Memories and Memoirs

Peter Eisenman’s Wexner Arts Center Columbus, Ohio

{Eisenman, Gehry, Tsien, Williams and Marks}

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”

(Nabokov)

I didn’t know who I wanted to be, but I knew I had to get there to know what that was.

RLS

The great Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov wrote “Speak,Memory”. Nabokov was like a Sorcerer the way he could lay down words from memory. I wish my memory was as acute as is, or like the magician Harry Lorayne (a man who remembered everything).

Vladimir Nabokov would think collectively. He sometimes seemed to float like from a Chagall painting above a single word. The word would later find itself splayed out on a white typing sheet. The word would later graduate into the world and the Nabokov canon.

Occasionally he would step down from his lofty perspective and joins us. We were not aware of his presence until we read his stories or memoirs and realize he has always been among us: He knows us.

I wanted to be like Nabokov. He was not fierce or Rabelaisan. He was in the wind with butterflies. Where flitting butterflies landed, Nabokov discovered nature’s bounty; or so his memoirs suggest in great detail.

When he wrote about Chess as in “The Defense”, he wrote about man’s fragile vulnerability: The character may crash and burn: He was still writing about us.

I of course have led quite a different life. I think a scatter gun best suits my approach to life and career. Cervantes might have thought I was too Quixote. Rabelais might have thought I was too Gargantuan. I think I was intended to embrace collectively one million Birds of Paradise and ask myself what have I accomplished: Have I done enough.

I have had incidental wanderings upon one million Monarchs. Nabokov’s wanderings were with specific calculations. He would spread his eyes across the planet as a distilled yet calculated life observer. His eyes smiled as they danced among his prized genera of butterflies.

I know we are completely different beasts; Yin and Yang. Nabokov lived a fully articulated life among letters. I love the order in his life. I am still chasing my endgame: Instead of amassing a library of letters, I am looking at an archive of photographic images. Do I have an endgame? What will it matter.

Chasing Shadows: Breathless

Chasing shadows is part of a holistic approach that just might allow me to realize my endgame. If I follow my visual instincts, maybe all of my concerns will come into focus: I think when I consider the decades, the most consistent factor in all of my images is the presence of shadows.

I have composed images with a bit of an excited yelp! The yelp arises when I see a shadow. No ordinary shadow, but one that says, “Stop now and shoot”.

The architect Peter Eisenman’s magnum opus may just be “The Wexner Center for the Arts”.

Columbus, Ohio is home to some fabulous architecture. But I was racing almost breathlessly to see if I could capture the Eisenman genius.

Ohio and Columbus are such a profound example of Middle America. Outstanding visuals across the state. I felt I had slipped into another time another part of history. A Columbus General Store had me feeling that Rod Serling was directing a live episode of Richard Schulman in shock. I had missed the photograph of the century: Adjoining the General Store was an ice cream shop. Two very round and robust Ohioans in pastel Easter colors were licking equally pastel Easter colored ice cream cones. Needless to say it is not fair to go on with the description of an image that I missed snapping: Alas, only in Ohio.

There is no past in Ohio. Every century, and every decade seem not to have been phased by time. But then there is Eisenman.

Driving like a maniac to catch the light I have not seen. Driving like a maniac to see what may be the greatness of a single man. Doing my due diligence to see what I needed to see in this magnum opus.

As my car swung through the campus of Ohio State I espied what my whole career had been shaped by; The shadow. There it was. Before I could encircle my objective. I stepped into my mark for Wexner’s closeup. It was just this one soft shadow that made what might be seen as a deconstructive image into a bucolic “aha” setting.

I knew instantly that my quest had been realized. Even after walking in and around the building for the next few hours, I continued to remind myself of the “shadow”.

Hey, maybe there is a better picture, but for what I dream about, I was in love.

Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall was designed before Bilbao. Somehow, today Disney is sort of the “Mini Me” to Bilbao. Disney is a treasure. Many years before the movie “Ford Vs.Ferrari movie I felt like I was breaking Craig Breedlove’s land record everyday. I raced from the west side to the east side everyday for one week through the streets of Los Angeles. I needed to capture at least one or two Disney/Gehry photographs. My father raced against Dan Gurney and Ken Miles and…I kind of know what racing with assurance is about. I always raced the engine like I was “Breathless” Belmondo style..

I think I maybe recorded 2-3 successful images. I worked like a dog. I always work like a dog while taking pictures. So when I saw Frank’s Disney the way he just might like it: I saw a certain curtain dressing of shadows that made me quietly yelp, “aha”. There ain’t nothing like it.

Billie Tsien and Tod Williams are remarkable architects. If I was Vladimir Nabokov today, I would confess that on the day I made their portrait, they were my Nabokov butterflies. I chased them around the American Folk Art Museum on the day of the opening.

Their minds had to be racing breathlessly with a check list stamped on their foreheads. It just had to be that way. I merely waited until like a butterfly netted they had no more room to run.. They stopped. I shot.

My light and my camera allotted me five more images. But it was this single image that became my moment; Joy in my heart; hard won perspiration springing from my eyes. If one could yell “That’s it” but one doesn’t.

Almost twenty years later, I still feel a little bit of heaven from that moment. For me there is nothing like chasing a shadow that before that day had not existed. For days and weeks following I laid in the middle of the street waiting for the museum to be captured in a similar light. I was unleashed with ambition and heart. My reward was Tsien/Williams portrait of two architects and a portrait of their work. The total experience was like my “My Trip to Bountiful”.

The Art Dealer Matthew Marks was quite insistent that he did not want to be photographed. But a few phone calls and a bit of “please” I captured a whirlybird that had no interest in a whirl.

Matthew is a wonderfully imposing figure. My camera seemed to see things I had not seen yet. There were colors and shadows wafting slowly in the gallery space. It almost reminded me of the beautiful staggering struggles that Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin endured in the final scenes from “They Shoot Horses Don’t They”.

Matthew Marks clearly was not engaged. I needed to motivate him. The real and mirage like colors and shadows suddenly compelled me to act like a fashion photographer: “Beautiful baby, just beautiful”.

If I had not encased Matthew in the two trademarks that are Richard Schulman: Colors and shadows, I am not sure what I would have done. Matthew might have killed me. But walking out of the upper East Side gallery I knew that for me, no matter how much I confound myself with Nabokov’s life versus mine, a single tip of my shutter, makes me sing. Maybe (“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”) is more about my photography Than I realized.