A Lump of Brown Clay

This is my favorite photograph ever taken of me.

It is about the size of a postage stamp & is kept in a tiny art nouveau ring box.

A tiny window into the past...clay...a moment of creation...of purpose. (love that while art is involved one is not cautioned or reprimanded for kneeling on chairs!)

I was so lucky to have the most wonderful art teachers around me growing up...family members & educators...

This photograph was taken, I believe, by my late grandfather Richard. He instilled in me a great reverence for Leica still photography equipment & the desire to capture pieces of the world around me which had moved me in some small or grand way.

He was a photographer with a wonderful eye for the world...we didn't talk much about his past (and I regret this often...) but I have built up a sense of him through his photographs.

Family...Travel...these were important to him.

I didn't really understand as a young kid why one of the upstairs bedrooms at his house had black tarps blocking out all of the light...I just knew that this room was a special place...a place of quiet wondering where interesting things would happen...secret creative things that as a child I could only hope to one day be a part of.

There were strange & wonderful pieces of equipment...a light which when switched on would bathe the room in a dim red light...and framed photographs on the walls.

This was a sanctuary.

I studied photography in grade school...in high school...and then went on to earn a degree in both still photography & film from the San Francisco Art Institute.

I am completely enthralled by the process of photographing...from the seeing to actualization of a print. I don't fully understand the chemistry behind the art-never wanted to completely unveil the magic behind the silver particles.
Many solitary hours within the darkroom...happy times.
I miss the tactile quality of the development process...the vinegary smell of the fix...the waiting as the hands on the timer tick tick tick...the sound of liquid sloshing back & forth in the plastic trays.

When I grow up I want to incorporate my knowledge of film & photography into a career as a Film Archivist...but that is another story...

I had the great opportunity to travel for the first time to Oaxaca, Mexico in the mid nineties...it had always been a dream of mine as I have a great fascination & reverence for the Dia De Los Muertos traditions. A WONDERFUL experience...travel ALWAYS seems to open the right doorways. While there I met a local painter and was invited to join a group of artists at a ceramic studio in town...no one there spoke the same language (Spanish, English & Japanese!!!) but somehow through creativity we were able to communicate and share one of the most enjoyable & important afternoons I have ever had. At the time it was just the perfect way to spend an afternoon...we were seated within a partially covered courtyard...so I could feel the sun and listen to a cacophony of songbirds as we sat and worked with clay. I didn't realize until I returned home to San Francisco that this afternoon would reconnect me with my heart's deepest calling...

I had started to struggle with myself as a photographer...It was such a part of me but something was missing. I was (and still am) very drawn to multiple exposures-layers of images composed to express the deeper me...I am a constructor...a collector-a bit of this added to a bit of that....

I had a special lens attachment which created a grid within my viewfinder so that I could better line up different images for the final composition. I was viewing the world through a barrier...

When Gerardo handed me a large lump of brown clay in Oaxaca...something within me aligned...I hadn't touched clay since childhood. The feel of it...triggered my near atrophied need to create with my hands-in a much more organic way. I began to realize how much I had been fighting my tools as I tried to express myself...to develop my voice. I had never considered it an option to pursue a career as a fine artist. It was unpractical, uncertain & complete taboo in my family...

And so it began...my progress and stallings (not necessarily in that order) on a very difficult path...true to the very core of myself.

All it took was a lump of brown clay...