While looking for something else I found the
negative of this portrait -- taken 25 years ago. I had no idea why I didn't print it then so I
printed it Tuesday. Not a bad portrait
if I do say so myself and the little scrap of picture frame in the upper left
corner keeps it from looking like something taken against white seamless. I wish that I could claim that I included it
on purpose.
Before reading further, take a minute to look
carefully at this portrait. ......
Done? Ok -- With no context it is a portrait
of an older man, at ease, dark eyes not directed at the camera, thoughtful
expression -- or is it wistful? He is
casually dressed and his hair is rumpled, moustache could use a trim -- clearly
not a person for whom looking nattily attired and formal is important.
Here's the first layer of context. Harold is an artist -- a well-known artist --
who draws, paints, sculpts, and does enameled metal panels. He has works in a whole lot of museum
collections and public art commissioned work in at least Alaska
and Washington State
Second layer. At the time,
Harold, several other people, and I were instructors at a week-long
workshop camp for gifted high-school students.
The students, from high schools all over the state, were incredibly
smart, talented, and hardworking. The
workshops were all in the arts -- photography, drawing, theater, writing,
musical composition -- except for my geekshop on artificial intelligence and
one on oceanography. At the end of the
week the staff all met with the workshop organizers to debrief, relax, and
congratulate each other on being able to stay ahead of the students (a daunting
task). All of the staff agreed that we
had never had so much fun in the classroom or studio/classroom. I took this photograph during that meeting. Now what?
Is he tired from a very long but intense week with a gaggle of brilliant
young people? Is he wishing that all his
classes were that rewarding?
One of Roland Barthes' hot buttons is the ability
of a photograph, more than any other kind of art, to bring a rush of memory to
the viewer. (However, he takes quite a
few pages to say that.) As soon as I saw
this negative the memory of what was happening at the time certainly came back to me in a
rush. I can visualize the cast of
characters around the table and nearly verbatim the conversation.
The theater workshop leader, Susan, was
describing her very successful week. Each evening during the week one of the
workshop leaders presented a program to all the staff and students on their own
work. For her program, Susan did a
series of short vignettes, portraying a different character in each one. Between the vignettes, Susan took a few
seconds on stage to become the next character -- expression, body language, posture, and accent. Without costumes or scenery and only a few
simple props, she became a stuffy male investment banker, a depressed and
harried housewife, a glamour photographer’s model, a little girl upset about
her first day at school -- and several others.
She was dazzling! She was
magic! She was completely believable in
each new persona.
She was not only an excellent teacher but a
wonderful role model especially for the girls that (like Susan) were not
particularly physically attractive. One
of her students later told me that they were all convinced that Susan could walk
up the wall and across the ceiling if she wanted to. Susan's workshop had convinced her for the
first time that her own ordinary looks did not bar her from acting.
Just before I took this photograph Susan had
recounted that the parents of two of the girls that had signed up for her
workshop had withdrawn their daughters at the last minute when they found out
that Susan was lesbian. That's what
Harold, and all the rest of us, were contemplating.
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