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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My winter’s work with the Photografiki Omada Parou has been a real joy.  The 20 or so people that signed up in the fall for the 35mm analog project have all been enthusiastic, fun to work with and, without exception, have produced interesting and striking work.  Today I am meeting with one of them to develop their film.  Tomorrow I hand the camera over to another, and Thursday I work in the darkroom printing with a third.    I think I will try to print on Friday too.  This project has kept me busy through the winter but it has been much more.  I have come to know many locals who I had never met, and they I.  During the weekly club meetings (Wednesday, 19:30hrs) I get to hear at least two hours of solid Greek from numerous voices which has helped my Greek language studies which I work on every Friday afternoon with my teacher Stella.  So all around it has been a “win-win” situation.  They do all the work, by the way.  I am just a guide.

My own work?  This week I hope to submit a new portfolio of digital abstract work to the Antiparos International Photography Exhibition for the upcoming summer 2018 show.  This work is finished  so I can talk about the fantasy digital land-sea scapes I have found and photographed.  Very little Photoshopping, as you may guess.  Just a slight curve here or there for contrast and to keep it WYSIWYG.  Cross my fingers…I am also embarking on some alternative work which will open up some new technical and artistic avenues.  I won’t say much more except that if the winter time is for the darkroom, this project will be perfect for the summer and all of our sun.

Oh yes…the anniversary of my 53rd trip around the sun was a few days ago so I celebrated yesterday with some friends at a local taverna–that is was also ‘Katheri Deutera’, or Clean Monday, informed the menu.  The remains of the meal can be seen below.  Lent begins today.  I would like to keep the Lenten diet as much as possible for the next 40 days.  It is a healthy choice here in Greece.  Of course, this ‘diet’ predates any religious function as it was a result of the end of the winter, when the stored foods from the autumn harvest had run low (or out) and the agricultural population waited for the new crops of spring.  So it will be lots of veggies for me, seafood without backbones, no cheese, no meat…thank the gods the Greeks are sensible enough to still allow olives and olive oil…

The collection of my mother’s newspaper articles is all but done.  Last week I submitted the digital files to a printing company in Athens and the book goes to press this week.  Finally!  It has been years since I began this project, a memorial to my mother and a gift to family and friends.  And I like this book company.  They do nice work.  I may put together a book of my own.  A small collection of my photographs.  We’ll see…let’s not talk about it yet.

So thats it for February.  Right now there is a lovely, gentle, soaking rain blanketing the island.  It is supposed to rain all day.  Really great.  I am tired of winter.  I want spring, warmth and green things to see and eat.  I need to swim in the sea and shed some of the layers I have had to wear all winter to stay warm and dry.  The world moves ahead into the light and the alchemy I practice draws its magic from an ancient source.

clams, mussels, bean salad, pickles…

–JDCM

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The promotional work I am photographing for a friend is moving along.  She only needs three or four pieces for her website, but that still means the same amount of work for me.  It is excellent experience and although I do not do this type of work often, I can see how my own aesthetic plays a large part in how I view the event.  I suppose everyone brings their own vision to this kind of work.  The results will reveal how I view this kind of labor.  So far, so good, actually.  Perhaps she’ll let me use one of these for the blog as an example.

The darkroom moves along and I hope to expose a roll of MF this afternoon and develop it as well.  I am scheduled to be working in there tonight but I have forgotten when I signed up.  I think 22:00hrs.  I have to print at least one piece from the Villa, maybe two if I am lucky, so I can show them to Liz and see how she wishes me to proceed.

I have picked an odd time to move to Greece.  I haven’t looked at any apartments yet, but that will be this week.  I have two, maybe three to check out.  One is a very humble flat in the middle of Paroikia and the other is a bit more lavish old house, I think, not quite on the outskirts of town. I don’t know the prices for either.

More to come…

JDCM

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