found near a local pharmacy and convenience store. I have wanted to do some portraits of Mickey for some time, and he and George talked about it today and both are happy with the idea.
Me, too. You will be seeing Mickey regularly on the blog, it is a privilege to photograph him. Like his brother George, Mickey has a powerful back-story. He grew up with George in New York City, was drawn into the 1960’s counter-cultural movement, and suffered neurological damage from heavy drug use. Mickey was hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia. He vanished from George’s life for seven years and then one day, a disheveled, bearded street man sat down next to George in a Chock Full O’Nuts coffee shop in Manhattan and said, “how’s Norma?,” the name of George’s mother. George had found his brother, and he has been helping to care for him ever since.
Micky lived in Brooklyn for some time, and when George moved upstate in 1989, he brought Mickey with him, but he ran off to New York several times, and George and friends and the police would spend months looking for him – he gravitated to life under the boardwalk at Coney Island. Mickey is now stable on medications and is content with his life in Cambridge, he lives upstairs from George and is well-known among locals and merchants, who sometimes give him coffee and soda and donate clothes. I talked with Mickey this afternoon, where I found him sitting in front of a local store, where he often sits in the afternoon, today with a can of soda. Mickey has seen me at George’s apartment and gallery, he knows me. He is gentle, sometimes child-like, shy about talking but courteous and friendly.
I asked him if it was okay if I took his picture and came back from time to time to record some images of his life, and he said yes, he would be happy to do that. He didn’t want any money but accepted a cup of coffee. It is my hope to return and photograph Mickey, he is a presence in my town and in my mind. George is a profoundly sweet and caring man, and Mickey is another compelling and poignant chapter in the life of the remarkable genius, my friend. He is now a part of my life, a part of the Bedlam Farm lexicon. So I’m putting up two photos of Mickey Forss today and introducing him to you, you will see more of him. I hope to capture his life in images over time.
It is a gift to live here and have so much to photograph and care about.
Sophie is the farm dog at Happenchance Farm, one of the most successful and respected organic farms around where I live and she is one of the great farm dogs I have known. On Sundays, she comes with her farmer to the Cambridge Farmer’s Market, and she waits for him – in warm weather right underneath the stand, in cold weather like today, she finds a spot in the sun (today on the truck.) She does not run off, bark at people, or mind anyone’s business but her human. She is not grabbed and rubbed like a stuffed animals, she is happy to be close and to wait, she is trusted completely.
Great farms dogs are among the most wonderful dogs in the world, they are allowed to be the wonderful animals that they are, they are not turned into children and objects of need. Sophie is a Queen.
