My daughters’ threw a party at our house back in 2002 on the last day of school. One
of their friends had her whole arm tattooed. I saw her sitting in this chair and next
to her I could see the same colors from her tattoo reflected subtlely in the wall
beside her.
We were in San Francisco for a mini vacation and took a tour of the south of Market
gallery area. This San Francisco gallery was airy and the assistant had great eyebrows
and there was an interesting painting with the word penis in it and there was a
colorful potted tree outside and a wall of tile and next thing I know I have a collage.
She was waiting for her man, a traveling sportsman, the longest they had been apart,
she had a new car, was hoping he would like it, he was tall, buy maybe not tall enough,
she goes to school full time and works full time, it’s been hard but she is excited to
see him, she was hoping she was in the right place.
Tulsa International Airport, Oklahoma
7/29/06
Back in 1982 my wife and I had returned to San Jose after a year in Michigan. We
basically were broke so we had to live with her parents while we got back on our feet.
We lived in the five bedroom house my wife had grown up in. My father in law and the
family in general did everything themselves; cars, roofs, water heaters, wiring,
etc. It didn’t matter what it was, if it could be done without having a pro do it, it
was done.
My brother in law was working on putting in a new shake shingle roof when I went up
onto the roof to document it for my father in law. I spied the pool next door and my
original thought was how nice it would be to cool off in it. While I was up there
the neighbor’s daughter came out and jumped in the pool, quickly got out and laid
down to sunbath. All of a sudden a completely cool image came into my view finder.
A hard at work roofer, all business (which he was, he was completely oblivious to the
woman swimming and sunbathing) and the woman, completely absorbed in her pleasure
activity. Snap away I did until I got this composition out of it. It is one of my
favorite photos from the beginning of my photography work.
She wasn’t sure what the photos were going to turn out like, and either was I. I
loved the light in the lobby where I worked and this student happened by one morning
as the sun reflected off the granite floor.
I liked her red complexion but when I worked half the collage up in black and white
and took out 2 of the 3 channels I also loved the porcelain look of her skin. This
got me thinking about how others might perceive her in different ways; red, white,
porcelain, ruddy, however, her perception of her self, her truth is the same no
matter who she is in front of. That is how I came upon the title for this piece.
It is in the ‘Truths and Things I Made Up About This Woman’ series, even with the
variant title.
This car, a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere, was buried June 19th, 1957 in front of the Tulsa
County Courthouse. It was exhumed fifty years later with the hopes it would be in
pristine condition. It was instead found to be in the condition you see here, having
been under water for most of the 50 years it turns out. They put in on display anyway
along with an invitational car show that included some beautiful Belvederes.
I noticed the woman in the distance drawing me while I waited at the coffee house for
my friend who was going to model for me. When she arrived I did some drawings of her,
then some photos. All the while the woman in the background was drawing me. This was
quite ironic since I had met my model while drawing her at another coffee house just
days before.
We were right next to a big picture window and my friend had this luminous glow on
her skin from the sky reflecting into the space. Meanwhile back in the establishment
the woman doing the drawing was bathed in indoor incandescent light. I loved the
contrast and did my best to get both in one image. I could have worked out an image
that had both in focus but I liked the blurred image in the back since you could see
all you needed to in it without the focus.
They came to me when I stopped at the convenience store, asking if I wanted to have my
car windows washed in exchange for a donation to their cheerleading fund to send them
to the national championships. They are from my daughters’ high school (they all
graduated a few years back) and they are currently state champs so I was more than
willing to help them out…IF they would also let me take their photos.
We had a fire drill where I worked and as we all gathered in this little outdoor area
I was up close to a woman I hadn’t met before. I introduced myself and she told me
where she worked in the building. I noticed when she was gesturing that she had this
great scar on her arm. I had my camera with me and asked her if I could take some
photos of her eyes and her scar for a collage. She was very excited about the idea,
much more so than most people and graciously allowed me to do so. I am sure any
number of people around me were wondering what the heck we were doing.
She later saw the collage and loved it, purchasing 2 prints to have framed and given
to her family. She had grown up hating the scar but in recent years had come to see
it as a good part of her body and life. The collage was a sort of confirmation of
that she thought.
I had to drive my father’s belongings back to California from Oklahoma in the fall of 2007. I kept my camera next to me in the rented moving truck and took a lot of photos out the window as I went. The Texas panhandle is one of my favorite areas precisely because there is so little to see there. What that actually means is that the interesting things you do see are spread out, they are alone, by themselves, easy to spot and appreciate.
Sometimes in dense environments, just as in a dense piece of art, it is hard to discern what is there. That is ok in a museum where you have time to look, but on a road trip it is nice to see something coming 2 miles away!
I stopped at a convenience store outside Amarillo and the clerk’s eyes were blindingly bright and blue with the west Texas sun shining in the window. I asked her if I could take some photos of her eyes and, though she was chided by her fellow clerk, she said yes and was a wonderful, albeit fleeting, model.