Realized I never posted this year's Year of the Sheep Lunar Greeting from February
http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=013a28d9f024038bd399086bb&id=7345872680&e=f3dda5cc05
and now, my Spring Update
http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=013a28d9f024038bd399086bb&id=d6ce291030&e=0351ba6630
So honored to be included in BOTH SIDES OF SUNSET: PHOTOGRAPHING LOS ANGELES, from Metropolis Books/D.A.P., to be premiered at ParisPhotoLA on this coming Saturday, 2 May from 3pm - 4pm.
Come to ParisPhotoLA on Saturday where 50 of the artists (including me!) will participate in a massive book launch & signing at the Glee VIP Room (the New York Backlot on Chicago street). Books will also be available at the ArtBook/D.A.P. booth and online.
The list of photographers included is long and stellar (below is only the list signing Saturday) and it is a privilege to be among them.
BOTH SIDES OF SUNSET is edited by Jane Brown & Marla Kennedy with an introduction by David Ulin and forward by Ed Ruscha.
My contribution: Two prints from my GRIDLOCK project.
AND IN OTHER NEWS:
Just returned from the New York City opening of Water to Paper: Paint to Sky, Tyrus Wong's retrospective that traveled from the Walt Disney Family Musem, SF to the Museum of Chinese in America and in which I have ten large prints of Tyrus, his family and community out flying kites at Santa Monica Beach
Lots of wonderful accolades for this so gracious and talented man including an article in the Wall Street Journal (and using my photographs!).
At the New York Historical Society I was able to finally see the installation of my photographs of Tyrus and his kites - the closing panel and in the closing video - in their just closed exhibition: Chinese Americans: Inclusion/Exclusion. The exhibition is traveling early 2016 to the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, OR.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Sara Jane Boyers Photo_Winter Update 2014
The Fall consisted of several deadlines, two museum openings for exhibitions that contained work from me and two important visits as I returned to my DETROIT: DEFINTION project. A good season.
Here is my Winter Update (also available at http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=013a28d9f024038bd399086bb&id=9f767c8688&e=0351ba6630)
SarahLeePROJECTS@PhotoLA
Below: Tyrus at his 104th (!) birthday kite-fly this past October!
ASMP/LA, of which I am an Architectural & Fine Art specialty member, included some of my GRIDLOCK imagery in a slide show of their "favourite female photographers," which was projected at the Month of Photography Los Angeles (MOPLA) closing event in late April at Boulevard 3 in Hollywood.
Asian and Pacific Islander Calendar and Cultural Guide
Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
NO FIXED ADDRESS @ The Leonardo, Salt Lake City
November 6, 2014 - Spring 2015
With great joy this Fall I was able to resume my long-term project photographing in my birth city, Detroit.
I visited there two times, the first: to attend the DETROIT HOMECOMING, an ingenious project that invited a group of "expats" back to the city for an intensive set of days with speakers, tours and information about what is happening now in Detroit. And happening it is, the fast re-growth so apparent even from my last - Summer 2013 - visit. I have been chronicling this on my Detroit Definition Blogspot with lots of photographs.
I returned again for almost a week in mid-November, photographing primarily. Busy with deadlines and a wealth of subject matter and images captured, not all of that trip is yet downloaded and thus not yet on the blogspot. Suffice to say that each visit brings new encounters, new hope as I see neighborhoods cleaning themselves up, commercial streets reviving not only in downtown, and new buildings (the Wayne State Bio-Engineering Building with which I started this update) and businesses. Detroit's bankruptcy resolved the day I flew in. I am meeting residents with the fortitude to carry on in a city still in flux but with increasing faith in innovation, re-invention and community as progress continues, not without some barriers, but continue it does.
The beauty of the fall, combined with Detroit's first day of snow while I was there only contributed to the magic of this city.
Here is my Winter Update (also available at http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=013a28d9f024038bd399086bb&id=9f767c8688&e=0351ba6630)
Winter Update 2014
A bit close to the holidays but I did want to share several exciting upcoming events already in place for 2015 as well as good news since my Spring report on the Leica Gallery/Los Angeles opening of my GRIDLOCK project.
A bit close to the holidays but I did want to share several exciting upcoming events already in place for 2015 as well as good news since my Spring report on the Leica Gallery/Los Angeles opening of my GRIDLOCK project.
New Bio-Engineering Building, Wayne State University, Detroit November 2014
FIRST: Looking Ahead to 2015!
SarahLeePROJECTS@PhotoLA
Friday, 16 January through Sunday, 18 January
Opening Night Gala 15 January
Opening Night Gala 15 January
sarahleeprojects.blogspot.com
Along with Los Angeles-based photographers Aline Smithson, Ann Mitchell and Martin Cox, I will be showing work from my continuing REVISIT.RENEW.NEW fine art architectural project that emphasizes line, form and detail in the living space.
Along with Los Angeles-based photographers Aline Smithson, Ann Mitchell and Martin Cox, I will be showing work from my continuing REVISIT.RENEW.NEW fine art architectural project that emphasizes line, form and detail in the living space.
WATER TO PAPER: PAINT TO SKY @MOCA_NYC
March 2014
March 2014
Museum of Chinese in America, New York
www.mocanyc.org
The retrospective of now 104 year-old artist, TYRUS WONG, is traveling from its 2013 opening at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco to NYC's Museum of Chinese In America, a recent building designed by artist/designer Maya Lin, the creator of the elegant and poignant Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in DC.
A beautifully compiled exhibition on such a talented artist and lovely man, the section of the exhibition with my photographic "story" of Tyrus and friends flying his hand-made kites at the beach was a hit in SF and will be included in the NYC retrospective as will be the elegant exhibition catalog that features a centerfold of my kite photographs. My little book GO FLY A KITE: SATURDAYS AT THE BEACH WITH TYRUS WONG will also be there. It can be previewed on issuu at http://issuu.com/sarajaneboyersphoto/docs/sjboyers_goflyakite_1
www.mocanyc.org
The retrospective of now 104 year-old artist, TYRUS WONG, is traveling from its 2013 opening at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco to NYC's Museum of Chinese In America, a recent building designed by artist/designer Maya Lin, the creator of the elegant and poignant Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in DC.
A beautifully compiled exhibition on such a talented artist and lovely man, the section of the exhibition with my photographic "story" of Tyrus and friends flying his hand-made kites at the beach was a hit in SF and will be included in the NYC retrospective as will be the elegant exhibition catalog that features a centerfold of my kite photographs. My little book GO FLY A KITE: SATURDAYS AT THE BEACH WITH TYRUS WONG will also be there. It can be previewed on issuu at http://issuu.com/sarajaneboyersphoto/docs/sjboyers_goflyakite_1
Below: Tyrus at his 104th (!) birthday kite-fly this past October!
Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles
Metropolis Books/Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P)
Launching at ParisPhotoLA 2015
metropolisbooks.com/books/forthcoming-titles/
Two photographs from my GRIDLOCK project will be published in Metropolis Books/DAP's new book, Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles, the sequel to the acclaimed and sold out Looking at Los Angeles (Metropolis Books 2005). The editorial contributors are amazing; the list of photographers is stellar and I am so honored to be included! Look for it in Paris Photo's ever crowded D.A.P booth in early May!
Metropolis Books/Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P)
Launching at ParisPhotoLA 2015
metropolisbooks.com/books/forthcoming-titles/
Two photographs from my GRIDLOCK project will be published in Metropolis Books/DAP's new book, Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles, the sequel to the acclaimed and sold out Looking at Los Angeles (Metropolis Books 2005). The editorial contributors are amazing; the list of photographers is stellar and I am so honored to be included! Look for it in Paris Photo's ever crowded D.A.P booth in early May!
SECOND: News From SUMMER, FALL, WINTER 2014
update: GRIDLOCK @ LEICA GALLERY LOS ANGELES
The exhibit is over but there is nothing better than a great interviewer, even post-show, who makes you feel comfortable and asks intelligent, provocative questions. Ibarionex Perello made me sound so good and in so doing, helped me also understand better what in fact I am doing. So honored as well to be among the photographers he has chosen to speak with! The interview is available on The Candid Frame (#238)
The limited edition set of boxed prints, Gridlock: Tire & Tread is still at the Leica Gallery/LA, as is a framed photograph from the show, hanging in their VIP viewing room!
update: GRIDLOCK @ LEICA GALLERY LOS ANGELES
The exhibit is over but there is nothing better than a great interviewer, even post-show, who makes you feel comfortable and asks intelligent, provocative questions. Ibarionex Perello made me sound so good and in so doing, helped me also understand better what in fact I am doing. So honored as well to be among the photographers he has chosen to speak with! The interview is available on The Candid Frame (#238)
The limited edition set of boxed prints, Gridlock: Tire & Tread is still at the Leica Gallery/LA, as is a framed photograph from the show, hanging in their VIP viewing room!
POWERHOUSE ASMP_LA@MOPLA
ASMP/LA, of which I am an Architectural & Fine Art specialty member, included some of my GRIDLOCK imagery in a slide show of their "favourite female photographers," which was projected at the Month of Photography Los Angeles (MOPLA) closing event in late April at Boulevard 3 in Hollywood.
Asian and Pacific Islander Calendar and Cultural Guide
Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs
Honored that again, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs has included two of my photographs of the Los Angeles downtown Chinatown from my FINDING CHINATOWN project in their 2014 Asian And Pacific Islander Cultural Heritage and Calendar.
CHINESE AMERICAN: EXCLUSION/INCLUSION
@ The New York Historical Society
September 26, 2014 - April 19, 2015
@ The New York Historical Society
September 26, 2014 - April 19, 2015
The New York Historical Society is exhibiting THREE of my photographs for their new exhibition, CHINESE AMERICAN: EXCLUSION/INCLUSION, two on the introductory panel to their closing section on contemporary Chinese-Americans and the third in their exhibition video.
NO FIXED ADDRESS @ The Leonardo, Salt Lake City
November 6, 2014 - Spring 2015
For their new exhibition, NO FIXED ADDRESS: THE FACE OF AMERICA'S HOMELESS, The Leonardo, Salt Lake City's terrific new museum about exploration and seeing, commissioned me to photograph the iconic Santa Barbara Moreton Bay Fig Tree, symbolic in terms of the rights of those without an address. My photograph was printed at a grand 5' x 9'!
METRO ARTISTS "CURATORS SELECTION"
Extremely excited that I have been included in the "Curators Selection" of the Call for Artists for the LA County METRO (1200+ applied). While not yet a commission, the Curators Committee consisted of reps from the Getty, the Broad, Hammer, LACMA and MOCA so it was indeed an honor to make their selection. Let's hope I can participate in a project commission (I am on the "list" for the next three years).
Extremely excited that I have been included in the "Curators Selection" of the Call for Artists for the LA County METRO (1200+ applied). While not yet a commission, the Curators Committee consisted of reps from the Getty, the Broad, Hammer, LACMA and MOCA so it was indeed an honor to make their selection. Let's hope I can participate in a project commission (I am on the "list" for the next three years).
THIRD: PROJECTS CONTINUING/UPDATES
DETROIT:DEFINTION
With great joy this Fall I was able to resume my long-term project photographing in my birth city, Detroit.
I visited there two times, the first: to attend the DETROIT HOMECOMING, an ingenious project that invited a group of "expats" back to the city for an intensive set of days with speakers, tours and information about what is happening now in Detroit. And happening it is, the fast re-growth so apparent even from my last - Summer 2013 - visit. I have been chronicling this on my Detroit Definition Blogspot with lots of photographs.
I returned again for almost a week in mid-November, photographing primarily. Busy with deadlines and a wealth of subject matter and images captured, not all of that trip is yet downloaded and thus not yet on the blogspot. Suffice to say that each visit brings new encounters, new hope as I see neighborhoods cleaning themselves up, commercial streets reviving not only in downtown, and new buildings (the Wayne State Bio-Engineering Building with which I started this update) and businesses. Detroit's bankruptcy resolved the day I flew in. I am meeting residents with the fortitude to carry on in a city still in flux but with increasing faith in innovation, re-invention and community as progress continues, not without some barriers, but continue it does.
The beauty of the fall, combined with Detroit's first day of snow while I was there only contributed to the magic of this city.
Maya Angelou 1928 - 2014
Last, I wish
to note this year's passing of Dr. Maya Angelou. A great American; a
great African-American woman whose brave poem, combined the expressive
art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, jump-started my writing career.
I had the infinite pleasure of working with Dr. Angelou and her office for the very first book that I created/edited, LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME, where I paired her 1978 eponymous poem with Basquiat's powerful imagery for an illustrated book for youth on contemporary art & poetry. LIFE still stands strong over 20+ years later.
In 2013 I received a surprise call from Dr. Angelou who asked if I would like to do another book with her. So excited, I had planned to get to it this year. I made a mistake, thinking that such a strong, creative individual who gave so much would live forever. Her words still do.
I had the infinite pleasure of working with Dr. Angelou and her office for the very first book that I created/edited, LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME, where I paired her 1978 eponymous poem with Basquiat's powerful imagery for an illustrated book for youth on contemporary art & poetry. LIFE still stands strong over 20+ years later.
In 2013 I received a surprise call from Dr. Angelou who asked if I would like to do another book with her. So excited, I had planned to get to it this year. I made a mistake, thinking that such a strong, creative individual who gave so much would live forever. Her words still do.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Back in the Saddle.....
Almost a year since my last post, this period of time has been wonderfully active, filled with several exhibitions, competitions and project advancement.
And now... as well, back to books!!!! (see below)
The exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum of the Tyrus Wong retrospective was amazing and my wall of large photographs of Tyrus at the beach with his kites, his family and community told a perfect story of this artist's last 40 years of creativity and activity. My thanks to the late Diane Disney, Michael LaBrie and the WDFM for mounting such a beautiful, comprehensive and well-deserved show. It was an honor to be in it and a pleasure to experience the depth and beauty of Tyrus' work.
I am happy to report that Tyrus Wong is now 103 (to be 104 in October) and still comes out to Santa Monica Beach to fly his kites and enchant everyone.
Based upon the prints and my photobook GO FLY A KITE: SATURDAYS AT THE BEACH WITH TYRUS WONG (available for purchase online through Magcloud and viewable at issuu, the New York Historical Society has asked for several of my prints to illustrate the concluding panel of their upcoming exhibition: CHINESE AMERICAN: EXCLUSION/INCLUSION
In the Winter, I prepared for an exhibition at the new Leica Gallery Los Angeles, a beautiful modernist gallery/Leica store where even the cameras are so elegantly displayed. The project was GRIDLOCK, my series of photographs taken from my driver's seat while stopped in traffic, primarily in Los Angeles. I loved putting the work in a grid format and also prepared an accompanying small boxed limited edition portfolio, Gridlock: Tire & Tread.
I was also interviewed by the Leica Camera Blog.
During these more major exhibition periods I continue to shoot more for my fine art architecture project, REVISIT.RENEW.NEW; worked at times in collaboration with fellow photographer, Martin Cox, on several commercial architectural shoots - fascinating design and architecture! - and shooting the beginnings of an exciting new house by a major architect rising only a few houses away from me; several small group exhibits/projects; and taking the time to re-think how I approach my long-term project on Detroit, DETROIT: DEFINITION where I will visit with more focus in the Fall.
Architecture and design has always fascinated me, whether captured for exhibition and publication or shooting to involve my work in conversation with great design - residential, commercial and for hospitality (where we experience, i.e., hotels, restaurants, gathering places) - the environs of living has always been evident in the way I see and I am now in the middle of setting up a specific online portfolio/website for selected work, presently in an early "design" format at www.sarajaneboyers.com.
My more specific fine art/exhibition work remains my major website at sarajaneboyersphoto.com
BUT THE BEST NEWS!!!! -- a return, finally to my writing. Over the years I have been away - now almost 14 years since my last book, TEEN POWER POLITICS, was published - I have been playing with ideas, thinking of new directions in the world of books for youth, my publication focus for years. Of course LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME, my first book, is still going strong 21 years after publication and award after award. I created/edited LIFE, the initial design (the end polished result won a prestigious AIGA "50 Best Books of the Year" award), and married the powerful imagery of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat with Dr. Maya Angelou's strong words of her 1978 eponymous poem. Good to try for that again!!!! My sadness of course is the recent passing of Dr. Angelou, a loss for our entire country.
I look back over the 14 years, most specifically to TEEN POWER POLITICS, for the world has changed for all of us, youth especially since the beginning of the new millennium. I'd like to bring this book back, refreshed, filled with our new concerns and hopes while acknowledging a different world post 911 on the darker side but also new approaches and attitudes - a greater acceptance of our global cultures, ethnic diversity - on the more positive side. Civic responsibility is key and TPP was important in 2000. I hope to make it relevant and a part of the instrument of change again.
I have so missed the world of publishing while feeling yet so lucky to finally feel a sense of confidence and belonging in the world of photography, my very very first love. The return to writing, creating works and imagery now using my own photographic sensibility as well as the literary is exciting for me and I find myself with almost too many projects to explore, all the while retaining the visual expression - so much without words - that characterizes and will continue to characterize my fine art photographic work.
I return with the experience, the tools and best, the ability to incorporate my words with powerful photos and illustration. This weekend is the annual SCBWI (Society of Children's Writers & Illustrators) Conference and although my deadline schedule is not permitting me to attend it in full, I have created a new "quickie" card and have already visited, getting back into the rhythm, and find what it is I can do now.... literary and visual. A good moment!
Here is my entry "leave behind."
Wish me luck.
And now... as well, back to books!!!! (see below)
The exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum of the Tyrus Wong retrospective was amazing and my wall of large photographs of Tyrus at the beach with his kites, his family and community told a perfect story of this artist's last 40 years of creativity and activity. My thanks to the late Diane Disney, Michael LaBrie and the WDFM for mounting such a beautiful, comprehensive and well-deserved show. It was an honor to be in it and a pleasure to experience the depth and beauty of Tyrus' work.
I am happy to report that Tyrus Wong is now 103 (to be 104 in October) and still comes out to Santa Monica Beach to fly his kites and enchant everyone.
Based upon the prints and my photobook GO FLY A KITE: SATURDAYS AT THE BEACH WITH TYRUS WONG (available for purchase online through Magcloud and viewable at issuu, the New York Historical Society has asked for several of my prints to illustrate the concluding panel of their upcoming exhibition: CHINESE AMERICAN: EXCLUSION/INCLUSION
In the Winter, I prepared for an exhibition at the new Leica Gallery Los Angeles, a beautiful modernist gallery/Leica store where even the cameras are so elegantly displayed. The project was GRIDLOCK, my series of photographs taken from my driver's seat while stopped in traffic, primarily in Los Angeles. I loved putting the work in a grid format and also prepared an accompanying small boxed limited edition portfolio, Gridlock: Tire & Tread.
Ibarionex Perello, multi-talented writer, photographer, educator... interviewed me about GRIDLOCK for his international renowned podcast, The Candid Frame. My interview is No 238 and was conducted on June 29, 2014.
Architecture and design has always fascinated me, whether captured for exhibition and publication or shooting to involve my work in conversation with great design - residential, commercial and for hospitality (where we experience, i.e., hotels, restaurants, gathering places) - the environs of living has always been evident in the way I see and I am now in the middle of setting up a specific online portfolio/website for selected work, presently in an early "design" format at www.sarajaneboyers.com.
My more specific fine art/exhibition work remains my major website at sarajaneboyersphoto.com
BUT THE BEST NEWS!!!! -- a return, finally to my writing. Over the years I have been away - now almost 14 years since my last book, TEEN POWER POLITICS, was published - I have been playing with ideas, thinking of new directions in the world of books for youth, my publication focus for years. Of course LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME, my first book, is still going strong 21 years after publication and award after award. I created/edited LIFE, the initial design (the end polished result won a prestigious AIGA "50 Best Books of the Year" award), and married the powerful imagery of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat with Dr. Maya Angelou's strong words of her 1978 eponymous poem. Good to try for that again!!!! My sadness of course is the recent passing of Dr. Angelou, a loss for our entire country.
I look back over the 14 years, most specifically to TEEN POWER POLITICS, for the world has changed for all of us, youth especially since the beginning of the new millennium. I'd like to bring this book back, refreshed, filled with our new concerns and hopes while acknowledging a different world post 911 on the darker side but also new approaches and attitudes - a greater acceptance of our global cultures, ethnic diversity - on the more positive side. Civic responsibility is key and TPP was important in 2000. I hope to make it relevant and a part of the instrument of change again.
I have so missed the world of publishing while feeling yet so lucky to finally feel a sense of confidence and belonging in the world of photography, my very very first love. The return to writing, creating works and imagery now using my own photographic sensibility as well as the literary is exciting for me and I find myself with almost too many projects to explore, all the while retaining the visual expression - so much without words - that characterizes and will continue to characterize my fine art photographic work.
I return with the experience, the tools and best, the ability to incorporate my words with powerful photos and illustration. This weekend is the annual SCBWI (Society of Children's Writers & Illustrators) Conference and although my deadline schedule is not permitting me to attend it in full, I have created a new "quickie" card and have already visited, getting back into the rhythm, and find what it is I can do now.... literary and visual. A good moment!
Here is my entry "leave behind."
Wish me luck.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Busy Year....
Been so busy that I've not taken time to post. Up now, my Summer Update to all of my photography projects and a nice notice on my first book, LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME, now up in a "Best Books" display at the New York Public Library. Still going strong after 20 years of publication!
The SARA JANE BOYERS PHOTO SUMMER UPDATE: http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=013a28d9f024038bd399086bb&id=6f3fdb338f&e=9151fee9c4
The Update includes information on the Tyrus Wong retrospective at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco that includes several large prints of my photgraphs of Tyrus and his kites out at Santa Monica Beach. There is a beautiful exhibition catalog (see update) as well as my small book on the Kites for sale at the museum store and the catalog as well on Amazon and in bookstores.
WATER TO PAPER, PAINT TO SKY: THE ART OF TYRUS WONG opens next week, the 15th in San Francisco.
NYPL "Best Books" display featuring LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME, my award-winning pairing of the eloquent words of Dr. Maya Angelou and the evocative art of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The SARA JANE BOYERS PHOTO SUMMER UPDATE: http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=013a28d9f024038bd399086bb&id=6f3fdb338f&e=9151fee9c4
Summer Fireworks, Detroit from the Detroit:Definition project
WATER TO PAPER, PAINT TO SKY: THE ART OF TYRUS WONG opens next week, the 15th in San Francisco.
 | |||
| GO FLY A KITE can be previewed online at http://issuu.com/sarajaneboyersphoto/docs/sjboyers_goflyakite_1 |
NYPL "Best Books" display featuring LIFE DOESN'T FRIGHTEN ME, my award-winning pairing of the eloquent words of Dr. Maya Angelou and the evocative art of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Desert
It is hard to think about photography in the desert. So many have covered this topic, many so successfully.
This surreal landscape, even for those of us who have grown up in a desert (for isn't that what Los Angeles truly is?), fascinates most of us with its alien forms, its unrelenting sun and tones of beige sand reaching out past the horizon. As opposed to the far-reaching landscape of the marine environment where, yes, there is also the blue prevailing color that is comforting, the desert brings us feelings of unease and a bit of danger.
And for imagery, the desert is about contrast, between the loneliness and the stark landscape beauty. Between the need to see life and the desolate definition that requires hardship, struggle and lays bare not only our human, but life's need for one of its most basic elements: water.
Is it exotic? Is it safe when wherever we tread - urban desert like Palm Springs or Tuscon - or foreign of the Sahara - we search out the strange creatures that could attack us?
The American Deserts are where we go for the exotic. The empty spaces attract those who want to be our but without. Those who escape, for a time, the harrowing winters, known as the "snowbirds." Those who seek solace in the silence and in a place where the grand vistas speak to the silence.
In the desert we rarely sit inside to watch TV but venture outdoors, even in the most oppressing heat, to hike, sit on a porch to read and watch the sunset, breathe in the dry air and enter into a quiet moment, often with just ourselves. With native vegetation mostly untouched, those with holistic or mystical yearnings arrive to discover what is there in the vacant space while at the same times, themselves in a place with few distractions. The words of the "urban" desert: retreat and nature.
Even when social, the deserts are places of retreat, where one can meet together with like kind and focus. It is a place of fantasy where someone like the late multimillionaire founder of Avery labels can purchase a swath of land and commission an LA-based sculptor to create a melting pot of mythic and mesozoic and mythologial beings that one drives through like a christmas/disneyland tour, standing silent, occasionally headless due to the high desert winds, to give offerings to some great god of visual perception and tourism
This past weekend, I did exactly that: meeting with children's writer friends in Anza Borrego, one of our nation's largest state parks. Under the illusion that we were there for the wildflowers, we discovered so much more.
For me, so long now into photography the gathering brought me back to my writing roots. It returned me to family memories of a visit 20 years past with children not yet even teens, driving off-road with un-licensed children at the wheel - one so small that she had to sit in front of me to gain the proximity to even reach the pedals. The desert is a place of breaking the codes.
Most essential, brought me to childhood, from scents of orange blossoms on the highway - no freeway - drives through the inland empire, stopping at the tracks for the trains to race through, to lush manufactured oasis' in Palm Springs where mountains turned obsidian in the night and dry hot air determined one's activities for the day.
Hope, stuff get abandoned in the desert. We arrive full of hope. Some of us leave full of despair. The artifacts remain, faded, sun-drenched. In Southern California we even have a natural 20th Century artifact, the Salton Sea. Man-made, if not by design, but achieving a natural state, then subsiding, literally and figuratively, until both commerce and the environment combine to demonstrate its death toll until it, like the dcaying structures that surround it tell what we most wish not to hear: that man and his environment fades, no matter what we do.
I find it ironic that, although there are deserts worldwide and, in fact, we share a large part of our Western deserts - the Sonoran - with the middle east and probably elsewhere, there is a true American sensability to the Southwestern desert.
This surreal landscape, even for those of us who have grown up in a desert (for isn't that what Los Angeles truly is?), fascinates most of us with its alien forms, its unrelenting sun and tones of beige sand reaching out past the horizon. As opposed to the far-reaching landscape of the marine environment where, yes, there is also the blue prevailing color that is comforting, the desert brings us feelings of unease and a bit of danger.
And for imagery, the desert is about contrast, between the loneliness and the stark landscape beauty. Between the need to see life and the desolate definition that requires hardship, struggle and lays bare not only our human, but life's need for one of its most basic elements: water.
Is it exotic? Is it safe when wherever we tread - urban desert like Palm Springs or Tuscon - or foreign of the Sahara - we search out the strange creatures that could attack us?
The American Deserts are where we go for the exotic. The empty spaces attract those who want to be our but without. Those who escape, for a time, the harrowing winters, known as the "snowbirds." Those who seek solace in the silence and in a place where the grand vistas speak to the silence.
In the desert we rarely sit inside to watch TV but venture outdoors, even in the most oppressing heat, to hike, sit on a porch to read and watch the sunset, breathe in the dry air and enter into a quiet moment, often with just ourselves. With native vegetation mostly untouched, those with holistic or mystical yearnings arrive to discover what is there in the vacant space while at the same times, themselves in a place with few distractions. The words of the "urban" desert: retreat and nature.
Even when social, the deserts are places of retreat, where one can meet together with like kind and focus. It is a place of fantasy where someone like the late multimillionaire founder of Avery labels can purchase a swath of land and commission an LA-based sculptor to create a melting pot of mythic and mesozoic and mythologial beings that one drives through like a christmas/disneyland tour, standing silent, occasionally headless due to the high desert winds, to give offerings to some great god of visual perception and tourism
This past weekend, I did exactly that: meeting with children's writer friends in Anza Borrego, one of our nation's largest state parks. Under the illusion that we were there for the wildflowers, we discovered so much more.
For me, so long now into photography the gathering brought me back to my writing roots. It returned me to family memories of a visit 20 years past with children not yet even teens, driving off-road with un-licensed children at the wheel - one so small that she had to sit in front of me to gain the proximity to even reach the pedals. The desert is a place of breaking the codes.
Most essential, brought me to childhood, from scents of orange blossoms on the highway - no freeway - drives through the inland empire, stopping at the tracks for the trains to race through, to lush manufactured oasis' in Palm Springs where mountains turned obsidian in the night and dry hot air determined one's activities for the day.
Hope, stuff get abandoned in the desert. We arrive full of hope. Some of us leave full of despair. The artifacts remain, faded, sun-drenched. In Southern California we even have a natural 20th Century artifact, the Salton Sea. Man-made, if not by design, but achieving a natural state, then subsiding, literally and figuratively, until both commerce and the environment combine to demonstrate its death toll until it, like the dcaying structures that surround it tell what we most wish not to hear: that man and his environment fades, no matter what we do.
I find it ironic that, although there are deserts worldwide and, in fact, we share a large part of our Western deserts - the Sonoran - with the middle east and probably elsewhere, there is a true American sensability to the Southwestern desert.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Gun Hay Fat Choy! The Lunar New Year
The Lunar New Year celebration has just ended.
In many Asian countries and communities, it is a fifteen day ceremony that commences the Lunar calendar. As a part of my long-term project, FINDING CHINATOWN:An American Story, I pay an annual visit to the "chinatowns" in the greater Los Angeles area.
An account of this year's visit, the Year of the Black Water Snake, is posted on my FINDING CHINATOWN Blogspot, http://findingchinatown.blogspot.com/
In many Asian countries and communities, it is a fifteen day ceremony that commences the Lunar calendar. As a part of my long-term project, FINDING CHINATOWN:An American Story, I pay an annual visit to the "chinatowns" in the greater Los Angeles area.
An account of this year's visit, the Year of the Black Water Snake, is posted on my FINDING CHINATOWN Blogspot, http://findingchinatown.blogspot.com/
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