Recently I have been in touch with people from way back, in the 1980s, from my years in Colorado.  It’s interesting.  We are all many years older.  Time has molded us all, as time does.  People have died.  People have had children.  Marriages, divorces, etc…the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that come to us all, I suppose.  My choices haven’t been theirs, and vice-a-versa, of course.   We all find happiness and our sense of being in our own way.

There is no denying that the pandemic has changed my thinking, as it has for many.  An old friend fled LA at the beginning in 2020 and moved ‘temporarily’ to New Mexico.  He’s still there.  He’s found his place, one of many in his lifetime.  Others have drifted until they found safe harbor.  Whatever it takes.  I followed the route of many others and bought a small house, renovated it and have been living in it since November 2021 (please see the previous blog entry).  I have also been taking piano lessons for over a year.  I’m better now than when I began.  I have picked up the guitar again after a long hiatus and am enjoying that too.  My photography has been fruitful, mostly analog, and my darkroom is a busy and deeply satisfying place to work these days.  Work.  I love that word.  I love to labor at my craft.  Once in a while I splash some paint on a canvas and see how I feel about that.  I try not to take things so seriously.  I think being happy is better than being right.

In my family, common questions were ‘How’s your work?” and ‘What are you working on these days?”  Of course this never applied to our day jobs, how we paid our bills.  “Work” was always “work.”  In my case it was music, writing, photography…my sisters each have their own artistic paths–visual, literary and academic.  That’s just the way we were raised.

There is a wonderful quote by the techno-music godfather Giorgio Moroder that has been informing me these days.  Taken exponentially, I find applies to anything, not just music…how I navigate life.  He said, “Once you free your mind about a concept of music and harmony being correct, you can do whatever you want.”  That’s it, isn’t it?  It’s so easy to fall into a pattern of ‘correct’ and ‘right’ whether it is in life or the arts.  It’s a place of stagnation and boredom.  The random and potentially exciting is supplanted by the predictable and mundane.  Work becomes toil.  I become serious, rigid.  Inflexible.  Moroder’s philosophy demands work, some internal yoga to loosen the thinking, stretch the concept.  As I said before, being happy is better than being right.

And so I work.  I take pictures, develop the film, produce the prints.  I use a digital camera too.  I play piano and guitar.  I study music theory.  I stretch canvas and splash paint.  I ride my mountain bike and even swim in the sea during these winter months.  I read good books and eat healthily.  I sleep well.  I try not to take myself seriously.  I find happiness.  I let go of the rest.

–JDCM

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A friend wished me a happy rest-of-my-weekend the other day and qualified it by remarking “…as if there’s a difference in these amorphous and indeterminate days and weeks of the covid epoch.”  This sums up much of my emotional state since this ‘epoch’ began last February: one same day after the next with the same news feed, everyone seemingly watching the world turn while quarantined inside our homes.  This isn’t completely true but it feels that way.

Last February I was wrapping up a winter-long darkroom silver-gelatin printing project.  It was for a solo show in July. At the same time I was mapping out a 2-3 week bicycle ride through northern and western Greece that would have taken place in May.  Needless to say, neither of these events came to pass.  The show was cancelled and the ride was put off until the autumn (when it did not happen again).  By the end of October I was left with a porfolio that meant little to me and a lot of maps going nowhere.  But that is looking at these past months the wrong way.  So much may not have happened yet so much actually did occur.

On the advice of a friend (to whom I am eternally grateful!) last March or April, I bought a little house.  The papers were finalized in August and a full renovation began, finishing in the first week of November.  The place really needed to be gutted.  Ancient electrical, plumbing, crumbling walls, etc…I documented it online.  I have now rented it to someone who needed a home.  Then I got the wild idea that maybe I should stop paying rent and buy and renovate my own space!  So I did.  In a few weeks (crossed fingers) I will finalize that deal and begin renovations.  I hope by the end of November 2021 I will have moved into my new home.  So to my friend MM who started this process…many thanks and eternal gratitude for shifting my thinking.

                              Prickly Pear #1

Photography…writing…I have come to the conclusion that, for me, social media, as a whole, is a stifling and shallow platform for art or communication of any true depth.  These applications have actually hampered my creative process.  I have produced less photography and written fewer blog entries since I started being more on my phone with a popular social media app.  I let it suck the creative juices from my mind and soul.  So…I would like to make more real photographs in 2021, write more, produce more real work.  The new house will have space for a darkroom and a small digital area–room for a printer, perhaps a computer with a larger monitor than my laptop.  A place to work.  A home studio.

I have rested on what laurels I may have gathered long enough.  I will make a new commitment to my art, to my life.  Wheels are in motion.  Let them stay moving, well-greased and clean running.

–JDCM

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Gum bichromate printing entails mixing a potassium dichromate solution with gum arabic and watercolour pigment.  I have chosen black.   Potassium Dichromate is one of the more dangerous chemicals on the planet.  Needless to say I wear nitrile gloves, a Level 2 filter mask and safety glasses when I handle it.  I am using 4×5 negatives and I hope soon to be printing some larger digital negatives so I can make larger prints.

I made the first test strip a week or so ago.  The result is on the left.  Intervals are 15″, 30″, 45″ and 1 minute exposures under full daylight.

The problem was not the emulsion, or the paper, but me.  I wasn’t patient.  I had not allowed the paper to dry fully between each preparation stage (sizing, gesso, emulsion).  This resulted in flaking emulsion.  A common error and easily rectified.

Three days ago I began the process again.  Using 300 gsm Canson water-colour paper, I sized (soaked) this in 60C water for 30 minutes and left it to hang for 24 hours.  The next step was to make sure my gesso mix was as thin as milk, which is much thinner than one thinks.  The gesso needs to be thin so it can soak into the paper, not create a layer on top, as per a painter’s canvas.  I applied the gesso in the late afternoon and left it to dry under an exhaust fan for several hours.  Two nights ago, around 22:00hrs following the weekly Photo Club meeting, I went back into the darkroom and applied the emulsion coat after the gesso had completely dried.  I used 5ml of potassium dichromate solution to 8ml of gum arabic.  For colour I added about .5 gram of black water-colour paint (Van Gogh).  I mixed this well using a natural bristle brush and painted it onto the paper using a foam paintbrush.

Yesterday morning, after letting the emulsion-coated paper dry overnight under the exhaust fan, with a dehumidifier running and a small heater maintaining 20-21C, my paper was dry to the touch.

I used the same VW Bug 4×5 negative.  The first test strip was better.  Once again, 15″ intervals up to 1’15” under full sun at 10:00.  The result was a huge improvement in detail and resolution, although clearly not enough time.  I was on the right track.

Test strip at 15″ intervals up to 1’15”

I decided to increase the exposure time for the first proof to 1’45”.  After developing the print in three consecutive trays of 20C water for 20 minutes, this is what emerged.

1’45”, full sunlight 10:20, March 8, 2018, Paros.

Much improved!  The next time I print (tomorrow), I will expose the whole piece for the 1’45”, then burn in the top 30% for an additional 30″-45″ so the top of the hillside and the sky behind the car achieve some tone.

–JDCM

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Polly and Hilary in Provincetown, 1970.

I was thinking the other day that I have never been the “cool” guy.  Never hip, never dressed in the latest fashion…I was feeling down that day.  Then I realized I didn’t  care.  When I was younger, maybe, but then again I was envious of those around me who had better or more or newer or sexier (or so I believed)…not much weight there.  Pretty superficial stuff.  I hope they are happy in their respective lives.

So these days I do what I am wanting to do and this makes me happy.  I am not treading on the lives of others and I am moving forward and slightly uphill.  I am honouring my mother and my father in my life and activities.  I am finally getting around to reading a short biography of St. Augustine given to me by my sister a few years ago.  I am reading some Epicurus.  I am back to building fine scale WW 1 aircraft which give me great joy and satisfaction, not just in their execution but in the research involved.  I am in training for a very tough mountain bike race being held here March 6th.  I have a photo shoot coming up next week which I have been looking forward to for months.  It will be several hours of intense work, and then that stage will be done.  Then I develop the film.  Then I choose what to print, etc…intervals and stages, tension and release.  One day I am 50, and then the next day…

Biking here on Paros is a good metaphor for my life.  The stress of the uphill slogs are rewarded by not only the accomplishment but also the release of the inevitable downhill run, slaloming around rocks and through washed out sections of red dirt roads.  Then it is uphill again.

It all feels pretty cool to me.

–JDCM

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I have begun printing my second portrait show, which I have slated for October 2015, here on Paros.  I have ideas about the venue, which I will evolve.  The show itself will be a continuation of the first  ‘Paros Portraits’ exhibit, but this time I have relaxed my eye.  The first show was strictly large format 4×5 and printed digitally.  As lovely as the 4×5 is, the process began to feel formal, something I wish to avoid in this next installment.  There are a few 4×5 images in the new portfolio, which I will contact print, but the remainder are 35mm.  I am hoping for about 35 to 40 pieces and they will only be printed in the darkroom.  I want this next show to be more loose, more casual, with an element (just a smidgeon) of the ‘street.’  The prints will also be smaller with most of them falling into the 8×10 category, or thereabouts.  If I can print them all by the end of April then I can shuffle them off to the framer and pick them up at the end of the summer.

The weather here turned distinctly autumnal last week.  It was about 14C before Thursday and the drizzly, dark streets were perfumed with the aroma of burning olive wood.  It was damp, but then the wind is shifted from the south.   For the past two days we have seen sun, balmy breezes and well over 20C.  Lovely.

I must stay busy with my own work, even if it a small casual show like ‘Cafe/Kafe’.  As a friend reminded me tonight at dinner, “you have to pave your own road ahead of you…”

–JDCM

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–I returned from Paris two weeks ago and I am back on Paros, about 2300 km and one vowel distant.  My time in France was lovely.  My heart was filled with warmth even though the weather had chilled by the time I departed.

–I was able to shoot 4 rolls of Rollei Retro 400s while in Paris.  I also gave myself a Christmas present.  I found a very affordable Leica M2 at the local Leica store.   The deal was good and I was there.  I had to get it.  According to the serial number it was manufactured in 1966.  I find it extremely cool that I bought a an old Leica in Paris.  It just feels right. Very romantic.

–While in Athens on Friday, I ran a couple rolls AGFA APX 400 through it.  That made 6 rolls.  When I returned to Paros and checked my ‘to do’ box in the darkroom I found two more rolls of film (Rollei Retro 100) that needed developing.  I spent Sunday afternoon developing of film.  8 rolls from three different places from three different cameras…Here’s the breakdown:

–4 rolls Rollei Retro 400s, Voigtlander r4M w/ Voigtlander 35mm lens, Paris; 2 rolls of AGFA APX 400, Leica M2 w/ the same Voigtländer 35mm lens, Athens; 2 rolls Rollei Retro 100, Balda ‘Super Baldina’ (c. 1956), fixed 40mm lens, Paros.

–While working I listened to The Clash’s ‘London Calling.’  It was released in the UK in 1979.  35 years later it still sounds fresh, complex and vibrant.

–Romanticism…OK.  I don’t wish for days gone by.  Whatever they say, life was not simpler, or easier.  Thomas Hobbes referred to life as ‘…nasty, brutish and short.”   He was right.  I like living on a remote island.  Romantic again.

–The ‘cafe/kafe‘ photographs are matted, framed and behind glass.  I will hang this small exhibit this Friday at Mikro Kafe here in Paroikia.  It is not a grand exhibition, just something light and easy, something small to keep my hand in while I continue the prep for the second, far more involved ‘Portraits‘ exhibit next autumn.  There.  I said it.  Autumn 2015.

–JDCM

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–My darkroom work is progressing nicely.  I have been printing my Weather/Texture 35mm images on a regular  basis and am finding great joy in the consistency of this portfolio.  I have also been keeping up with my 4×5 portrait work and  recently photographed a young artist who is visiting our fair isle.  I made 12 exposures, of varying depths-of-field.  I’ll develop them this weekend.  Paros Portraits, Part II moves at its own pace…

–Recently a close friend  gave me a lovely gift: Richard Avedon’s Woman in the Mirror .  The images reminded me to look a little deeper into this photographer’s life.  I have always been impressed by his work.  I admire those who labor at what they love and have paid their dues, either through hard work, hard times, or both.  Avedon was a skilled craftsman who supported himself and his family through commercial photography.  While I never met the man, I get the feeling that while he became famous in his own time, he maintained his humility.

Avedon said that “I never wanted to be called an artist.  I wanted to be called a photographer.”

…also “sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me.”

He also believed that “a photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks.”

–Dig it.

–JDCM

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—Slow Art Day is  coming up.  I will be gathering with some friends at a local museum here on Paros and participate.  I was reminded this morning that the average museum visitor spends between 5 and 30 seconds looking at a piece of art and that time is usually when they read the tag on the wall.  During this day we will look at 5 pieces, for 15 minutes each.  Then we will reconvene and discuss what we saw, how we felt, etc…I am looking forward to it.  Too many cultural institutions treat their space like a shopping mall.  MoMA in New York is one of them.  I think I have blogged about this already.

–When I first visited Paros in 2006 as a tourist, I came specifically to see their museum.  It has one of the finest collections of Greek art in Europe.  It only cost me 2 Euros to get in.  It still costs 2 Euros.  I was here for two days and visited twice.

–I continue my own printing in the darkroom.  I am doing well.  Although I may have made some strict goals at the outset, I have relaxed those boundaries.  I seem to be falling within them anyway.  Tomorrow I hope to expose some 4x5s.

–I competed in my second Parian sports event the other day.  It was the Paros Diathalon, held out at Molos Beach and the village of Marmara.  It consisted of a 7km run and then a 12km mountain bike.  My teammate Margaret ran and then I biked.  I had a great time and, once again, felt at home within that diverse community.  I will post some images on my Flickr site.  I am waiting to hear from people who have pictures of me.  Our total time was 63min, 55sec.  I think we placed 5th or 6th in the ‘Teams’ category.

–In a couple of weeks I have a break from work.  I might stick around, I might take off.  I might do both.  Load up the panniers and go…

–JDCM

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–The day before, march 14th, was my mother’s 90th birthday.  She made it as well.  90 years…

–What has she been witness to since 1924! Well, almost everything worth talking about.  Plus, she has raised three children and set them on their respective paths.  One is a professor at a large University.  Another is an artist living on a small island.  The third is…well, that’s me.  Funny.  It feels like we three have all found our own islands we call home. Her love has been unconditional and generous.  She may, at times, worry about our sanities, but she has always been there, no strings attached.  She has never asked for proof of good will.   If I have had any regrets or guilt, they have been my own and are non-transferable.  Kind of like airplane tickets.

–Today I went to a mountain bike race in the hill town of Kostas.  I could have raced it myself, but opted out so I could photograph instead.  I brought my big Canon 5D MKII, my 35mm Voigtlander and my Wista 4×5.  I packed up 16 pieces of Kodak TPX 320 and had some old-time fun with large-format sports photography.  I am eager to see how they come out.  While I waited along the dirt road for the pack to appear, I was suddenly struck by the knowledge that this is how it was always done, for almost a century.  Photographers standing on the side of the road with their tripods and 8x10s/4x5s/etc…waiting for the runner/horse/bicycle/car/locomotive to come barreling down the track and trying to catch the moment.  It’s not easy.  I was thankful for my knowledge of depth-of-field so all I had to do was whip the film packs in-and-out of the back of the camera.  I was loading, exposing, sliding the cover back on, unloading, and tossing the exposed film pack on the grassy ground.  15 exposures later (one dud) I was done.  I finished up a roll of EFKE 100 35mm in the Voigtlander, made a few digital snaps of the closing events, and called it a day.

–I have been lining up some new subjects for continued portraiture.  I figure that if I can practice diligence, I will have a large enough portfolio to begin printing next autumn.  I continue to pray to the gods of photography for deliverance of  a 4×5 enlarger.

–Spring seems to have arrived.  The light has been superb.  What else is there to say?

-JDCM

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–I am continuing my 4×5 portrait work and will do so at least for another year.  This as a larger arc beneath which I conceive and work on several other projects.

— I am thinking of a 35mm collection of textural pieces.  By “textural” I mean close up images of worn wood, rusted and tarnished metals, peeling paint.   These images tell of time and of the elements.  My eye falls into the deepest crack in the wood, the darkest keyhole, into the tiniest shadow beneath a curling leaf of old paint.  I want to go there. I want to set up shop.  This new portfolio will be small, only 12 pieces. I will begin during the first week of March and finish on the last week of May.  That is 12 weeks, or close enough.

–The soft focus work of Julia Margaret Cameron has also inspired me, especially after seeing a small exhibit last December in America.  I will work on something along those lines.  Still lives and medium format feels like the right way to go.  I will need to go shopping for the right kinds of vases and props.  This will give me a chance to pick up some new crockery for my own kitchen as well–plates and bowls and such.

–More biking, of course.  The weather just cries “get outside…move your muscles…”  The other day I rode to Marathi, then headed north overland, then northeast, bushwhacking until I was able to make it to a small farm road that led me to a large monastery just outside of Paroikia.  From there I headed back north, across the road.  Somewhere in there I punctured my rear tire, so I stopped and changed the tube.  Then I headed back home.  Clear paths?  Hmmm…That’s subjective.  Click the thumbnails to enlarge…

–JDCM

If there is a path there, I worked for it. Unrideable, of course. I pushed the bike.

10 minutes of quick repairs and I was back on the road.

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