Generalized Motivation

The GM factory in Ypsilanti has probably never been cleaner. Its pristine condition will allow executives of manufacturing companies to get an objective glance at the coveted machinery born and bred in the big "D" (read big M, for Metro), whose odometer reads 500,000. The buyers will pay the removal fee and have their way with one or more parts to an assembly line to which several hundred people have effectively devoted their entire lives. Push button, robot arm swings forward. Push button, robot arm deposits part. Push button, robot arm returns to initial position. Push button to lower robot arm to refill part. Push button, make pension. Push button, move forward with investments. Push button, buy new home, new car. Push button, deposit in 401k. Push button. Push button. Push button push button. Wait a second...........where did my fucking money go? Push button once and you are guaranteed to push it for the next thirty years without threat of young, tantalizing, sunburned fingers. We never did expect the sun in Michigan, although we always hoped for it. I still do. I went to Holland last year and experienced 70 degree sunshine and windmills in the middle of January.
The auto industry was here to stay. Until it was disemboweled and repackaged to a growing Undustry in India that seems to be doing fine (to be fair, there were men of many differing national origins attending the auction). The sale is slated to bring anywhere from a fuck ton of money if things fall short and an obscene amount of money if things go well. I can't say how much, but I can say it probably wasn't worth it in the grand scheme of things.
The factory floor is wiped clean to accomodate the lone wanderers in suits who click click click Prada shoes to recluse from the cunnilingus of the auctioneers tongue. He's my uncle, the auctioneer. My dad used to be an auctioneer.
No wonder I'm so good at licking pussy, I have begun to joke, to ease my subjects at this recent shoot--the Hilco/Maynard's auction at the Willow Run Plant.
I have never seen business men so laid back.
I'm oversimplifying this. But as usual I'm more interested in the poetry of it.

just a cover

I have volunteered at Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit a few times now this month. I love being there, working hard alongside people just broaching the surface of what responsible urban renewal and rebuilding a sustainable community means, and how urban agriculture differs from rural farming. I met this girl who works on the farm through a program similar to Americorps. I asked her to hang out sometime and she reluctantly agreed. We had a late breakfast and wantered through Corktown through a delightful alley and down to the railroad tracks along the river to under the Ambassador Bridge. We started talking about Andrea Gibson and Ani DiFranco, and no sooner did we mention Ani's name that a trooper from the Department of Homeland Security pulled up in his new white, government logo infested Suburban. 

"I think he wants us to leave," I said, which would, in hindsight, make sense as we were walking down railroad tracks under an international bridge. He rolled down his window and we smiled our naive, we're just lost white girls look at him. He asked us what we were doing there, and we responded we were just visitors going for a walk. "In DETROIT?" he prodded. "This is DETROIT, it's not SAFE to wander here." My new friend explained that she's actually a recent transplant from Ann Arbor, working on a community garden on the east side. "Why do you want to live HERE?" he asked, with disbelief, disgust and disdain. Like the motherfucker wants a fucking job more than he wants to fulfill the actual (imaginary) purpose of his job. Like he's a crusader for keeping Detroit ugly so he can continue to work for the assumptions that make him a hero. Like he takes pleasure in the fact that Detroit has a rough reputation that no one can seem to penetrate, so his appeal in uniform and loose relationship to keeping detroit "safe" never gets old. Like the rough projected image of Detroit is really just a cover to keep the legacy of structural violence going strong. I've never felt unsafe in Detroit until I was locked in the back of his car as he escorted us to safety, telling us to call 911 if we get into trouble on our walks back to our Made in Detroit vehicles. 

added 5/13 as addendum to "inanimate and high" blog posting from april 27.

sifting back through again, as ive come to michigan i've set down the clunk and resolved to send the hues into cyberspace. these photos sure are lonely out there. goal after phone healing session with kathleen:

bridge heart to root and crown. channel energy out eyes as it comes (secondary lead into photographing but do not pick up the camera). i'm called to visual art as a thread in the tapestry: 

visions and dreams are a part of the whole. no guilt for indulging in the visual. the visual does not have to intellectually distill to superficial.

these images are clearly very human, their subjects are a product of the concise exclusivity of the contrived "whole" that excludes anything but human lines. but that ego has its place too.

sometimes

i overlook the flesh and blood for a stark textural juxtaposition. is it ethical to represent people in photographs only as what they mean to you? to literally appropriate people for your own meanings? i approach people and ask them to photograph them. sometimes we engage in conversation and it seems that dialogue may be the only thing that reeps mutual benefit. is the photo a biproduct?

''

for fun.

Birmingham 

Detroit

Boulder

Boulder

Wheat Ridge

Boulder

Wheat Ridge

Denver

Denver

Family Studies from Home

nothing beats the prespring blues like a lil bit o photographin and driving the parents crazy with the camera.

H

Studies of Grandmom

Since I've been home, I've been collecting these images of my grandmother. I know there is some urgency to catalogue her. But she doesn't feel it. She gets angry that I am taking her wrinkles and immortalizing them, despite my constant pleading that a photograph does not amount the person to their appearance or their identity. That its more about me. 

I hate that I display her sometimes, as a trophy Grandmom--the poet, the art collector, the woman who still works at eighty two, the one who gets me but angers me so much sometimes, because her neuroses get her. 

She's a reminder to live in the present.