I had planned to walk from gate A5 to B16, about half a mile in PHX. However, my flight arrived at A5 scant moments before they closed the boarding door at B16. A frantic dash through the airport merely got me to the customer assistance counter a few minutes quicker than walking would have. Rebooked on a flight the next morning, I was going to be spending the night in the hotel version of tofu: soft, beige, tasteless, forgettable.
Urban #250417.0.
I don’t find Phoenix particularly pleasant. Too much sprawl. But I can enjoy spending an evening anywhere. And so N. 44th Street it was. Lots of cars, nondescript office buildings, more tofu hotels, empty lots, and gas stations. I passed some guy out for a late-night run, a guy sitting on a plastic bucket panhandling, and some teenagers in a parking lot. And lots and lots of cars.
Urban #250417.1.
It wasn’t a pretty walk, by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoyed it. Why were there so many people driving and where were they going? Who thought an escape room would do well here? Why do you convert a gas station into a spa? And it’s hard to take seriously the Pat Tillman Middle School’s commitment to excellence and achievement when half their sign is burnt out.
Urban #250417.2.
I’m not sure I’m better for having seen N. 44th Street, and never need to see it again. But it was more fun than sitting in a bland hotel room.
I had an hour to waste, so I walked around the block, a bunch of times. I looked in the various windows as I circled Castle Green. I had crashed a wedding there once, years ago. I was promptly thrown out. The old women talking in the sitting room looked disapprovingly at me as if they recognized me as the wedding crasher. The woman arranging wedding dresses stood out starkly in her no-nonsense all black outfit moving amongst the elegant white and ivory dresses. One time around she had left her soda can in the window, a garish splash of color. By my next pass, it was gone.
The violin shop caught my attention — I hadn’t expected to see a violin repair shop. Each time I passed the windows I noticed something else. I was fascinated by the evidence of craftsmanship — the tools, the disheveled workbench, the repurposed shampoo.
Urban #250228.1.
One time I passed and saw the man working. I watched for a few minutes, a master at his trade. I wonder how much work he has these days. His shop was packed with instruments, if that means anything.
Urban #250228.2
My afternoon with Castle Green will surely become a zine.
The trains pass slowly through town. I could probably run alongside and climb on. I wonder where I would end up. Years ago, when a freight line still ran through the local town, I did climb on. Hours later it stopped outside some dusty town. I got off and went in search of a phone. Today I resisted the urge to go for a ride. Instead, I watched and imagined where this train loaded with freight was headed.
Urban #250207.1.
Flatcar after flatcar each carrying two combat vehicles. Hundreds of them rumbled slowly by. Millions of dollars of sophisticated military equipment. And yet, how banal: a “packing list” duck-taped to each one, as if they are nothing more than typical Amazon packages.
Urban #250207.2.
I wonder if there’s a return shipping label inside too?
One day I saw an oil painting of corner in some quotidian street corner in an unnamed (and unremarkable) Dutch town. I was struck by the vivid blue sky and the bold orange and red of the buildings. Two figures stood at the corner. Corners, I thought.
Urban #250109.
What can I do with corners? There are remarkably few corners in suburbia, and fewer people walking — one of the many features/flaws of suburbia. If I were more creative, I would find some way to make the Land Rovers and Teslas interesting subjects. But I’m not. So into the city I went in search of interesting corners.
Urban #250201.1.
Chilly winter days, bright blue sky, pedestrians bundled up to stay warm. Just what I was looking for.
I suppose in a world where the economy of likes and followers dominates, the audience will always shape what gets made. Creativity collapses into a form of obeisance, deference to the imagined or real preferences of the crowd. Although the nature of the audience has perhaps changed, the authority of the crowd has affected artistic production for centuries, since “making a living as an artist” became a possibility. Maybe that’s the problem with “art,” or at least a common notion of “art.” It requires an audience beyond the maker. Success is no longer measured by the pleasure of creating but by the approval of what has been created.
No shortage of successful artists who have dismissed “playing to the gallery” do so from the lucky position of having succeeded through the approval of that gallery. But that doesn’t mean they played to that gallery, it doesn’t mean they shaped their art to conform to some audience, it doesn’t mean they “sold out.” They might have, but in most cases we can’t know. How many artists (a word I don’t really like because it drags creativity into a commercial sphere) never “made it big” and still feel no need to play to the gallery? Sure, they probably had a “day job,” but don’t most people? Incredibly lucky are those whose day job is creating things they want to see? But the vast majority of people who have created things — visual things, musical things, culinary things, literary things, etc. — have paid the bills through some other means.
Domestic #250105.
The whole notion of being disappointed in how your creative output is received seems, to me, to miss the point of creating. If you need to pay rent, then do something that allows you to pay rent — maybe it means making something for an audience, maybe it means working for somebody, maybe it means stealing. Whatever. But don’t get angry at an audience for not appreciating your creative endeavors. Don’t be disappointed because you poured your heart and soul and energy and resources into making something that nobody liked. That disappointment, that anger, that frustration debases the act of creating, reduces it to a commodity.
Urban #241229.
I make things that are important to me. I create for me now and for some future me. An audience of two, that’s all I care about. If somebody likes what I make, fine. If somebody doesn’t like what I make, fine. If nobody notices what I make, fine. Do I think what I make is important? Absolutely. Does anybody else? I don’t care.
Maybe you have to care. Maybe you pay your bills through what you make. If so, make stuff you know will sell, get a day job. Let your creativity nourish your soul but not pay your bills. I am fortunate to have a day job that pays my bills. It allows me to make whatever it is I want to see. I make things that are meaningful to me. I don’t have care that anybody else likes what I make.
I like making things. Little things. Big things. Lately, I’ve been having fun with an 8-page zine. Printed from one piece of paper, folded, and cut, it is to me the ideal format for a short outing, or for a case study of a place. Or, I can look back through photographs I’ve taken to find a group of 8 that make a good theme.
Some of the zines I have been making lately.
They are easy and relatively quick to print and to fold. I use 11″x17″ sheets of paper, so that each page is about 4″x5″, large enough to showcase the photographs but not so large as to be bulky. I tweaked the layout a bit so that the cover image wraps around the front and back covers.
The “Vienna at Night” zine before I folded and cut it.
This format also gives a place to print a large photograph on the back side. It’s sort of a surprise for the person looking at the zine, and a puzzle — it seems unfolding and refolding the zine presents something of a challenge for people, which I didn’t expect.
A picture of the Glorietta that is the central image of the zine “Vienna at Night”
When it is all done, trimmed, folded, and cut, the zine is the perfect size for my guerrilla art projects. I have given them to friends and handed them to people I don’t know, left them on tables and shelves in coffeeshops, stuffed them between books in libraries and bookstores, and left them on seats in buses.
The cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine.
I don’t know what happens to those I abandon in the world. And I don’t really care. The point, for me, is in the making and giving away (not, I stress, “sharing” which has become an essential part of the economy of likes, has become entirely transactional, and depends on knowing what happens to whatever you make).
Two of the pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded, cut, and pressed it flat.
Sometimes I leave the house, camera in hand, looking for a coherent set of images that work well together. That was the case with the “Walking in Sacramento” or the “Alone in Philadelphia” zines — I knew an afternoon’s walk would produce at least 8 scenes I could cobble together into a zine. Other times, I draw from a few trips out and about, as in the “Vienna at Night” zines (there are two of these zines, gathering together the photographs from a few nights wandering the city late at night). In other cases, a zine emerges when I’m looking back through photos I’ve taken over a number of trips out. “Alone in Jefferson” is that type — the central image is part of a collection of photographs I’ve taken usually in Jefferson Station that highlight the loneliness of the modern world.
The central image for the “Alone in Jefferson” zine.
Any group of 8 photographs that cohere can become one of these little zines. Inspired by Alexey Titarenko, I took a bunch of photographs of people in a local cafe (see Ghosts in the Cafe). Turns out I have 8 that work well together, so I printed them as a zine. Seems appropriate that I left a handful in that cafe.
A spread from the “Ephemeral” zine.
Like all of my projects, this one will last as long as I find it amusing or interesting. I will continue to print copies of these zines, and cast them into the world. If you’d like to receive a few, send me $10 and your address. I will send you three random zines. Or, offer something in exchange.
Increasingly it seems we live in an Edward Hopper painting. We are always alone, even in busy places. Whether we have surrendered to the glowing screen in our hand or staring down at the ground, too much of modern life is profoundly isolated and isolating.
I recently finished another book project, “Fragments Red.” This volume will be the first of a seven-volume project, each pairing photographs with reflections of different sorts.
Working on the first volume of Fragments. The fourth draft.
A handful of drafts, each with a number of changes. Then there was the layout and design issues, where to put gatefolds, how to bind them, solving pagination issues. It was all so much fun.
A pile of drafts of volume one of Fragments, and some early printed pages.
After I spent a evening or two printing the pages, I made a jig to make drilling the holes in the pages easier and consistent. Then I painted some covers, found some matching thread to use for the binding (a version of “Japanese stab binding”), and sewed them up. Soon I had a dozen or so booklets.
Final copies of Fragments Red, with hand-painted covers and hand-stitched binding.
It took a long time, but I find something so satisfying about making something. Now off to start working on volume two, Fragments Orange.
I make things. I often use tools other people have developed, e.g., hammers (some people forge their own hammers, I don’t) and screwdrivers and saws; cameras (some people make their own cameras, I don’t) and printers and developing tanks; ovens and baking pans and measuring cups. But in the end, I use those tools to make things. I make things because I enjoy making (I also enjoy taking things apart, but that’s a different story). Sometimes the things I make are lovely and work well, sometimes they aren’t and don’t. It doesn’t matter. What matters to me (and I’m the only one who matters in this story) is I made them.
I don’t assemble things (unless I have to).
Urban #240309.1.
Perhaps that is why I don’t have a social media presence, why I don’t write on the many very beautiful and shiny platforms that encourage writing, why I don’t share my thoughts in 280 characters, why I don’t collect images I find online into a virtual scrapbook. Such fora are not tools for making something, at least not in the way I like to make things. They might let me assemble something, and that something might be slick and look remarkably like millions of other things people have assembled — the internet is a monotonous wasteland of polished similarity, like some vast 1990s housing development that’s not going to age well or, apparently, any coffee shopanywhere.
Urban #240309.2.
Instead, I have my little sandbox, where I build the things I want to build in the way I want to build them (to be sure, the tools I have chosen constrain what I can make — when that becomes a problem for me, I’ll find new tools). I don’t need anybody’s approval or disapproval, and I am not looking to start a “discussion” — if you want to chat, send me an email so we can meet for coffee. I don’t need anybody’s validation through comments or trackbacks. I take this position not because I have aversion to “someone else’s platform” or a fear of an algorithm or urge to be/build my own platform or worry about being the fodder for some other platform’s monetization scheme or worry my stuff will disappear. Those old chestnuts are still legitimate, I guess, but seem to privilege monetizing over making.
I find the world unknowable and therefore fascinating, unfamiliar and therefore irresistible. I long for that space where life seems uncertain, where I have to revise or reject the comfortable assumptions and convictions that have structured my life.
Urban #240311.1.
I used to frequent a local coffee shop where I often saw a particular woman. Whenever she saw me, she would move to the table next to mine and start writing on whatever piece of paper she had available. After a few minutes, she would hand me the piece of paper covered in rapid scrawlings and signed AST, smile, and then sit silently. I don’t recall her ever speaking to me. I don’t see her any longer — the coffee shop has closed. I miss our encounters. I learned a lot from watching her and trying to understand her world, which was very different from mine. Now and then, when I’m feeling smug, I pull out those sheets of paper and look back over them.
Urban #240311.2.
A few years back, an incarcerated man sent me a couple letters outlining his critique of society. Pages filled with carefully hand-written words, each letter almost typewriter perfect. Diagrams drawn with draftsman like precision. In the upper left corner, in place of a staple, an orange thread pierced the pages and stitched them together. Another encounter with a world that is very different from mine. Those letters are in the drawer with the pages from AST.
Urban #240311.3.
These encounters with the absurdity of life give me energy. Some unanswered and probably unanswerable longing for the unknown drives me. That longing is the wellspring of all my creativity, which might turn out to be ravings of a lunatic, but what higher purpose can there be for creativity.
