in conversation with jonas jungblut; On Being a Father, An Artist, and The Balance He Attempts Between The Two

jj_kid
(Photograph by Jonas Jungblut)

Jonas Jungblut is a Berlin, Germany born photographer currently living in Santa Barbara, California. Recently he and his wife brought into the world their second child. Jonas and I sat down and talked about how one goes about continuing creative pursuits and being a father. We also talked about price gauging lemonade stands, building baja buggies, and what he believes hopefully creates a healthy family dynamic… parents who pursue what they believe in and by doing so instilling that in their children. 

CR: How is your family?
JJ: It is definitely an adjustment. You don’t just add another person. You add a dynamic between everybody in the family. You don’t just add this relationship, the relationship between that person, that person, and that person also changes. Everyone has to get used to that. We’re kind of working through that right now.
CR: So is your older son acting differently towards you guys?
JJ: No I don’t think so. He is doing well. I’m impressed. There was a week or two when I could tell that he didn’t quite know what the deal was. But he is a three and a half year old so really well still means you might get a tantrum here and there.
CR: Do they share a room?
JJ: He has his room and the baby has a bed in there but for now the baby sleeps in our room.
CR: So eventually the two will share.
JJ: Yeah we will see how that goes.
CR: My sister and I are six years apart plus my parents had a spare room so when she came along that became her room. But my wife shared a room with her older brother. They are only two or three years apart. And she told me about when he was old enough to recognize, he would taunt her and scare her at night. So you can look forward to that maybe… your older son being an instigator.
JJ: Well we will see how that house will hold up with two bigger kids.
CR: Do you plan on being here for a while?
JJ: In Santa Barbara, sure. I love that house. It is just awesome. But if we stayed there for a longer time we could easily put an Airstream outside or something and make it an office.
CR: So we’ve talked before about this notion that you have kids and you give up your pursuits and all your attention is devoted to the kid. But you [and your wife] kind of challenge that.
JJ: I think you have to. You still pursue what you want to do. I think if anything maybe even more so, they [kids] push you towards what you really want to do because you don’t have the time to play around that much anymore.
CR: You think they push you toward what you want to do? Because, it wasn’t about what my dad wanted to do it was more about what he felt he had to do.
JJ: Well I think that’s a personal choice. Or maybe I don’t know. I never really did what other people told me I needed to do so I don’t know if it’s just me but if the parent is doing what they like it’s going to be beneficial to the whole family even if it doesn’t mean financially things are great. There are stresses and I am dealing with some sort of depressing times because you feel like crap not making enough money and you feel that financial pressure a lot more when you have to feed three other people. But I don’t really see myself doing stuff I feel like I have to do and that I don’t want to do. I just quit a job that really brought in some money to do what I want to do.
CR: Yeah on one level maybe…
JJ: But I think that’s a personal thing though. I have friends that I know when they have kids they will go into a um…
CR: A perceived stable job.
JJ: Yeah. People are just wired differently.
CR: What was it like for you coming up as a kid?
JJ: I think my parents were pretty stable. They both had somewhat secure jobs. My dad was an aspiring chemist and my mom was going to school to be a teacher and I think they both struggled in their own ways and tried to make things work but I am not quite sure if they dropped something they really wanted to do in order for us to have what we have. I actually don’t know if that was the case or not. But I never felt that there was really a strong financial pressure and I always felt that they kind of did what they wanted to do.
CR: As in a strong pressure for them to make a certain amount of money?
JJ: Well I never felt like we were struggling for money. I do have to say that I was always the kid… I don’t think I was ever really spoiled with commercial goods. When everybody had the brand new bike, I had to build my own bike. But I don’t know if that was necessarily out of financial pressure or it was an educational thing.
CR: You never asked?
JJ: That’s a good question; maybe I should throw it at them and see what they say.
CR: Well yeah, I never asked my parents that… I just recognized later and at some point I put together how much my parents’ income was and you put it together and I was the kid who got bought whatever new bike. For better or worse I was that kid. We weren’t super well off or anything but I recognize later on we were comfortable. So there are the families who have a healthy dynamic and those who have certain comforts but money is involved.
JJ: Yeah, your initial question about if I feel pressured into something that I don’t want to do…
CR: Freelancing is tough and there needs to be a certain amount of money coming in to raise a kid…
JJ: Well it’s really tough, like I said some days I am just depressed about it, but overall I have this strong belief that somehow stuff always works out. Chances that you are really going to go down hill are slim and you will figure it out some way. And I think life to some degree, it’s kind of engaging when you have to struggle a little bit. I actually kind of like struggle. If you are just cruising it gets a little boring. Me quitting job, that’s not a very smart move you know. That was my only source of steady income but I kind of wanted to have that engagement of that struggle and that it would serve me better than just cruising along not having any hardship. The little guys, they don’t really know. I’ve had Roman playing with a piece of plastic for hours. Just a piece of plastic. It doesn’t really matter to them. It’s definitely more a struggle for the parents.
CR: Yeah, the parents see obviously and the kids don’t but I think it is healthy… your attitude of not being indifferent but being less concerned, less worried.
JJ: I hate the fact that it is stressing me out and I am trying really hard to not make it a priority to have all this money. It’s really nice when you have it and it feels really good when you deposit a big check but it’s such a weird dependence. I just had a conversation with a friend of mine. She said that their kids had a lemonade stand and someone drove by and said, ‘ooh you guys are cheap, I’ve seen people here charge two dollars per glass.” Two dollars for lemonade from kids? What kind of a thing is that? You are teaching your kids to rip off your community members with lemonade. I think that’s just not the right message to send to your kids. That’s greedy. I am all about get paid for what you do, not greed.
CR: So what do you do… your kids are growing up in this environment, maybe or maybe not but what you are challenging is such an American mentality of I guess the fundamentals of capitalism, supply and demand.

jj_austria
(Photograph by Jonas Jungblut)

JJ: I worked with a photographer who worked in L.A. and had kids. He decided to move to Thailand for five or six years so that the kids would see that L.A. is not what everybody else is doing. I thought that was a great idea. And I do have this European connection that I could easily use. And so I’d really like to get them over there to experience that world that is still Western but at least I think it’s not so focused on financial greed. But when you live in Santa Barbara you will have to deal with the kids who get BMW’s for high school graduation.
CR: But how do you deal with that? When your son wants a BMW when he is about to graduate… I know this is projecting a lot but…
JJ: I don’t know. I like cars and I think we’ve established that [in previous conversations] and so I’ve thought when he turns fourteen I am going to get him a Baja Bug, to build so when he is sixteen and done, we can do it together, and he has this fun little vehicle, I don’t know if that’s going to happen but I just don’t think for someone that’s that young, to give them that type of a present is the right message. Giving them a car so they can get around, that’s one thing but giving them a super nice vehicle… I don’t know.
CR: There is potential that your kids are kind of the weird kids with the artsy parents who take pictures for a living…
JJ: And drive up in a forty year old Volkswagen van.
CR: Yeah, so are you okay with that?
JJ: Well what’s the other option? I’m not going to change. [laughs]
CR: Has your son encountered that? Because he is going to school, right?
JJ: Yeah, but if anything… because we are young parents. Who knows but I think if anything they think its kind of cool, parents who do this kind of nonconventional thing. Maybe that’s more interesting than if your dad’s a banker. But given that they do have their own minds. And you can already see that. It’s funny when you have this little guy who used to be… you could do something with them. And all of a sudden they say no I don’t like that. We’ll see.
CR: In creative pursuits?
JJ: He used to ride down mountains on little cars and skateboards, stuff like that. And recently he started not wanting to go because he crashes or something. Before he would tumble and crash and fall and just get right back up and go again. Now I’ve noticed he is kind of timid because he didn’t want to or he was whinny about it. So seeing that is kind of weird. It’s probably a parent child thing, some type of rebellion.
CR: So do you just let him go with it? If he doesn’t want to go…
JJ: No I usually push him. And I don’t know if that’s right because I feel like maybe he gets scared more. But I know he can do it. And when he does it he is always happy. So knowing that, I feel like it’s better to be afraid but do it, and see that he can do it.
CR: Maybe your son is growing up to a bit less adventurous than you are.
JJ: I know when I was a kid I was like him. I was super timid.
CR: Oh yeah? Did your dad push you?
JJ: I think so. I would say so.
CR: When you and I and another friend went down to L.A. recently for an exhibition. And we kind of got turned around, it wasn’t a sketchy part of town but we were headed to a part of town where maybe we shouldn’t be in the middle of the night. And you told a story about how you as a kid use to be in similar situations and that had your parents known they would have been rightly scared. On one side you have a great mentality that it will work out but on the other you don’t push the boundaries when your safety…
JJ: No I think I do push the boundaries.
CR: Maybe you do then.
JJ: I think so. But if you ask my wife, she thinks that I push the boundaries too much.
CR: So you encourage it with both your boys?
JJ: I’m a strong believer in experience. And I feel like you learn so much faster when you get put through a hard time, the struggle thing again. If you struggle, you have to figure shit out. So if you struggle, you never figure shit out. And I think that goes for everything. I took my son skateboarding. And I am on a skateboard and he is on a skateboard. He’s three years old. And we are both going down this hill. He does something and he just starts flipping, tumble tumble tumble. And he wasn’t happy. But that taught him that he can’t mess around. It taught him about speed. I could tell he had no concept of how fast he was going. He just thought it was funny. And then he fell and he learned that if I go this fast and I fall it’s going to hurt.
CR: When I was in elementary school. Our playgrounds were made of steel swing sets and monkey bars on pavement. If you fell you broke your arm and you realize you better learn to hold on harder or you don’t try to do a back flip out of a swing set. Now all the playgrounds are cushioned and if you do fall you don’t get hurt. And maybe you don’t learn anything.
JJ: We live in this weird bubble were everything is super safe. I’m not a big fan of pampering your kid to where they are always safe.
CR: Are your creative pursuits more adventurous and open after kids?
JJ: I think they are more focused. If I get interested in something I dwell in it a little more.
CR: And that is a byproduct of needing to be more efficient with your time?
JJ: Probably. You just don’t have time to fuck around.
CR: Does your son’s perspective inform your perspective? Does a kid reveal things to you that translate into your art?
JJ: For sure. I was in China and I had read him this book about how the Chinese New Year had come about. It was about these red things around the door. And I’m driving around China, out in the country and I see these doors that all have red banners on them. And I had to stop and take a picture. I actually have this portrait of this old woman in a house and it was such a thrill to me to take these pictures and that I was going to be able to take home this pictures and show him where this story took place. There are a lot of times when he does something that inspires me to do something and he is known in his school to be the kid who always does these art pieces. I think we definitely play off each other.
CR: What kind of art?
JJ: He just stacks stuff, anything.
CR: Well that’s obviously related to your [balance] work.
JJ: Yeah
CR: Does he have any concept of what he is doing other than emulating his dad?
JJ: I don’t know. He’s three.
CR: Well what was his response when you showed him the pictures from China?
JJ: Well for him it’s a fantasy world. He doesn’t have a concept of China. So for him I went into the story. So that was fun to see him respond.
CR: And its cool too that it’s a photograph that takes him there because we certainly challenge the notion of reality with photography anyhow. So I think we’ve really talked about some interesting things. Do you have any closing remarks?

jj_thebaths
(Photograph by Jonas Jungblut from the series, King Monkey and the Infinite Sunshine)

JJ: If overall the question is what’s the verdict on having kids and leading a creative life… I think it’s a great addition. It makes it a fuck-load harder but that’s a good thing. Because as a creative you can easily fall into this rhythm and think I’ll do this eventually. But they really focus you. If I want to do this, which I do, then I better do it and not sit around. Overall it’s how life works. If you have kids you have to make ends meet and you’ll do that somehow. And if you are really dedicated to what you are passionate about you will still do that too. It will probably weed out a bunch of people who are semi-passionate.
CR: Maybe that’s it. Maybe kids make you realize either your passionate or your not.
JJ: And the scary thing is if you think you’re passionate about something and then kids make you realize you are not then you have to be real careful not to blame the kids that you couldn’t follow your dream. In all reality, if you want to follow your dream the kids aren’t going to be in the way.
CR: And I think that’s the fear that most people have.
JJ: The thing is if they can’t follow their dream with kids then they probably couldn’t do it without them either. If you really want to do something, the kids aren’t going to be in the way. It’s going to make it a lot harder but I think harder is maybe not worse.
CR: I don’t know if you remember… but awhile back we were joking about what your kids will want to be when they grow up. So if their dream is to be CEO of Monsanto. Are you behind them?
JJ: [Laughs] No.
CR: I mean that’s extreme but if their dreams are not artistic, creative pursuits…
JJ: I think you can implement creativity in a lot of things people don’t consider creative. And it’s easy to say this but I think I will probably be fine with whatever they do. I’m pretty opinionated though so if they did want to work for Monsanto I’d probably give them a lot of shit. And I would do that too. But they have their own lives and you can’t force them to do anything.
CR: Well I think if they grow up to be perceptive people at all…
JJ: I think that’s the key. You want to have them grow up to be people that pay attention to what’s going on and just be good people. And if they are passionate about what they do then it really doesn’t matter what it is.

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www.jonasjungblut.com

Posted on 16 May 2013 By Shaun H Kelly
Posted in Conversations and Brief Interviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , ,
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my head hurts; And How Did I End Up Here in The Woods and Didn’t I Have a Horse?

Below is a list of default assumptions, albeit unlikely, which I will make about those I encounter in my day to day routine who I would perhaps rather not be having an interaction because right now, this has not been a great interaction.

1. His hot water heater just went out and the carpet is now ruined.
2. Her cat died.
3. Despite her best intentions, her mother would rather not ________________________.
4. The windstorm everyone was marveling about at work the next day caused a tree limb to fall onto the roof, ruining a just completed and much needed shingling job.
5. Yesterday she fell off her horse, sustaining a concussion, after which she awoke on the ground in the woods and had to walk back to the stables largely unaware of what had just happened.
6. Lung cancer.
7. His father died.
8. Their kid is failing third grade and the school administration is considering placing him in a special needs program.
9. A speeding ticket because have you ever driven an SUV? It is definitely difficult to realize how fast one is traveling.
10. He just sold his guitar. The one he hasn’t played in sometime now but served as a memento from that band he was in that was never quite good enough but boy did they really want to be. Those were good times. Sure he picks it up and strums it occasionally… to pass the time. But after loosing his job three months ago, bills are due, they have no money and the hot water heater just went out.
11. Some punk kid threw a tantrum after for whatever reason he couldn’t get his driver’s license renewed at the DMV. Being a teller at the DMV sucks.
12. A migraine.
12b. An aura migraine.
13. Haven’t you ever just had a shitty day?

Last week, a woman shared with me her story (see number five above) about her concussion, which served as an explanation for and justification of her behavior. A primer and a word of warning that the conversation I was about to have with her might not be all that easy. She explained how she fell off her horse. How she woke alone and on the ground in the woods. No horse and no one around. And walked out of the woods back to the stables…. And how she remembered none of this. So the account of what happened, she could only piece together. I went riding on my horse she must have thought. And my horse came back to the stables without me, is what she must have concluded. I was lying on the ground unaware. Then I awoke and now here I am. I must have arrived here on my own unaware accord. My friend didn’t know where to find me but here I am thankfully, with her tending to me.

And then here she is, telling me the story. How her phone, from the impact was broken. How her head from the impact was swollen still and aching and everything was still a bit of a haze. She was from out of town and visiting her friend. Family and friends back home were unaware of what happened because all the important phone numbers were in her broken phone. She was disconnected from most everyone she knew while her mind was still recovering from being disconnected from her body… like wandering through the woods, unsure of why one is there to begin with and didn’t I have a horse? Should I be worried about the horse? When did this headache come on? Am I okay?

Concussions are no fun she tells me. So let me take a moment to consider the day she had which was worse than mine. And that I am not as self-aware as perhaps I had thought. And perhaps we all suffer from a sort of chronic concussion… a lack of full awareness, perspective and consideration. And although we wouldn’t get along her and I, we wouldn’t enjoyably spend time together (and maybe you wouldn’t want to spend time with that bank teller who definitely has a bad attitude); I can acknowledge that she has her life and I mine and they overlapped and that both independently have meaning, and in both it is not about respectively, ourselves. It is, life, about us collectively, respectively aware of one another. Ones life overlaps often with others. And others do not always tell us that they are recovering from a concussion, or that they had just been fired from their job or just stubbed their toe. So let’s assume they have… and this will serve as a primer for a bad interaction. And we do have a choice to believe the absurd or the less than likely. Because ultimately we can think for ourselves and in doing so, foster a healthier reality with a bit of perspective.

The interaction I had with this lady was at best erratic and incoherent. And had I not heard her story I would have most likely been a bit dismissive. And so I conclude, that from here on out I assume… that we are all recovering from being thrown from a horse and that what is needed is awareness and perspective other than how this affects me.

Posted on 10 May 2013 By Shaun H Kelly
Posted in Writings about Photography and Occasional Other Things | Tagged: , , , , ,
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recent acquisition; Redheaded Peckerwood by Christian Patterson

peckerwood_03
Before I ever picked up a copy of Redheaded Peckerwood by Christian Patterson, I was telling people what a great book it was. To be more specific, I had shared my opinion of the book to a friend who had asked if I had seen it and what were my thoughts. He wasn’t all that impressed with what he had seen of the book. I obliged hoping to perhaps persuade my friend that while I too thought it was difficult to access, ultimately what Redheaded Peckerwood was beautiful for was continuing to dispel any notion that documentary photography is about truth or more specifically, that how we recall events is what becomes our history… not what actually happened. If you are not impressed by the work (which he at least wasn’t as impressed as seemingly everyone else who has an opinion and a platform from which others can hear them speak, i.e. all those critics, writers, bloggers, photographers, curators, and photo-editors out there who rightfully so sometimes have an opinion worth listening to) I argued, at least recognize it as a most likely important book in the canon of photography books. One that Martin Parr and Gerry Badger will one day write about.

This argument might not have changed his opinion and likely it was forgotten soon after reading. However, in arguing for the importance of the book I did persuade myself to purchase it and when announced that a third edition was being printed I pre-ordered a signed copy. And a few months later it arrived. And I noted upon first opening the book and flipping through the first few pages… that everything I had told my friend was basically a lie. And that I had recalled seeing the book in a bookstore and spending some time with it but ultimately deciding not to purchase it was also untrue. The bookstore is in L.A. and I could even distinctly recall pulling it off the shelf (it was sitting on the bottom shelf because this is where this particular bookstore places the books after some time has passed and more recent books are published and, according to my made-up-memory some made-up-time had passed since the publication of this very real book) and deciding to purchase another book. I think I purchased instead A by Gregory Halpern and although I do in fact now own that book, it probably wasn’t the one I decided to purchase instead of Redheaded Peckerwood. I do not even know if the timeline matches that these two books would be on the bottom shelf of this bookstore at the same time. And a side note, I got a really good deal on A by Gregory Halpern. Since being moved to the bottom shelf (meaning some time had passed since its publication date) it had become a noteworthy book and a bit harder to find at an affordable price. But this bookstore still had it for the original price… thirty something dollars when most online stores were selling it for a little over one hundred. And who says independent bookstores can’t compete with online bookstores? But more to the point, everything I had recalled, did not happen. Truth in that moment, was an amalgamation of recalled memories and pieced together events constructed by not what happened but from what I did know about the book which was the reviews and accounts of the previously mentioned list of people whose opinion is sometimes worth a listen. These opinions I shared with my friend.

And isn’t the recollection I went through much like photography? Not fully true, but not dishonest either. Because, as I asserted to my friend (although what I asserted was someone else’s experience and not mine) is attributed at least by some to the book. Readheaded Peckerwood is good. Much the same Christian Patterson doesn’t construct the truth as proof, but the feeling of what happened surrounding the events of a murder spree by two young companions in Nebraska. Which is what we are left with all these years after the murders took place. We get details wrong but feelings we remember and might not accurately describe those feelings… but the feelings are understood. This is also partially the role of photography. The capturing of whatever subject and that subject becoming something else. In Redheaded Peckerwood, everything normal becomes dangerous, disturbing, or an omen for more things to come. Not unlike watching cable network news, everything now has a new association. A photograph of a shoe protruding from under the bed is potentially worn by a deadman. His body shoved under the boxsprings, a place normally reserved for shoeboxes full of photographs, letters, and memories. A tattered stuffed animal plush toy is even sadder. A street sign that reads “dead end” is the obvious clue that had been starring us in the face from the beginning.

I wonder how often I have recalled something inaccurate to how it factually took place and how then, my recollection was what shaped my opinion. What would have happened had I never shared my made up opinion? What would have happened had I not then purchased the book? These are not of significance ultimately. But I wonder how often this happens in history. And I conclude that this is in fact history.

Posted on 3 May 2013 By Shaun H Kelly
Posted in Recent Acquisitions, Writings about Photography and Occasional Other Things | Tagged: , , , , ,
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in conversation with Claire Eggers; On Dave Eggers, Growing Up In A Small Town, And South Africa

Claire Eggers is a photographer from Huckabay, Texas and a student at Brooks Institute in Ventura, California. She recently travelled to South Africa as a part of a student documentary trip. The results of which, entitled “Today I Will Not Lie” is currently on exhibit at Gallery 27 in Santa Barbara, California and will have a second opening in Ventura, California at the Visions Gallery this Thursday. In conversation she shared about her experiences in South Africa, growing up in a small town, and we talked a bit about a short story by Dave Eggers… no relation.  

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CR: First, introduce yourself.
CE: I’m Claire Eggers, I’m very nervous. I take pictures.
CR: I’m going to make this a bit ridiculous by reading this very very short story. The reason it’s ridiculous is because the author is Dave Eggers…
CE: Yeah
CR: You know Dave Eggers?
CE: No relation.
CR: Well we can pretend like he is your uncle. I knew you probably had no relation to him but I figured why not do something absurd to start, and that way hopefully you are not as nervous. So bare with me while I read this. It’s called, What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes. You’re welcome to make comments afterwards but you don’t have to say anything. We can come back to it later. But if it strikes you and you have something to say, let’s hear it.
CE: Alright…
CR: Ok, What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes…
(the story can be read here)
CE: That was awesome.
CR: Any comments?
CE: Not quite yet.
CR: Do you want to think about it?
CE: That’s okay… we can come back.
CR: Okay, we’ll come back. But I do like the story because it talks about language and about being aware. And you and I have chosen the language of photography. So let me ask you… why did you choose photography?
CE: To be totally honest, I still don’t know why I chose it. I’m still trying to figure that out.
CR: Well you are a student so that’s okay.
CE: School is not a strong suit of mine. I knew if I went to a university that I would fail miserably. So I came here hoping I would understand more. I like the connection it provides me because typically I feel really disconnected. It gave me a way to feel connected to people.
CR: So you felt like a traditional education couldn’t get you there?
CE: Exactly
CR: So for you photography works well?
CE: I think so. I think so.

cee_galry_0014-
(photograph by Claire Eggers, South Africa)

house
(Huckabay, Texas – Google Street View)

CR: What is it you are trying to communicate?
CE: Something within myself… that I can make a connection with somebody, I can make a connection with people.
CR: I want to jump around a little bit… Let’s talk about South Africa. Tell me about Red Hill. What do you know about Red Hill?
CE: It’s an informal settlement. They are not supposed to be there. They settled on somebody’s land without permission.
CR: Is the landowner aware?
CE: Yes. They are actually going to have to be relocated within the next few years.
CR: How does that even happen?
CE: The government will enforce it. They are trying to find more land along with the organization African Impact.
CR: So this is a group of people, prior to living in Red Hill, who were or were not bound together?
CE: They were not. Some are family but were not living together prior. Everyone settled there. Everyone knows everyone, just like a neighborhood.
CR: Without intent, they’ve created a community. Do they see the government intervention and the effort of African Impact as a good thing?
CE: The people I spoke to yes. There are some who do not. But it could be worse. They could be kicked off the land.

cee_galry_0002
(photograph by Claire Eggers – South Africa)

CR: Tell me about Sophia.
CE: Sophia started a preschool for the kids who were not doing anything else during the day while their parents were at work. She took them into her own home, a tin shack with no room, and she kept them and fed them and looked after them. And she taught them.  Over the course of three to four years African Impact stepped in and helped. Through African Impact she obtained shipping containers that they converted into classrooms. And she was able to take in more kids.
CR: Is there a curriculum of any sorts or is she teaching what she thinks young children should know?
CE: She is teaching them what she thinks young children should know… numbers, the alphabet, and she teaches them English. She does not have accreditation to be teaching. But she had worked at a school and decided that she could at least teach the children these basics.
CR: And she is teaching inside shipping containers?
CE: Yes and many of them have wood floors and windows. Some of them are really nice.
CR: And African Impact helped to coordinate all of this?
CE: She did start everything on her own and it was sort of collaboration. But once African Impact stepped in the school really started to grow.

ranch
(Huckabay, Texas)

CR: Yesterday I drove up to Gallery 27 to see the exhibit again because the opening was so packed. And I think you have some great images in the show. And I really like your statement, which is, “Beauty, light, color, truth, and humanity inspired me.” I like it because its simple and I look at your work, and it’s about harmony. Do you agree?
CE: I do because of the people while I was there. Everyone was very giving. But I’m really inspired by light and light drives me and I think that is kind of odd.
CR: You think it’s odd?
CE: Yeah
CR: Why is that?
CE: I don’t know but it doesn’t feel like the right thing that is pushing me.
CR: Well then what should be pushing you if it’s not a natural response?
CE: I guess I feel like it should be deeper than that and that it should have a deeper meaning.

cee_galry_0015
(photograph by Claire Eggers, South Africa)

CR: Maybe you don’t recognize it, but I think it’s something beautiful when all those things that you mentioned… beauty, light, color, and truth come together in this harmonious moment that you somehow manage to fit into the frame of a photograph. And I think it’s a metaphor for what we need to live with one another. There is this awareness to it all. Maybe like the fish in Dave Eggers’ story.  They keep pushing us in that story, the humans, to step back and think about how we are communicating and the weight language can carry. And if photography is a language, the weight photography can carry. Do you feel like the fish or the humans in that story?
CE: I think I feel like the humans. Having to always be pushed to think.
CR: So if there is this importance to connect, to have community and harmony… why should one person like in Sophia’s case pass their knowledge on to another person? Because looking at the show there was this sense of responsibility of the adults passing along their knowledge and heritage to their children. And it is not this grandiose plan… it’s simple education and it’s everyday tasks.
CE: Much of what we saw there was a new generation of kids being taught because they were going to be the better generation.
CR: Do you think that the kids, and I’m not necessarily talking about three or four year olds or anything… but do you think that they were aware that this was their obligation that might often even be a burden?
CE: No I don’t think they were. Being young, you aren’t aware of the responsibilities that will come to you in life. I feel like they’re still working things out with their families and working things out with themselves.

erath_cow
(“Erath County, No. 1 Dairy County in Texas” – Stephenville, TX – closest town to Huckabay, TX)

CR: You grew up in Huckabay, Texas?
CE: Yes
CR: I looked up Huckabay and it is an extremely small place… 150 people. What was that like? You knew everyone.
CE: You do really know everybody. And it makes going in to town difficult if you don’t want to be seen. You know the convenience store worker and everyone else. And to me… I hated it so much. Because it was the same thing every day. It was the same people living the same lives, and going to do the same thing as their parents and I couldn’t understand that.

gas_station
(Bargain Town – Huckabay, Texas)

cee_galry_0006
(photograph by Claire Eggers, South Africa)

CR: You don’t want to be stuck in that town…. What are people doing in that town?
CE: There are a lot of dairies. And the kids help on their parents’ dairy and then they take that dairy and they run it until they give it on to their kids. It’s a lot of generations of land being handed down.
CR: What does your family do?
CE: My family owns a ranch and we train horses and we have cattle. My dad bales his own hay and all that but my brother is taking it over.
CR: So the pressure is off.
CE: Yes.
CR: How old is your brother?
CE: He’s 23.
CR: Does he feel pressured to take it over or does he want to take it over?
CE: He wants to. He is comfortable there and I don’t understand why he wants to do that but he doesn’t understand why I want to do what I want to do. But it’s exactly what he wants to do.
CR: That’s good for him though right?
CE: It is. I am happy for him.

house02
(Huckabay, Texas)

cee_galry_0001
(photograph by Claire Eggers – South Africa)

CR: So they don’t understand why you want to leave Huckabay?
CE: I think they understand why I wanted to leave but I don’t think they understand why photography. But I could be wrong and they might just be refraining from telling me. I don’t even understand why I am doing what I am doing.
CR: I think it’s natural to be inquisitive. And we want to understand things from a different perspective. And that perspective can seem really narrow when you grow up in a small town.
CE: People thought I was quite weird but I was fine with that because I didn’t want to have the same path everyone had. I wanted the chance to know something different. And understand a different part of myself.

cee_galry_0004
(photograph by Claire Eggers, South Africa)

CR: We seek out different experiences and what we end up finding maybe, and you will have to tell me if you agree, is that everybody is sort of the same. Anacleto Rapping asked you guys [the students he led to South Africa] if you ever wonder if we all begin with the same aspirations?
CE:  Yes.
CR: So what are those aspirations? What are we all seeking?
CE: That is a big question.
CR: Then what is one thing we are seeking?
CE: Love. Or acceptance… I will change that to acceptance.
CR: Does photography help get you there?
CE: Definitely. It helps me feel that something I am doing is accepted. And as long as I have my eyes to see through the viewfinder I will be okay.

_____________________

www.claireeggersimages.com

Posted on 18 Apr 2013 By Shaun H Kelly
Posted in Conversations and Brief Interviews | Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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to be more like the fishes; What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes by Dave Eggers

cee_galry_0015
(Photograph by Claire Eggers – no relation to Dave Eggers – but who communes with the fishes. Who went to South Africa and who upon her return, perhaps more aware than when she had left said, “beauty, light, color, truth, and humanity inspired me.”)

To be more like the fishes…

What The Water Feels Like To The Fishes – by Dave Eggers
Like the fur of a chinchilla. Like the cleanest tooth. Yes, the fishes say, this is what it feels like. People always ask the fishes, ‘What does the water feel like to you?’ and the fishes are always happy to oblige. Like feathers are to other feathers, they say. Like powder touching ash. We smile and nod. When the fishes tell us these things, we begin to understand. We begin to think we know what the water feels like to the fishes. But it’s not always like fur and ash and the cleanest tooth. At night, they say, the water can be different. At night, when it’s very cold, it can be like the tongue of a cat. At night, when it’s very very cold, it’s like cracked glass. Or honey. Or forgiveness, they say, ha ha. When the fishes answer these questions – which they are happy to do – they also ask why. They are curious things, fish are, and thus they ask, ‘Why? Why do you want to know what the water feels like to the fishes?’ And we are never quite sure. The fishes press further. ‘Do you breathe air?’ they ask. The answer is yes. Well then, they say, ‘What does the air feel like to you?’ And we do not know. We think of air and we think of wind, but that’s another thing. Wind is air in action, air on the move, and the fishes know this. Well then, they ask again, ‘What does the air feel like?’ And we have to think about this. Air feels like air, we say, and the fishes laugh mirthlessly. ‘Think!’ they say. ‘Think,’ they say, now gentler. And we think and we guess that air feels like hair, thousands of hairs, swaying ever so slightly in breezes microscopic. The fishes laugh again. ‘Do better, think harder,’ they say, encouraging us. It feels like language, we say, and they are impressed. ‘Keep going,’ they say. It feels like blood, we say, and they say, ‘No, no, now you’re getting colder.’ The air is like being wanted, we say, and they nod approvingly. The air is like being pushed and pulled and yanked, punched and slapped and misunderstood and loved, we say, and the fishes sigh and touch our forearm sympathetically.

…sympathetically aware. To know our place. In relation to that place. In relation to one another, understanding language. And describe well. Beauty, light, color, truth, and humanity.

Posted on 16 Apr 2013 By Shaun H Kelly
Posted in Pushes and Pulls | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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upcoming exhibition; Today I Will Not Lie – South Africa

today

“Led by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Anacleto Rapping, 13 students from Brooks Institute traveled to South Africa to make a visual record of the culture in and around the townships. They documented daily life and the relief efforts of the NGOs and South Africans who are so tirelessly working to improve lives in the face of adversity. ‘Today I Will Not Lie’ looks at the faces of the old & new generations who are still healing from their past; recognizing the decision to push forward in the power of honesty is a personal choice. This, however, comes only after a period of self-reflection, recognizing the destruction going on in the world and responding with the knowledge of hope.”

Strant Magazine conducted an interview with Anacleto Rapping
about some of his experiences in South Africa
which you can read here.

Today I Will Not Lie | from April 18 to July 06, 2013
Opening Reception: April 18, 2013 5:00PM – 7:30PM

Visions Gallery
2055 East Harbor Boulevard
Ventura, CA 93001
(more info)

Posted on 15 Apr 2013 By Shaun H Kelly
Posted in Pushes and Pulls | Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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the influence of Wendell Berry; Redemption Over and Over Again

IWCL_SHK_JDG-56
(Photograph by Jesse Groves from the series, If We Could Live by Shaun H Kelly & Jesse Groves)

I read the novel Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry and I decided to become a barber. This was a romantic notion based on the novel’s main character whose name is also the title of the book. Although fictional, Jayber Crow the man a deserved a certain recognition via Jayber Crow the book because his life was a real life; one complete and fully realized in relation to the place of which he was a part. “My relation to that place, my being in it and my absences from it, is the story of my life,” he says.

Too often we consider our lives not a series of progressions but rather departures. For me, becoming a barber was in response to a career as a radio DJ failing before it began. And leaving my career as a barber only six months in was reconciliation that blue-collar work is commendable and requires a certain skill set I did not possess. My imagined life as a barber was in some contrast to the reality of being a barber.

However, these career attempts have all been in pursuit of something tangibly real. They have been an effort, rather conscious or not, to join a community and with that the dependency upon and interactions with other people. It is why Jayber Crow’s life was so romantically appealing. As a barber he quite literally was in contact with the people of his community as he groomed a more presentable individual. I am not one for physical interaction however and this is partially the reason I quickly exited my career as a barber. I had somehow in the years spent training been able to let go of this slight disdain in pursuit of my idealized life. But once outside of a school setting (a mere pseudonym of real life… a bubble in which students feel safe) I was brought back to the reality of dirty hair and real life interactions.

These times in our lives in which we are pursuing that which we will quickly abandon, or those efforts seen as no more than a means to an end, are often unfairly demonized. My barbering days I distance myself from and sometimes consider it at best a lesson learned and time that perhaps I could have spent better had I been more focused earlier in my life. This however is an unfair discredit to time. As though time is linear and once spent is gone. And so the jobs that we occupy are often only to earn extra money to pay off a large debt, or to put food on the table, or this or that. They are jobs that one day we will be able to move on from and they are certainly not our identity. One day hopefully, it will all be over and then we can really get on with our lives. But in fact those pursuits and that time spent are part of our identity. And our attempt to relinquish this aspect of who we are is because we believe that we must always be a presentable self. That like a new haircut, to be well presented is to be truest.

In Berry’s essay, Life is a Miracle he writes, “if we could faithfully commit ourselves to the principle that nothing whatever can safely be said to lie outside the context of our work, then artists and scientists would have to be ready at any time to see that they have been wrong and to start again, making larger the context of the work. That is true freedom. It means simply that beyond all error we can begin again; redemption is possible.” The idea of redemption is perhaps a little unsettling. It does have a certain connotation that ties it to religion. And religion for many has nothing to do with freedom. But according to the Christian liturgical calendar we are in the Easter season. Last Sunday Christians observed the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And the importance of this event is that in short it is a second chance and that Christ was resurrected for humanity’s redemption. But really according to Christian understanding it is more like a fourth chance. Read the history of the world according to Christian scripture and this idea of redemption is spread throughout from the very first account of existence. Perhaps what is wrong with religion is that we have made it, much like our lives, goal oriented, organized and contained instead of a bit wilder and freer… a forest instead of a container garden. This is not my defense however of organized religion. It is my defense of the idea that to live is to begin again, every time in relation to the place in which we occupy. My defense is of community.

A few years ago, I travelled for the first time to Redwood National Park. I learned that Redwoods typically do not die of old age. Instead they collapse from their own weight, their shallow root system unable to carry such a heavy load. We could easily create a metaphor of our own existence from this. That we too, from the heavy burden of being an individual amongst many other individuals are too laden by life and we fall. And granted, the weight of living can at times be a bit much. But that is not I think a good metaphor because that isn’t the end of the Redwood tree. These Redwoods I learned, bloom one more time after they have fallen to the forest floor; one last season of new seeds to be distributed. Because these Redwoods know their existence is crucial to the existence of the forest they occupy, they provide it with new growth. And this is redemption. Life through death, life began again. It is not death without credit to time. It is not a means to an end or a goal cut short. It is not a dead end job. It is a progression. It is the forest trying to get it right… trying to sustain itself. It is communal living. It is what hopefully we seek over and over again until we too get it right.

____________________________

If We Could Live will be on exhibit at Tool Room Gallery 
from April 5 to April 26, 2013 (more info)

Posted on 5 Apr 2013 By Shaun H Kelly
Posted in Writings about Photography and Occasional Other Things | Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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