June 8. I arrive on the island hoping to spend the summer here. Where I am and what it looks like.
June 12. Jess got an inquiry from a modeling agency in Paris. We had a couple of sessions and put together a small portfolio which was sent to them.
June 15. When I first got to the island I did a series of direct scans of things in the meadow.
June 24. Shiraine drove down from Vancouver to visit me and we had a great time. We were trying to take a portrait of us with the timer and I was fiddling with the flash when the camera went off and took this accidental portrait.
June 27-July 10. Lots of visitors: Susan, Michael (who doesn't like to be photographed but as a writer/director likes to 'capture' other people...he directed the new Hamlet which is excellent), Robin (on his way back to his home in Victoria), Jessica, Lilith and Sean who are getting married Labor Day, Ken, Marisa back from Europe,
July 4. I went to Maxwelton to photograph the 4th of July parade, perhaps the shortest parade in the land - only about four hundred yards with almost as many participants in the parade as parade watchers. I have photographed a lot of 4th of July parades and small town fairs....in the late eighties I went to Mojave, California for theirs and mainly photographed spectators. In the early nineties, right after getting this image at the 4th of July parade in Newhall, California, I started a series of images called "Sons with Guns" which now has about two dozen decent images in it.
After the Maxwelton Parade I managed to leave my wallet on top of the pump at a service station. It was gone when I went back twenty minutes later and with it my identity, credit-worthiness and cash.
July 16. Loran, Lola and I went for a long walk up the logging road to pick berries that are just becoming ripe. The wild blackberries are the best but I also like the tartness of the red ones. I think they are called Service berries.
I have this friend who lives with her husband Carlos in San Jose. Jolynn has been a model, an auto mechanic, a bouncer at rock concerts, a catering chef. And she works on films as a wardrobe designer, dolly grip, set decorator, props...whatever comes her way. She is an avid gardener. Two years ago she sent me some jams she had cooked up so I made her some labels - Jolynn's Jams with an Attitude". She would like these berries and make a jam out of them.
After we got back from our walk, Loran and I had lunch on the balcony overlooking the meadow. Two years ago, on Labor Day, we had a similar lunch.
July 18. As far as I can tell, nothing happened today or the day before for that matter...at least up here on the island.
July 21-23. Loran came for the weekend and we had an ambitious 'construction project' planned in the forest. We have built two 'things' in the forest before, put together entirely with the material around us. The first was an infill of a large lighting hole in a beautiful deformed alder tree. Two years ago we built the piggies house #2 (the one made out of sticks....). This year's project was a yurt-like circular structure built from fallen alders in a cedar grove. Loran prepared the drawings at work. I was celebrating having put up the revised website earlier in the day on Friday so we sat on the balcony while I drank whisky and we laid out the work for the weekend. There were these incredibly dynamic clouds that would dramatically transform in a matter of minutes. The forecast was not good and all night long the thunder and lightning rattled across the meadow.
In the morning, after going to the Farmer's market at Bayview to pick up some provisions we got to work. But the thunder and lighting continued all day. Jon's dog, Bailey, was with us and everytime the long rolling thunder started he would race off barking into the woods to scare it away. He did this for hours. The work was very hard but finally we were both soaked from the rain and called it quits. Sunday morning we started at eight in the morning and worked until three when Loran had to leave. We didn't quite finish but it is looking very nice. Various constructions in the Forest (1998-2000)
Loran is the creative director of the constructions in the forest and I am construction supervisor. Who is Loran? In addition to her studying to becoming a Doctor of Five-element Chinese medicine and her exquisite shoulder and arms she is an artist of the highest order. She uses a lot of found objects of all kinds, in particular tin cans, and uses them to create strange and wonderful things. We have been sending 'mail art' to each other for several years. Loran's are much more interesting and it is sometimes a wonder that they arrive at all. See Loran's Page.
July 24. Marisa came over and we filmed the digi-movie continuing her story 'One Year Later'. Because it is not likely that I will have time to edit the film before I leave I have extracted images from the film and a partial transcript of what she had to say.
If you are not familiar with M's Story her revelations linked above will not be shocking and will not make sense. Start M's Story f rom the beginning to see what lead her to this point in her life.
July 26. Annual woodchop. I like to cut up downed trees around the place into rounds and then split them in the summer. I didn't split as much as usual because my back has been bothering me from the time I got up here.
July 27. Loran was trying to give a friend the website address but couldn't remember the exact name just that it had Shadowplay and Images in it. She went to the Google search engine and punched in Shadowplay Imagings......please don' t make that mistake if you should want to tell someone about this site. Shadowplay Imagings is one of the tackiest, ugliest, boring sites on the web. It specializes in 'fetish and erotic images'. Go there at your own peril and check it out: ShadowplayImagings. The other sites that Google picks up if you punch in Shadowplay are: Apparently there is a rockband in Holland with a sizeable following; a Shadowplay Communications and Design; Shadowplay Bath Shoppe (stet); Shadowplay Records in Oklahoma and numerous Shadowplay sites devoted to the 'gothic' experience....
August 1-3. Ken Hassrick is a life-long artist who lives on the island and definitely has the best studio around. He also has a great face so I asked if I could shoot his portrait in my studio. I also photographed him in his studio working with Phyllis. I then did a portrait session with Phyllis.
August 9. Phyllis came over with Edna for a photo session. I wanted to shoot some very abstract images of two bodies using the same lighting set-up that I used for Phyllis' portraits, but they determined the poses and decided how they wanted to be photographed. They have known each other a long time and while their intimacy is not sexual, I was struck by how loving and tender and comfortable they were with each other. Images of Phyllis and Edna.
August 15. Bob Drake, a good man and a good friend, died today.
August 17-20. The annual Island County Fair. Lots of kids parading their 4H sheep and pigs. Lumberjacks competing. Amusement rides. Edibles. All of it at a scale that is appropriate for fit. Images.
August 25. Jess and her sister, Deana, came over for a portrait session. Deana is going to have a baby in a couple of months.
August 26-27. Loran came to the island and Susan and Loran and I picked berries, hunted in vain for mushrooms, visited Ken and Doll and Sandy on Sunday. Sandy has a wonderful house with several trucks overgrown with berry vines . Sunday morning we took photographs of Loran's metal creations. They are totally great. Check them out.
Sept. 3. Lilith and Sean get married. I have known and photographed Lilith for almost ten years. She was one of the first models I ever had on the island and she graciously tolerated my experimentation. We have an agreement that we will get together one way or another over the coming years to take more photographs. She has a lithe, fearless and incredibly graceful way of finding poses. The opening image of this web site of the figure with her arms spread out is Lilith.
Sept. 6. I pack Lola and all my imaging shit from the summer in the car and we drive 1200 miles south so that I can get back to earning a living.
Sept. 17. I am back at the ranchito in Agua Dulce, California, waiting for the film to come together. At 10:30 this morning the temperature outside was 103 degrees. By the afternoon it hit 110. This is the fifth of the last seven days where the temperature peaked over 100 degrees. Yesterday Agua Dulce, a small equestrian community in the high desert an hour north of Los Angeles, had its annual parade. Where Agua Dulce is and snaps of the parade.
It's nice to be back down there even if it is a little hot and the first brush fire of the season came within half a mile of the place. Susan, the horses, the other animals, the cacti and the penetrating heat are a nice but abrupt change from the northwest.
Sept.25. We drove out to the Mojave Desert near Death Valley where the Bureau of Land Management was having an adoption drive to place wild mustangs and burro's that can no longer be sustained by the available feed. So we selected a six month old, promptly named Dusty, and he was delivered the next day. Having been born in the wild he was very cautious in the new environment but within a day or two became best of friends with Beau. They spend hours nipping and tugging on each other (it's some kind of ear thing) with Beau's floppy ears and Dusty's mile long ears of mutual interest. If Beau trots away, Dusty makes a 'hee-haw' bellowing that can be heard throughout the valley. She has now been introduced to the other horses but it will take time for her to settle in. Beau and Dusty.
October 2000 - May 2001. Prague
I spent eight months working on a movie, five of them in Prague. This was my third film in Prague and as always it is one of my favorite places to be. This time I had a great converted attic apartment on Male Namesti just off the old town square and my commute to the production office was a pleasure. We had a production hiatus over Christmas-New Years, Susan came to visit but returned before the New Year's Eve madness in the square. The film work was all consuming so I had virtually no time for any imaging work but just before leaving Prague my friend Minna arranged for her friend Halka to model for me in the apartment. Since it is a converted attic, there are odd angles and beams jutting in all directions and Halka, a performance artist, was quickly comfortable with the surroundings. I did shoot some other digi images but the hard drive on my powerbook disintegrated in Prague and took all of them with it.
Summer 2001
Things didn't quite work out the way I had planned and hoped. When I arrived on the island for what I thought would be an extra long summer I pretty much slept the first week, totally exhausted from the previous eight months of work. I had planned to tackle Final Cut Pro since I have been shooting digi for some time and figured it was time to edit some of it, but mainly to get ready to make some of my own little films. But it was a listless study, hampered by being an autodidact and having an idiot for a teacher and because my heart somehow wasn't in it. I didn't take on other large scale imaging projects, as in previous summers, partly because I just wanted to be free to mess around but also because with the summer barely underway, it became clear that I would be leaving soon to take on another film, again in Prague. There are new images in probably every folio but the right hand coloumn of the What's New? page will give you some introduction.
I did one Nude and Portrait session with B.; Did a portrait session with Jess who is letting her hair grow. Shot the 4th of July parade at Maxwelton again; did some image shit involving my hands; messed around with 'found images' on the themes of passion and romance. The one project I spent the most time on was burning compilation C.D.'s and sending them to friends. Here are the covers....
That's about it. Outta here. Back to Prague.
Fall 2001
Not so fast.....the film fell apart. I stayed on the ranchito while the new studio was under construction. I photographed the annual Agua Dulce parade; photographed a Bus Graveyard in northern California; shot some cacti; more hand jive.....there are various new images in the Nudes, Portrait, Self Portrait, On The Street, Digital Constructions folios......got depressed from the excessive flag waving and patriotic rhetoric desecrating the horrors.....hunkering down.
Winter-Spring 2001-2002
Took a trip to the desert with a friend.....Jessica laughing....L.S. moved out here and threw a Christmas Cowboy Party.....The Studio at the ranchito is finally finished....A new portrait folio of Darryl....Jess took some self portraits.
Summer 2002
Did a quickie movie in L.A. and then started prep on a monster of a mini series that was challenging but worthwhile because the script was so good. Assembled a superb crew and started prep in Thailand when, after eight weeks of prep, the plug was pulled, thanks to that fat fuck Harvey Weinstein...but Thailand and the Thais were wondrous.