Imagist Blog

and encountering art nouveau

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Leica M, 35 mm Summilux Asph

This past Saturday morning I spent a couple hours with my friend David White — in celebration of his birthday. The drive around too many express ways — through old and newly forming suburbia — continues to frustrate me. Though the orchid on the table and the pleasure of delving into theo-philo-socio-econo-psycho-logy with David soon dissipated all that anxiety. The two coffee selections tasted good; and omelette good enough; while the conversation provided the most delicious pleasure.

The most generic signage imaginable…
on the most forgettable architecture…
in a brand new suburban development…
that will be empty and crumbling in 50 years
or less…

Leica M, 35 mm Summilux Asph

Leica M Monochrom, 50 mm Summilux Asph

Dad’s been gone since December 24th, 2003. That’s about when I acquired his Tool and Die Maker’s tool chest. I’ve used a few of the tools. Squares. Micrometers. Height gauges. And the like. Most of tools are far too precise for any of the wood work that I engage in. I don’t even know how some of the devices are properly used.

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Within the lid of the tool chest he’d mounted a clear plastic divider. He stuffed all manner of mementos into that space. Odd newspaper clippings. Jokes of one sort or another. Photographs. The plastic templates that he used to fabricate his replica of a .44 caliber Navy Dragoon from raw steel. Receipts for the bluing of those gun parts; as well as for a pair of shoes; and hardware used in creating the recreation room in the basement of our home on 58th and Villard Avenue. Most of these mementos were dated from the sixties and early seventies; when dad was in his forties; or significantly earlier.

Hasselblad 500 CM w/ CF-39, 80 mm Zeiss Planar

It has taken more than ten years for me to decide to finally remove those mementos and prepare to use this chest of drawers for my own tools. Tools that I know how to use. And also, perhaps, for my own mementos. The photographs found there, in the tool chest that he opened every day of his working life, and many days during his retired life, include: a photo of himself showering while serving in the Army Air Core; two photographs of the planes he flew in during WWII; a studio portrait of my mother in her late teens or twenties; a photo of mom and dad in his parent’s back yard (I believe); a polaroid of my mom; a 6×9 negative of a nude woman, from the back, which may be mom; a small hand colored print of a young woman that I never met; and five photographs of my sister and her family at various times. Conspicuously absent is any photograph of me or my family. The sixties and seventies truly left deep scars in families… however invisible… h-m-m?.

Dad’s Tool and Die Maker’s Chest.

Last two images made with an iPad IV

each day gazing
upon these graceful lines
growing through space
without benefit of water or soil

just a desire to live on

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Leica M, 35 mm Summilux Asph

(click photograph for larger view)

Like a cat

Leica M Monochrom, 50 mm Summilux Asph

Leica M, 35 mm Summilux Asph

… to heaven

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and hell attempting to freeze over

Leica M Monochrom, 50 mm Summilux Asph