The CAA has had more shows than usual in the first half of the year, which is nice. I’ve gotten to show things in several already. The latest, which I found out about just now, is the show “Re-Cycle,” juried by Susan Nielsen, farm project space + gallery.
My picture in this show is titled Adults Only:
I’m more interested in gesture than in other elements of art, and usually for me that means “found people”—unposed human figures—and not “found objects.” This one was irresistible, though. The weird humor of this sign fragment, floating in the Mystic River, went along somehow with the swirling, oily water. The water is not for the innocent or faint of heart, nor, I suppose, is the place where it’s going. When I heard “re-cycle,” my mind turned to images of trash, waste, and things that look like waste. It usually has a good connotation these days, about a greener Earth and turning even garbage into light, but what we have here is the dark side: things heading back down to what Phillip K. Dick called the Tomb World.
As with The Fair, this picture was shot on Kodak E100G film, with a Leica M6TTL camera and 35mm Summicron ASPH lens. The film was my standard for a while. Now it’s gone for good. Its images had a lot of the qualities of really good digital images but with somewhat better highlight control, I thought. Anyway, it’s mostly digital for me going forward.