Mackinac Studies

Sometimes those walks where one clears the mind is necessary to appreciating the ease and spontaneity of photographing. When I become disdainful of my craft, I move as far away from it as possible. Take the dogs for a walk. Without fail, my eye starts to function on an unhindered level. I start to see again. After my relinquishing walk, I ran back to the house to get my camera. The frames I saw had inevitably disappeared. I found these instead.
I am working towards publishing a book on the unseen parts of Mackinac, and sell it in the island bookstore next summer. Perhaps these images will be included.

I like the notion of transition in these. The part of the year where pillows are collected from hotels, or when the grain is packaged and brought to the horses. Falling asleep, waiting for the load to be taken.
The dollhouse in the second image works perfectly with the color of the home. I like the play on what is real and what is artificial--a theme very pertinent to the island. I think these two images fit handsomely as a pair--the upside down burley and the drey--both cut off by the framing--seems to denote a sort of incompleteness.

Mackinac Island Music Festival Favorites

Although it was a few weeks ago now, I still cannot seem to get the joy that the Mackinac Island Music Festival brought me out of my heart--but why would I want to?

These award winning musicians don't fail to put a smile on my face, whether backstage or onstage. I think the biggest compliment came, when several of them came up to me and requested that I crawl around onstage and get in their face, because they like to have me up there, jiving with them.
I was floored. This may be the only event that I am not seen as the annoying photog, and welcomed as a friend and a collaborator. Thanks guys!

Jill Jack plays with my heart, and her lovely scarf.

Gary Rasmussen

Billy Brandt and Sarana Verlin

Billy Brand, Sarana Verlin and Dennis Forbes

The Alex Graham Quartet

The extraordinary Audra Kubat finds inspiration backstage

time to blog

took these images over the past few days.

until last week, hadn't picked up the camera due to a full time waitressing job i picked up to give myself the leeway to enjoy photography again.
"yes! a wedding." never thought i'd hear those words enter my thoughts. but alas, i actually enjoyed shooting a wedding, although it was an andrejka wedding, so i guess is its always enjoyable. i found myself shooting for myself during the spare moments of the bus ride out back from the ceremony at pictured rocks--this is where the first image comes from (although i'm tempted to put it up in b&w). i was surprised at my newfound fervor for shooting, as i no longer ever think about my own eye at weddings that i second shoot.

my second wind of shocking inspiration came after this wreched bike accident. motherfucker on the wrong side of the road in the complete dark slams right into me. had to shoot anyways. tired, i forgot most of my gear downtown.

when i went back for it, i couldn't stop shooting.

carriages on parade

Sometimes, the photos just look pretty. I don't do it often, but since my mother commissioned me (trade for being born) to do these images for the Mackinac Horsemen's Association, I thought I'd make the skies extra blue for her. (Last year, around this time, I showed her my newest portfolio; her biggest criticism: none of the skies were blue). Well, fuck!
ps. this is the first time in a few months that i've gone flashless.

underworld again

today i woke up early and met riann at the docks for some underworld shooting. last summer, i pegged this spot as an ideal location for a fashion shoot. today my vision was executed to a tee, thanks mostly to miss cousino's long mermaid legs. to get these shots, we climbed under the coal docks--the landing for coal transport to the island, and now the unloading spot for the big rigs that bring all the beer and load them onto the horse drays. riann is laying on the wooden rafters that support the dock. below her is eight or ten feet of water.
here are my two faves.

k

Mackinac Art Museum

It's finally happening. This year, thanks to Dick and Jane Manoogian, Mackinac celebrates the innaugural season of a museum honoring the vast history and current practice of the arts on and about the island. For the opening season, they invited a smattering of island artists to submit pieces to a juried show curated by Mary Ann Wilkinson . Anticipating that they would only select one piece of the three that I submitted, I chose a wide variety of pieces that all somehow could be covered by one statement. God only knows how I was able to sucessfully join all three of these contrasting pieces into a cohesive body, (but if you are interested, you can read it below), but shockingly, they chose all three pieces. Each image will be shown as a lightjet print measuring 40" long. Here are the three that will be shown. Although the date of the opening reception is unclear, it is sometime during July. Check back on my blog or the museum website for further information.

My photographic anthem to Mackinac is ignited by the ironic dialogue between past and present unfolding on this island.  Here, as most places have, has seen a plethora of histories altered and mixed through time’s tilling. It is through this lens that I investigate island residents, unexpected landscapes and unique truth-bending narratives.

Versions of Ojibwe folklore reveres the island as the birthplace of man, as well as the earthly home of creator god Gitchee Manitou. Now, tourist-pilgrims visit the island daily to immerse themselves in historical reenactments-- one-dimensional attempts to revive an obscure utopian time. Like a land of ghosts repeating the same patterns over and over, the island seems a half-empty reminder of what may or may not have happened, once upon a time.  Instead, one finds the energy of what always is, fully intact, growing out of the cracks of our attempts to re-create it. 

Mackinac Island: Early French Fur Trade, War of 1812, Victorian Japonism, Chippewa legend all arriving today. Generations of men who moved invisible glaciers materialize as a replenishing series of eyes. Tour guides sing ever-changing myth to ponchos, tshirts and jackets respectively.  Thick blue trash bags, Varney hotel rooms and the eyebags of summer employees gradually fill. Fake indian paraphernalia rides horseback beside toy rifles the size of shipwrecks. Poets, alcoholics, boy scouts, bugalists, guitarists, politicians, summer cottagers. 

Transient home. Winter.  Life exists through all seasons.

Last Waltz

Check out the Flickr Pics:

www.flickr.com/katelevyphotography

Mackinac Last Week

Summer resort, Grand Hotel's Dining Room holds porch geranium boxes. The Duck spent years of winters fixing furniture for the hotel. Some people have claimed that Indians were buried under the grand, and were later exhumed without care. This has been proven untrue. There are many graves scattered haphazardly around the island; in the winter, it was impossible to dig graves. However, the Grand Hotel doesn't seem to be one of them. 

I've been playing with this body for a few years. For a while, I made ghost images of myself and others in various points of interest on the island--places where myth has transformed with history, mainly the history of clashing cultures. I would juxtapose fake indian paraphernalia, reproduction flags, and toy artifacts into the images, referencing the plasticizing of legend brought forth by its maleable nature. Using the idea of ghost to symbolize Mackinac as a place that literally repeats history, I was exploring the change that explore ultimately the nature of our lives while we create and repeat legacy.  I see the work as a brainstorming session for the body which will at some point contain some of the images below.

George Wellington, Sr., the only taxi driver in the winter. A taxi on Mackinac Island is a horse-drawn carrige.

A workshop at an island barn, taxi carriage shaft is hanging for refinishing.

Don "The Duck" Andress, 6x great grandson of Chief Mackinac.

Luggage carts and awards left for the season at the Grand Hotel bellstand.

Sitting at the table with Becky Gallagher and Jen Bunker, reading about and poking fun at the big chiefs in the newspaper. 

Johnny Ray and his "Hits of Johnny Ray" tape.

Albert Mosley riding bikes in his backyard. Was adopted at age two with his two brothers into a family making nine (The fam has since grown to eleven with the addition of a grandson and a fiance).  His mother runs a daycare out of her house.

Duck, Gizmo and Teddy Ruxpin.

Bobby Roach hangs out at the barn after work.

The Duck with his hand-made walking sticks, one of which is in the Smithsonian American Indian Museum.

George Wellington and the number 3.

In this work, I am channeling some of those ideas as a lens to explore the resident culture on the island. Of particular interest to me is the Chippewa community, and the people who have resided on the island for generations. I hope that through this body of work, I can apply the idea of myth transforming history and events transforming myth to Native American history.

This year, the old structure called the Indian Dormitory will become the Richard and Jane Manoogian Mackinac Island Art Museum. (Whether or not the structure ever served as an actual dormitory is highly debatable.)  Also of interest in this project to expose tourists to a side of the island that isn't marketed as a commodity. Through the eventual exhibition (and hopefully coffee table book) of these images, a strange commodification occurs.  I am seeking to probe both the nature and novelty of residing on a tourist island that is closed for half the year, exploring the reality of a place built on the subfloors of historical legacy.

I intend for this project to seep into a much larger project about the lives of proclaimed Native Americans in the present day, so any feedback or leads would be greatly appreciate. 

also--PLEASE CRITICIZE!! To see more images like this from the island, click here

Also, visit the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau Website.

Some lovelies from the Mackinac Island Music Fest

I love shooting images at concerts. And the scene that congregates around them can either make or break the resonance of the music (deadhead, anyone?) If the wonderful people backstage at the music festival, where these photographs originated, were front and center in the Jerry era, maybe he'd still be alive. (Okay, maybe not..)

Let me preface these images:
1. The Music Festival is an event put on by the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau, working closely with the Mackinac Arts Council. The musicians at the event hail from various backgrounds--Detroit rock, folk, bluegrass, Americana, Celtic, Blues, Jazz. All of the musical acts have a connection with the island-whether it be Michigan roots, good friends, or just a general love of the place. Many of the musicians commingle as well, playing sets with eachother. The festival always ends with a mix-up jam session spanning all of the downtown bars. (Oh the bars-another interesting facet of the ever-expanding sacred island engulfed in light; lets remember Shambhala Buddhist prince Chogyam Trungpa, Rimpoche had Rolls Royces and OH, THE WOMEN!)

2. The theatre exists on the grounds of Mission Point Resort (which actually used to be a (loosely) Christian higher education institution. The building itself has been a part of many productions, including Somewhere in Time, filmed during the 1970s, which stars Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymore. (Those Somewhere in Time enthusiasts that make the pilgrimage to Mackinac Island like everyone else does for other reasons would probably love to see these images, but...whatcanyado?)

3. The people that work backstage for events all live on the island; most have lived there their entire lives. They are the ones who deserve to so closely experience the music inspired by the island, because many of them have been here longer than the soundstage/theatre in which the concerts occur. I study these motherfuckers (calmdown! I used a term of endearment!) like a meteorologist studies the ocean--if you live near it, it dictates everything. And if you don't, its effect trickles in still. Something to that effect. (I am somewhat absolved in the sociological study of Mackinac Island you will notice.) These people take their children to school on the back of a snowmobile and ride around on bikes all winter. They wrangle tourists like horses and work with horses as a way of life. Many people who live year-round on the island are closely related, grew up together, and have a way of remembering that moments are inconsequential in the lasting scheme of family, but so pivotal to enjoying life. A discerning crowd, really, yet they were nothing short of ecstatic to be in the presence of such wonderful music.

A Mission Point employee taking a break outside before the show

Travis

Bobby Roach, reporting for duty.

Mary McGuire conversing with slide guitarist Kraig Kenning, in front of the set from this year's middle school play.

Johnny Ray Gallagher. Lived here all his life. He knows. Later that night he asked me if I would like to "sit on his face." I graciously declined, "No, Johnny Ray. Would you like to sit on mine?"Oh, he laughed! I truly appreciate everything candid, nonchalant about this man, as he is great at turning what would ordinarily be inappropriate into good, clean fun! And he cares for those around him, and that's what really counts.

Whether you deteste or whether you love, it doesn't always change the situation, and that's okay-so why not love?

Mitch Ryder in the green room before his set. He told me that an artist must write the songs they perform in order to be considered an artist. He told me he's worked his whole life to get to a point of where he is-and he is humble as ever, writing a musical, bursting with insight that dates back to his days as a Detroit Rocker but is grounded in centuries of wise ingenues, solid vagabonds and creators of change. And his voice is still sexy.

 

Mitch maintains a way of presenting himself to the world he entertains as a rocker who wears dark sunglasses. But I was so lucky to catch a glimpse of his eyes. 

Becki Gallagher, Johhny Ray's sister and dear friend of the family backstage lecturing me about not taking her picture; laughing at me, too.

Nicki Gugin in the kitchen accessible from backstage. Used for catering for weddings. I encourage anyone who has the chance to meet this wonderful woman to get to know her. Then you will realize the compartmentalization of the image is a lie in regards to her personality. 

Grimace from the drum player. Hit them harder and keep letting me witness the fascinating process of making music from the seams.

Nino came for the festival as the drummer for Ash Can Van Gogh, a Detroit band from the '80s. He's still here, living up with John and Mary and the dogs, doing landscape. Sometimes the island wins. In this case, it does. He caught me in a bar the last night I was in town last. He told me not to let life take away my creativity. 

Nicki Gugin in all her glory.

Practicing offstage.

One of the Forbes Brothers, a band that plays the music festival every year. This year, they played The Band in the recreation of Scorsese's The Last Waltz

Too see more images from the festival, please visit my photostream:www.flickr.com/katelevyphotography 

and hit any of the Music Festival Sets