It is hard for me to write that Red’s time as a working dog is coming. He is slowing down and struggles to get ahead of the sheep. He has arthritis in his back and legs and sometimes moves stiffly. Fate zooms past him running two or three times faster, and I see his confidence and speed and great authority are waning.
Red is a remarkable working dog, he is my shadow and other self in so many ways, but if love is to be selfless it needs to be about someone other than myself, love is not about what I need but what he needs.
I think I need to retire him from hard and fast herding work very soon, in the next couple of months. I will begin scaling back his work immediately. He is getting laser treatments and massage, I don’t want his condition to deteriorate unnecessarily.
That doesn’t mean he can’t come into the pasture or watch the sheep, or do some light work, but it does mean I need to get another working border collie, and either train one as a puppy or find or purchase one with experience. This morning I sent him off on an outrun and he could not get in front of the sheep for the first time.
I called him, gave him a great hug and he wagged his tail softly. It’s time, I thought.
Red is entering his 10th year, and I wish for him to live a long time, as a therapy dog and companion dog. If I keep working him as he slows, he will not last as long as he should and can. So it is up to me to retire him in the coming weeks from active running and working.
Red accepts direction and change without complaint – unlike his young companion Fate, who shrieks as if she being murdered if anyone goes out the door and towards the pasture without here.
Since she has not evolved into the working dog I expected her to be, I will need to get another, it is soon time to call Dr. Karen Thompson, the finest border collie breeder I have ever encountered and a trusted friend. I got Red and Fate from her, and one can’t do much better than that.
I accept change but I admit to writing this with a heavy heart, working with Red has been one of the joys of my life and I will now begin to pare down the length and breadth of his work. It’s time.
Red is a natural therapy dog and we will continue to work together in that way, and I will share the experience with you. A new chapter in Red’s life.
Maria too this photo of me after the portrait show was hung. Her own account of the show is here. It was a humbling experience. I did blush a bit. To me, a portrait is a challenge to the photographer to capture a bit of someone’s soul. That is hard to do. I hope I did it sometimes.
“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you. I am here to live out loud.” — Emile Zola.
Maria hung my portrait show today at the Round House Cafe, we put up 27 framed portraits and filled the three available walls. I got a very warm response from several people who came in while we were working (Maria and Scott Carrino hung the show together, I was not allowed to make many comments.)
It is, I think, sometimes wonderful to see people up on a wall that you recognize and care about.
As is often the case with art, two questions came up: what would I charge for the photographs, and would I consider giving many of them away to the subjects or their families?
it’s an interesting question for any artist, and complex one for me. I generally give all of my photographs away on my blog, especially since some of my readers helped me buy some photographic equipment.
That is our deal, and I have honored it, I’ve given away more than 60,000 photographs in one way or another, they are worth much more than a camera. I don’t bookmark them or copyright them or charge for their use.
A portrait show is different.
All over the country, people are about what art is worth. These days, many in government and politics, and many people online believe it is worth little.
Of course, I believe art is essential. Picasso said that art is the lie than enables us to see the truth
Maria and I killed ourselves to buy the frames and mattes for this show as inexpensively as possible, we drove many miles picking up frames on sale and mattes that were good but not custom-made. We are determined advocates for affordable art, in our work, in our Open Houses.
The prints were made on archival paper by the brilliant photographer George Forss, and for all of our efforts to save the printing and framing cost over $1,000. I wouldn’t want to do it any more cheaply than that.
Because of all the scrimping and searching for online bargains, I can sell the photographs framed and matted for $150, a fraction of what portraits usually cost in galleries or at art shows. At my last photography show, I had to charge $400 a photo just to break even. That was my last photo show, I didn’t care for the cost or the process.
The portrait idea – with the help of my readers, I bought a monochrome black and white camera earlier this year – convinced me to try it again. Almost all of the photos were taken on the monochrome, and I thank you all again.
I was asked if I would consider giving the photos away, especially to family members of friends of the subjects.
I did some soul-searching about that – the show opens to the public a week from Monday (Labor Day) and there will be a reception September 18th at the Round House Cafe, 2 to 4 p.m.) – and talked to Maria and some other artists and photographers.
People who give their art a way undermine every other artist or writer in the world, I think, and makes it harder than ever for them to survive in the corporate earth.
I don’t think I want to give my art away for free. If one of the subjects or a member of their family is struggling financially and asks for help, I would certainly offer it. I’ve given three portrait photos away already to people who clearly had no money and couldn’t afford to pay. Many people assume that I give hard cover books and photos away, and after giving so many away, I was persuaded to stop. There is no virtue to working for free, as I was very slow to learn.
I am not sure who would buy a portrait of someone else, I don’t expect to sell many. But that’s beside the point.
I know that portraits sell for huge amounts of money in urban art galleries, and I think $150 is a very reasonable price for signed and original black and white work on archival paper.
As I learned when I began the voluntary payment (subscription) program, it is important to be paid for one’s work. Photography and blogs are expensive to maintain.
I spent many hot and sweaty and intense hours taking these photographs, many more editing and helping to frame and prepare them. I bought lighting equipment and hauled it all over the county.
This is no lament, I loved every minute of it, and I am very excited about the resulted. I would love to do it again, but I doubt I can afford to do it very often, if at all.
Once in a while, somebody sends me a message asking me how I dare seek voluntary payments for my blog. They don’t, they say, pay for online content. I wish them well. For some years, the idea of paying people for their work online was almost heretical, and many writers and artists are no longer doing their work.
I am a grateful and determined survivor.
If I’m in a good mood, I ask these people who write me these messages if they get paid for their work, and that usually silences them. If they do respond and tell me they get paid for my work, I ask them why I should not get paid for mine. For years I didn’t, I was a big shot, and shame on me.
I told the person who asked me about this issue in the cafe that I did wish to be paid and was asking $150 for each portrait, and I would be surprised to make any money off of this show. I didn’t do it for that. The idea is to celebrate my community and to expand creatively, not make money. If I can recoup the costs, then I can do it again. Otherwise, I doubt that I will be able to afford to do more portrait shows.
Maria did an amazing job organizing the show, it is, I think, uplifting.
There isn’t a sad photo or unpleasant person in any portrait. I smile every time I look at them. They are radiant and loving.
I am continually astonished at Maria’s energy, drive and diverse skills. She does so many things so well. She jumped up and down the ladder about a hundred times, putting the photos higher, lowering them, moving them around.
Scott was astonished at how fast she was. I wasn’t.
This was a work of love for me.
I chose people I liked or loved, people who work hard and who make-up the hardy and resilient community where I live. The show was inspired by my photographs of Kelly Nolan, a waitress and bartender at a local tavern. She let me take her portrait time and time again this summer (I would love to do a Kelly Nolan portrait show).
Even though the economists and politicians long ago decided farms and rural communities were too inefficient to thrive in the global economy, people are still her, working hard and caring for one another.
The values of rural life are on display in almost every portrait, and I am reminded that these values shaped our country and, in many ways, define it still.
Kelly Nolan’s photograph is in color and holds the spot of honor in the center of the big wall. I am grateful to her.
The show is a testament to community, to the people who stayed behind as millions fled small towns and farms and rural communities for the complex, expensive and often unpleasant work experience of the city. There, people have jobs. Here, we have callings.
I honor these people for saying and for fighting for community. They honor me by agreeing to be photographed. I thank Maria for her encouragement, inspiration, patience and never-wavering support.
Thanks to Kelly Nolan for being such a courageous and authentic human being. Thanks to the subjects for trusting me with their images.
Thanks to Lisa and Scott Carrino for letting me put my portraits on the cafe walls.
And yes, I will expect to be paid for my photos. $150. My work is worth at least that. On behalf of writers and artists everywhere, I do need to charge for the photos, not just give them away.
As always, people without resources can come and speak to me.
Griselle has great character as well as beautiful wool. She is not a leader, she stays in the center of the flock, but she has a forceful and regal look. The sheep in the Gang Of Four have great character and bearing, they do not like to be told what to do.
Hanging The Portraits: Carol Gulley And Her Rescued Baby Turkey
Today, Maria and Lisa Carrino will meet at the Round House Cafe to hang my portrait show “Cambridge People: Those Who Stayed Behind.”
For me, the show is a turning point, my first plunge into portraiture, a celebration of work, heart and community.
And a very challenging creative turn.
In some ways, I’m discovering my own new movement to redefine the idea of the rural landscape, I call it post-landscape imagery. Landscapes are beautiful, and they are also popular, but I wanted to find a way to capture what I believe is the genuine landscape of rural life for me, the people who have stayed in the country and who work hard to keep their communities alive.
Rural communities all over American have been left behind by corporatism, politics and the Darwinian ideas of the new global economy in which some benefit and many are left behind.
Since World War II, there has been a vast migration of people away from farms and rural areas and into cities, where many work in jobs, not callings, for people who care nothing about them. The portraits are the faces of those who have stayed behind and are living their lives.
The true rural landscape is gritty, poignant, heartbreaking, determined, inspiring.
But not sylvan.
For me, the creative path is not those beautiful hills and barns, but of the people who keep our communities alive.
All those pristine farms and green hills are largely the stuff of fantasy to me – the rural life we wish to remember and celebrate, but not the rural life that has been abandoned by economists and politicians for the past half-century and is struggling to adapt and survive
I have nothing to add to the sylvan landscapes that are so popular – real farms are gritty, riddled with junk and struggle, Main Street all over America are filled with empty storefronts and abandoned factories and mills. Rural landscapes evoke a beautiful world, but that is not what moves me here.
In my town, Cambridge, N.Y., there is a diverse community – farmers, truckers, artists, writers, New York refugees, contractors – and a strong sense of community. I set out to photograph good people who work hard and who are an integral part of our community. I could only photograph a few, there are many more.
To me, people like Carol Gully – a dairy farmer pictured above and who works back-breaking hours alongside her husband every day of the year – comprise the true rural landscape, portraits of the unseen. You will not ever see their faces on the news, but they are a big story here.
Carol can ride and fix a tractor, and milk cows for hours, she also saves baby birds out in the field that the tractors have threatened and nurses them back to health.
The hippie who became a bookkeeper for non-profits, the urban women who fled here to become a Dreamcatcher and goat breeder, the business student who became a much-loved butcher, the beloved hair stylist on Main Street the bookstore owner, the engineer turned carpenter, the artist who sells corn and others who have followed their bliss or re-invited themselves.
These are the people who have not fled to the big cities to work in jobs they hate, but have stood their ground. I am excited to have taken their portraits. The show will be hung today but the the Round House will be closed this upcoming week. There will be a reception for the subjects and their families and for the general public September 18th at the Round House, 2 to 4 p.m.
