The Syracuse Slowdown Blowdown Snowdown Lowdown Showdown

This Saturday was the Snowdown, a project of the Public Arts Task Force.
Calvin, in his infinite 7-year-old wisdom called it a slowdown, blow-down, showdown.  It was a Lipe Art Park on the near west side across the way from the Delevan Gallery and a place where many local artists have installed work.

The creativity of the ring leaders of this group continues to astonish me. There was a good turn out for the event and the snow sculptures were very impressive considering that, except for Dave Greene, a Syracuse Resident known well on Allen Street for his impressive snow-structures and arches, the participants didn't have  much experience sculpting snow.

There were plenty of shovels and with a little encouragement, a wide-variety of forms emerged from the snow: boats, monters, snow-bots, hands, a beach scene, and the "spirit of Syraucse (see below).

This is Brendan's snow bot.  He's now officially the Syracuse Artist in Residence. 

 And this is Mark, the official fire master--who would make a god hobo according to the crowd of people huddled around his very competent and well hidden from the street fire pit. He can--think it's the red coat--make anything burn.

 This is Johnathan and his dad, who sculpted some impressive snow monsters.

The hand, with thumb-up optimism. It has become part of the city's vernacular: "Upstate is for Optimists." How else could you deal with this much snow?

Here's my favorite sculpture from the day's festive and friendly competition:

                               The Spirit of Syracuse:

And meet the makers Margaret and Louis from the Northside of our fair City. They were very gracious and endearing winners.

Visit to St. Bernard Parish Family

This most recent trip to Louisiana I wondered what the hell I was doing.  Then I delivered this picture to and the family recognized themselves.

 

In a thick local accent, the man said. "That one's alright, but this one is something." He kept looking at it.  The mother of the children stepped out onto the lawn and agreed, with honest, palpable, honest-no-bullshit emotion. It made me go all silly. It was too much to hope for that they would get it, would reflect at me the feeling I get when I'm doing this work/art/play.

It's a piece of paper.  A picture.  What can it possibly mean? In the moment of giving it, it becomes much more. I can't seem to stop myself from hoping that they will recognize something in themselves that I see: great beauty in the common man and woman, the honest work in day to day survival, the struggle to meet the needs of their children, and their ability to find some joy in that struggle. 

Their thanks was  so heartfelt I was embarrassed.  What's amazing, I want to say, is that you let me in, let me sit on the neatly made bed in your living room, where you unwind to sleep at night, that your girls are climbing all over me and my camera equipment, have with pen and ink inserted their drawings, the reflections of their very souls into my notebook.  It's to you that I am grateful  for giving me a reason to pause and catch the breeze, take flight, regard the human spirit  as a fine, and  brightly feathered creature here in this fifteen foot wide stretch of heaven where you make and unmake your bed, furl and unfurl your life, this weedy and wonderful patch of heaven and earth.

Favorites from the Archives August 2000 | issue 296 Old Soul by Genie Zeiger

"Zeiger: I think fear of aging is related to a fear of dying, and also to a fear of being really alive.
Hillman: We’ve become a security-obsessed culture. We’re an air-bag culture. We buy cars because of their safety features. Everything has to be safety-proofed so that there can be no accident. Now they’re going to make a car in which the trunk can be opened from within because last year nine children died in trunks. To avoid death, or accident, or wounding of any kind has become our prime objective. It’s as if, psychically, we live in gated communities in order to keep out the unforeseen.
Zeiger: That fear of the unforeseen seems related to our Puritan beginnings: fear of vitality, sexuality."

Lodi Laundry in Black and White

 This is one of the first pictures I took at the Lodi Laundry last fall.  Just after the new year I met with Xai, the Vietnamese woman who owns and operates the place with her husband, to ask again  for their permission to take pictures there.  They live upstairs and remain a little surprised by my interest in their business and its customer base, but they don't seem to mind my excursions into their world. 

A Family Just Outside NOLA

I just uploaded some pictures from my point and shoot camera that these kids took of each other while I was in New Orleans, visiting outside the parish, beyond the Lower 9th ward. I ended up out this way one day looking for a cup of coffee. Sounds silly, but in the lower 9th there's not much place to buy things and I was looking for coffee to bring to Mac at the Lower 9th ward and ended up driving miles outside the parish in search of a McDonalds. I didn't have high hopes of anything fancy, but the oragne store coffee was just a little too thin and I just wanted real half and half.

This family taught me to shoot a gun, just an air gun that shoots bibi's, actually the wind blew the cans over for me, and spared me the pressure of making the shot.

They were a local family including some old timers who knew the area going way back, and some people from other parts of the country, like a Cherokee from Alabama. the kids were really fascinated with the camera and I love the shots they took of each other and their family. I hope to see them again my next trip. Joey, one of the men close to me in age, shared some of what he wrote in the time of Katrina. He remembered it so vividly, being without a place to stay, drifting. His voice carried so much emotion, I was surprised. I don't know why I am still surprised by listening to men tell their stories. Why am I surprised that they know sadness too. I've grown up hearing how men don't have feelings like women, but when I listen to people like Joey talk, I can hear it, it's in them too, the longing to be rooted to place, to have a family, and a home.

Falling Down Barn Outside Town

 The way this barn bowed out at the sides, like a animal heavy with child, made we wonder if it was getting ready to lie down or fall under the next winter's snow. It seemed, like old people do sometimes, to stand just from stubborn habit. 

In Memory of John Abel

When we went back to post pictures of John and share them with the people who would most miss him, we could not find Gretchen. We put the pictures where she wanted, next to the cross that was scratched into the concrete.