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12 days, 1200 Euros…

By on February 15, 2012 in 4×5 photography, craft, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, spring in the Aegean, Uncategorized

My debacle with Greek Customs is all but resolved.  Three of the four boxes I have sent have been delivered to Paros, safely and without incident.  The other four that Customs snagged have been evaluated and the price is high, in fact it is as if I have to purchase everything again.  They have assigned the value at 1200 Euros, just over 1500USD.  Ouch indeed.  As a good friend told me, I am now part of an exclusive club.  I have little choice but to comply if I wish to have my possessions back.  There is an avenue of appeal, but this would be a long, drawn out affair and in the end it is doubtful I would gain anything from it except to garner resentment from the Greeks.  As my friend also reminded me, the customs agents probably have relatives on Paros so why make my life difficult?  Give them their pound of flesh and be done with it.  Lesson learned, but what lesson that is remains unclear.  The good news is that the boxes have been released from customs and are waiting for me at the PO on the island.

I leave for Greece in 12 days and I am very excited.  The mystery of the future fills me with hope and I am looking forward to being a beginner in school, working on my own photography and contemplating the possibility of my own, first, book.  The recent news regarding the social unrest in that little country is unsettling, but according to friends I know in town the press has exaggerated the scale and scope.  Yes, there are troubles both social an economic and many Greeks are distressed about their own abilities to cope.  The good news is that they have gone through worse before and in more tense situations.  WWII and NAZI occupation, the Junta of the The Colonels, the Greek Civil War…These all overshadow the current crisis and, in a way, keep the population centered around what they can do instead of what they are powerless to achieve.  Their future, like all futures, is uncertain and I have faith that a solution will present itself.  No one wants a return to the military rules of the past nor the brutal foreign dictatorships that governed with iron fists.  Social reform and economic balance is never easy and the Greeks have their work cut out for them.  Europe will not let them leave the EU so it is logical to feel that they would not allow them to leave the EuroZone.

This brings up the Euro itself, a troubled and controversial subject from its inception.  It is incorrect to compare the EU system with that of the USA.  Europe is not the US, thank the gods.  Many analysts feel that the Euro was doomed front the start and perhaps they were right.  Still, it is always easier to destroy than to build, seemingly more sensible to abandon than to support.  Responsibility is a good place to begin and all of Europe must take responsibility for the failure or success of their fledgling currency.  It is a brave venture to change 1500 years of historical divisions and nationalistic pride.  It is a matter of faith and action which, I have heard, is like a blind man walking down the stairs.  This painful growth spasm is just that.  It will pass.

More to come…

JDCM

Counting down and mailing out…

By on January 18, 2012 in darkroom work, Greece, Paros, silver darkroom, spring in the Aegean

I depart for Europe in about 40 days.  By 1 March I will be back on Paros and in my apartment.  I am looking forward to the next phase of my life, but I am nervous.  Perhaps this will never go away.  I have faith that if I show up, do the work I am assigned and participate in the human experience around me I will do well, and probably better than that.  I am just nervous because for the first time in 10 years I am branching away from my biological family again and taking on the mantle of an adult, a garment I do not always wear well or properly.

I have heard that due to the economic crisis and possible political instability (from a US standpoint of course ) there may be a drop in enrollment this spring.  This is believable in this day and age and perhaps this is one curse of the electronic info-era we currently live in.  There has always been and always will be economic woes and political upheavals.  The media has blown so much of this out of proportion that it feeds the fears of those who stay glued to their TV sets and believe everything they see and hear from that medium.  As a student of history I am thrilled to be living through and in this period of time.  Once again we are perched on the brink of change,  imminent growth and cultural wisdom, but only if we take a helpful and positive track.  Hiding in the shadows helps no one.  As a species we are slowly overcoming many of the angers and fears that have directed our thinking for millennia.  The currents flowing down the river of change are paced by the fierce creatures that run along its muddy banks.  They wave crude spears and dark banners, shout slogans designed to divide and alienate and try in vain to alter the water’s course. But water always seeks its own level and these creatures have historically been left behind, rendered hoarse and obsolete by time.   All of this is out of my hands.  I am grateful for that.

I have mailed 5 boxes to Greece so far.  1 today and 4 last week.  The first 4 have arrived and are being inspected by customs.  If I have to pay fees for these I will, but I hope not.  They are not consumer goods, but rather goods I have purchased for my own use at the Aegean Center.  Most of it is used gear anyway.  The rest are books–a small library consisting of some collections: Hemingway, Chekhov, Callahan, Kertesz, Frank, Ashbury, Oliver…the list goes on.  To be honest I chose the best of my personal library and then weeded that out some more. Ex Libris Paros…

I have my painting supplies and will be carrying them in my checked baggage during the flight. There are  no caustic materials and I am already in love with many of the names on the list…Permanent Alizarin Crimson, French Ultramarine, Payne’s Grey.  Soon I will be an undeniable beginner again, a place I enjoy of only for its foolish zest and unknown questions.  I will be asking for a lot of help in the next few months.

JDCM

Sleeplessness…

By on January 11, 2012 in 4×5 photography, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, silver darkroom, spring in the Aegean

I have slept for a few hours and am now awake again.  I am sleepless and need to examine my thoughts on virtual paper…

I have been preparing for my return to Paros for two weeks.  This time it will be for an extended stay, not the three-months-on-three-months off that I have been experiencing for the past two years.  To that end I have been divesting myself of my unneeded possessions, mostly books and musical equipment.  I have given them away, with no misgivings. I have kept one guitar, a Fender Telecaster I bought in 1986.  It is a candy-apple red 1962 re-issue and holds too much sentimental value to discard.  The books are a mix of volumes never read, read too often and those whose message I have outgrown.  Clothing has been gathered and that, too, will be given away.  The monumental task of collating and burning the  set of my 1200 CD collection has been accomplished and my laptop is now full of the best I have collected since the late 1980s, when CDs were first released.  It is also a mix: classical, jazz, old rock, new rock…the list seems endless but of course is not.  These will go to the local library in Hillsdale.  I have packaged up four large boxes of goods to send  ahead and will mail them tomorrow.  One more box remains because I still have some darkroom work to take care of.  This box will contain last minute odds and ends, some clothes, a few books and some more darkroom gear that I still need to process film.  I cannot send any liquids, however, which means that my developers stay here in the US.  I can purchase replacements in Athens.  I have decided to take one extra checked bag with me this time instead of my usual  backpack/camera bag combo.  This will allow a few more items than I have usually taken with me.

It really feels like I am leaving, which I am, but this has been coming for a long time.  I moved back to the Hudson Valley in 2004 for personal and family reasons and in many ways my job here is done.  It is time to go.  What I need to do for my family I can accomplish easily via email and telephone and I proved that last year when I adjusted insurance payments over the phone from the island after being alerted of a payment glitch via my Gee mail account.  The modern world has its benefits but I am looking forward to the upcoming year, a year of photography, writing and painting.  Will I begin and finish my book?  Only Kronos knows and that giant sleeps too deeply to wake for the answer.  The future, like always, is unknown, but this time it really feels as if I am departing for the next phase of my life.  I have been a professional chef and an unknown rock musician, a composer of hook-laden pop tunes.  These paths led to a certain point where I then abandoned them like a sailor diving into the ocean lest he go down with the ship.  The lifeboat that found me has proved to be more than a rescue craft.  Its design for living has been impressed upon me and I have followed it, despite my fears.  These have turned out to be echoing voices from my distant past.  Unfortunately I have listened to these voices too much, but to quote a line from an old Chinese morality tale, “How do I know?”  Indeed, how do I not know that it was necessary for me to begin this new life now, on the eve of my 47th birthday, after enduring all that I have in the past?  This is how it is, I think.  There is always the illusionary choice of a straight line, filled with drudgery and boredom.  I was on that track.  As one of my sisters commented, living is not a straight line.  There is no simple way to get from A to B.  Perhaps there is no ‘A’ or ‘B’ at all.  The life ahead is not a known set of coordinates on a chart.  Each of us has his or her own map to design.  Only hindsight shows us where we have come from and the seemingly strange coincidences that have made up our non-linear path.

JDCM

Showtime…

By on December 8, 2011 in 4×5 photography, darkroom work, Greece, Paros, silver darkroom, Wright Morris

We hung the student show today at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts, here on Paros.  It is a very pretty show with a wide assortment of photography, painting, printmaking and drawing.  The vocal ensemble had their first concert last night in Naoussa and will have two more this weekend.  Overall I have a had an excellent time here this arm and am looking forward to being back here in about three months.  My photography has improved and I have also gained a little more patience with the younger students.  While I am no smarter than they are, I have experienced more of the world so I am perhaps a little wiser. Perhaps.

In the past few days I have thought a lot about what I will be doing next year while I am here.  Yes, my own photography certainly, but also the work with the director and painting in the spring.  On top of that I feel that it is time to begin work on my own book, probably in the format pioneered by Wright Morris and Andre Kertesz, the photo-text.  In this format the images on the page do not have to directly correspond to the text but by the end of the reading they have made sense as an accompaniment to the reading.  I have many other ideas but I will not share them lest I talk myself dry of the concept.

I have begun packing my stuff and will begin putting it in storage tomorrow.  I have to conduct the inventory of the darkroom supplies and print some last few pieces.  After that I head to Athens on Monday and back to New York Thursday.   Christmas, New Years, my birthday and then back here.  Time flies indeed.

JDCM

4×5 work, landscape portraiture, good weather and bad…

By on November 10, 2011 in darkroom work, Greece, Paros, silver darkroom

Much has happened since my last post.  The figure study project I had been working on came to naught, both by my hand and outside forces.  Thankfully I have the knowledge that I cancelled the shoots due to artistic apathy and ennui before there were complaints from some parents about “possible improprieties” in the studio.  Although the models are all over 18 and therefore legally able to make up their own minds (and vote and die for their country) whether to pose nude or semi-nude  and that there has never been any complaints or actual difficulties is apparently besides the point.  I was told that I should stop the project. Like I said I am happy that I decided to end it before I heard that news.  What’s over and one with is just that.  I must admit however that these revelations left me feeling as if my integrity and honor as a man and a photographer had been questioned when really it is a matter of politics for the Center and the director.  Once again art and politics clash and the outcome is predictable.

My new work is exclusively 4×5 film, scanning them in the digital lab and then working on them in RAW, PhotoShop and finally printing them on one of the big Epsons.  The large format camera is a steep learning curve itself.  So far I am achieving some lovely results.  The portfolio will be a series of’ “Paros Portraits-People, Places and Things.”  I am taking my time with this, although the actual time is limited.  12 pieces need to be finished by December 7th.  The same holds true for my darkroom work–12 pieces of MF based on the Italian session and these also have to be matted–all by   December 7th.  The student show is the 9th and I leave Paros on the 12th to return to the USA on the 15th.

The weather has been up and down.  Cool at night, dry and sunny during the day with a north wind that whips all the warmth from the stones.  We are expecting tough weather this weekend with rain, Force 9 winds and temperatures in the low 40s F.

There are other things to blog about but as of now they are vague.  When I can speak of them with surety, I will.  Right now, mums the word!

JDCM

Pistoia, The Aegean Center, photography e studenti…

By on September 4, 2011 in Uncategorized

I am finally here at the Villa Rospigliosi in Pistoia, Italy for the fall term of the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts.  I have waited almost two years for this session, already having spent two spring sessions on Paros, the home of the Center.

Italy is lovely.  What can I say?  The villa is a 16th century affair with lovely wooden ceilings, old fountains (some in disuse) and stone staircases.  Lectures and classes are held in the rear garden, a deconsecrated chapel and in and around Tuscany in general.  We travel to Pisa, Venice, Rome and of course Florence.  The students are an energetic bunch with many questions and like I was at the beginning, not sure about where to go, what to do and who to speak to.  There are quite a few painters and writers and, in a few minutes we will see how many wish to practice the craft of photography.

Art History after this meeting, then dinner and then Dante…

More to come…

European relief, directional aids and new courses…

By on September 1, 2011 in Paros

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene I was unsure as to the status of my flight to Italy.  Thankfully Air France did not cancel the flight, the weather cleared overnight and I flew out of JFK without mishap  or delay.  My hat is off to the staff at that illustrious airport and the fine job they did Monday August 29, 2011.

I arrived in Florence around 9:00 hours and had to wait a few hours until my room was ready.  The Hotel Orto di Medici was kind enough to let me sleep on a couch in the day room until 14:00 when I could check in.  A simple but clean room was presented to me and a crawled into the sack for some more shuteye.  That evening I walked around and found a decent trattoria: carpaccio with spicy arugula, baked beans with garlic and tomatoes and fried rabbit reminded me that I was no longer in America and safe and happy here in Europe, a place I seem to be calling home more often than not.  The next morning I awoke very early and took a dimly-lit walk through the empty streets, down to the River Arno and onto the Ponte Vecchio, devoid of tourists and closed for the night.  It was lovely.  The street cleaners went about their business as I strolled about, buying off the jet-lag and getting my bearings.  My internal compass is more-or-less realigned.  I returned to the hotel, snoozed for a couple of hours and woke up to one of the better continental breakfasts I have had.  The salami and mortadella were excellent, the cappuccino was tasty and they even had rice cakes as a choice over than toast.  I ate well, knowing that my day trip to Fiesole would burn off the calories.  I took the bus to Fiesole and walked around the Roman and Etruscan ruins virtually alone–after another cappuccino.  I came back to Florence by lunchtime and made my way from the Piazza San Marco to the San Croce area and visited the Museo Galileo, which is also called the Science Museum.  Wonderful, really fantastic.  Measuring devices of all types, styles, eras and functions were on display, most collected by the di Medici family over the centuries.  I was hit by an understanding of the nature of man, or of at least intelligent man.  We are born to measure, to divine distances and directions, pressures and quantities physical and ephemeral.  My common metaphor of the sailor’s compass is held up by the cases of quadrants, octants, sundials, Jacobs staffs, clocks and globes of any and seemingly all varieties.  I am inspired.

Today is Thursday, September 1.  I am meeting some spiritual friends for coffee and conversation at 13:30.  Before that I hope to beat some of the crowds to the Palazzo Pitti and then head to the Museo Zoologico la Specola.  In the afternoon My day is free to wander.  I would like to avoid the crowds for an hour or so and then come back to the hotel for a short siesta.  Then I’ll pack my bags.  Tomorrow I head to Pistoia, the Villa Rospigliosi and the Aegean Center.  First, however, I am meeting up with a fellow student at the train station, which leaves me with Friday morning free before I check out and dump my bags (carefully re-packed) at the left-luggage office, Firenze Santa Maria Novello.  I can only imagine what awaits me…

JDCM

On the road again…

By on August 29, 2011 in Paros

How often must I sit by the side of the road and wait for the donkey cart to take me over the next hill?   I think sometimes that this is one of the best parts of the trip: the waiting.  The times in-between waiting and arriving at the destination are mostly downtime–I chat with my seat mates, sleep if I can, watch some movies, listen to music and then I am getting off the plane and walking into the bright sun of the new world.

The Air France lounge is filling up with fellow passengers, many going back to France, but I will be connecting and continuing on to Florence where the Aegean Center waits for me with open arms and the hope of more knowledge, experience and a bright future.  I have entered a new phase, I feel it, one of growth and letting go of much of my past.  I am grateful for this chance to add something meaningful to the world and what that is I am not sure, but there will be something.  I have no illusions that it will be big or even memorable.  It will be a small legacy.  I am laying the foundations for this future.  As I write these words.

On another note I used to write these thoughts in a small spiral notebook for my eye only.  Today I am using my laptop and posting for the world to see and read.  This makes a difference because it allows me to still be as free as I was before but try for some more substantive content.

I’ll try to post more often and, as the days progress, with more actual comings-and-goings and a rundown of the day’s events.

JDCM

Coming down to the wire…

By on August 20, 2011 in Paros

It’s a misty and cloudy day this morning with nine short days before I head back to the Aegean Center, Europe and the future of my life.  Today I was supposed to go on a hike with some of the ‘Page’ editors, but we have postponed and will meet for lunch instead.  They wish to monopolize as much of my time as possible, but I must maintain balance in all things today.  There are the usual tasks that comes with every Saturday morning and there are those I wish to accomplish before I attend an arts opening this evening.  There is darkroom work today, that’s for sure.  I have 5 rolls of Ilford PanF 50 120 that I need to develop and hang this afternoon and tonight I need to print at least one, if not two, pieces for some people who allowed me to photograph on their property. If I get a chance, I’ll scan and add to the website before I scoot out next Monday.  I’ll need to tone those before I deliver them, that’s for sure.

I have run a ‘test pack’ and am fairly secure on what I am bringing and what I am leaving behind.  Since I will be in Italy for the first month I need to bring some nicer clothes with me.  Long pants, shoes, shirts, etc…One cannot dress down in Florence and Rome like one does on Paros.  The Italians frown on shirts and t-shirts in their churches and restaurants, and with good reason: it’s smacks of laziness, poverty and disrespect.

The American culture, or the ‘Culture of Death’ as I like to call it, raises this attitude to the level of acceptance.  What we consider mainstream here in the USA, i.e. fashion, music, food and general knowledge derives itself from abject poverty and ignorance.  The other day I was driving behind a large Ford pick-up with the proud emblem ‘Redneck’ on the back; the television is rife with political religious crazies espousing a dangerously medievalist and venomous doctrine geared towards the poor, the paranoid and the poorly educated; the radio airwaves are saturated with violence, misogyny and anger; I look around at the sullen faces of today’s youth and wonder who these people are that could be our future?  This can be a daunting vision, all of this.  I find light and growth in isolated pockets of humanism and spirit.  Arts communities are more important than ever these days, and of course they are the first programs to lose any outside funding front the powers that be.  That money must go elsewhere.  I am convince we are either on the brink, or already within, a New Dark Ages.  The Enlightenment is over, as is the Renaissance that preceded it.  But this is a natural cycle.  It is just our luck to be at the low end of the bell curve.

In any case I am out of here soon enough.  I’ll leave the bucolic Hudson Valley behind for a few months  while I engage in a lengthy peripatetic lecture through Italy and Greece.  I’ll try to update this as I go along, I hope more than I usually do.  Next post: Florence, Italy.

Caio,

JDCM

Possible show and travel draws near…

By on July 7, 2011 in Paros, Uncategorized

I leave for Italy and the Aegean Center Italian session in a little over  month-and-a-half. To be honest I am not sure, beyond the art history context, what I will be doing.  I am nervous about the fall and what it will bring to me.  Obviously ‘change’ will be a constant.  With all the drama of last spring behind me I hope to make a fresh start with the Aegean Center and build some new bridges in the local community as well as the school dynamic.  What my role will be as a third semester intern is unknown, but I have written of this already.  I have only the ability to let the Universe decide these things for me and act accordingly.  I have been emailing the people I know and so far no response.  Perhaps this is my own impatience since I tend to write back to those who email me all but immediately.  Other people have their lives to live and I cannot expect them to jump onto their keyboards and drop me a line.  The urge to begin ‘test packing’ is filling me and I have new gear to bring, namely a new laptop which is something I have never traveled with before.  I’ll see how it packs in my carry-on bag today, perhaps, and test the weight.

I am in negotiations with the owner of a great space for a small solo show.  I hope to hang the event for an August opening  running through Labor day, but I may have to skip that weekend as it would make it difficult for the owner to sign a lease with anyone else beginning on the first of the month.  I will be flexible with this and take what I can get.  I will also have to pay rent, which is a cost I had not anticipated, but in the long run do-able and necessary if I want this show in such a short amount of time.  I will have have 12 figure studies and twelve ‘rural views’, all medium format and all sized in an intimate manner that draws the viewer into the image.  We shall see, we shall see…I am ‘acting as if’, however, and prepping my work for the show.  This means matting, framing and having it gallery ready.  I will not push away any other opportunities for other viewings.  Once again, the Universe is in charge.  I can only do the footwork and accept the results.  Some of the new images can be seen on my photo site, so I won’t post them here.

More to come…JDCM