art

I’ve been collecting small bits of inspiration and today I found Jamie Livingston, or, rather, found out about Jamie Livingston. He took one Polaroid photograph a day for 18 years, from the time he was a student at Bard to the day he died. Some are missing from the collection, but the ones that remain — and there’s more than 6,000 of them, have been shown in various incarnations.

It’s an amazing, inspiring story and one fitting, I think, to kick off Thanksgiving week. I’m thinking a lot lately — as I’m sure tons of people are — about things for which I am thankful. One of the biggest things are unexpected shots of inspiration, and, in particular, those I know and those I know of who inspire me. I didn’t know about Jamie or his life — even though there’s been a lot written about him, from at the New York Times to a bevy of websites in his honor — but he’s inspired me to think, to look and to consider my own longevity and commitment.

If you’d like to learn more, here are some websites to spend some time on:

Hugh Crawford’s collection of all of Jamie’s Polaroids

Images from the 2007 art show of Livingston’s photographs, as they appeared at Bard College

Another way to view the photos, this time in a flipbook

And here are a couple of my own Polaroids, taken several months ago on walks up the Blue Ridge Parkway and through my West Asheville neighborhood, respectively. My own small shots, posted in his honor.

I don’t know about you, but I’m incredibly busy these days. I’m measuring time by the number of words I’m writing, the number of interviews I’m finished with, the amount of lists of contacts and places I need to go piled about me on slips of grid paper. Last night, I swam in all these tasks, dreaming a jumbled mess of colors and — most of all — nouns and verbs and adjectives.

Sometimes I wish my thoughts came in pictures. You may be one of those people I envy, those highly visual people who find pattern and color and contrast in everything. I find myself looking for words – reading signs, looking at the combinations of consonants and vowels. My photos are frequently filled with them. But sometimes you just can’t help it. The words jump out at you, like they did over my trip to Boston.

I mean, just look at this. Dr. Paul! You are amazing! Stars and eyes, flourishes and block print. I can’t beat it if I tried.

And I wish every single neighborhood had a corner store whose windows were covered in signs like this (and had the same three guys standing out front cat-calling the group of teenage girls flirting with them across the street). I managed to snap a few photos of some of the most creative signage I’ve seen. Read the fine print, people.

If you’re tongue-tied, here’s what to say:

A play about the 2004 World Series, all on this poster (larger version here):

And if you’re a table-tennis champion without your equipment, here’s where to go. Just don’t speak French:

Artful, comedic, philosophical. And the ones that deserve to be carved in stone. I loved them all. Do you?

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” ~Milton Berle

Last night, Pat and I went to the Doors of Asheville fundraising event for Mountain Housing Opportunities. Pat works for the organization and a program that helps families build their own affordable housing. He’s working with five families now, and I thought about them at the auction, as people milled about, looking at all the donated artwork, much of it literally paintings on doors. We grabbed a plateful of barbecue and sat down to wait for the auction to begin.

Milton Berle’s quote was on a poster propped up on the edge of the stage, which sat on the same stage where David Earle and the Plowshares ended their performance with a version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” (On another note, I never get tired of watching the Muppet trombone player). It’s the same stage where the auctioneer encouraged and needled and cajoled bidders to up the ante to help fund the organization’s work to make sure people have a safe, affordable place to live in our community.

Some of the doors were amazing, and I wish now that I’d written down the artists’ names for you to go check out. I remember work by Joanna Gollberg Stirling and Jonas Gerard (huh, I wish I could write like he paints) and Ben Betsalel. These people were so generous of their talents to help, I think.

But, of course, they could use more. The fundraiser was a success, but it left me feeling that problems in the economy have dipped into area donors’ pockets pretty hard. To me, that makes affordable housing even more important. If you want to find good organizations supporting housing issues in your own communities, there are lots of places to go. The Directory of National Housing and Homeless Organizations and the National Low Income Housing Coalition can help. When the bidding was over and left the crowded room to go home, I left in love with this quote, the idea of making your own opportunity. It’s an entrepreneurial sprit, of course, one that takes courage and support and belief that it can happen.