EVERYTHING HAPPENS

EVERYTHING HAPPENS

Matt WILLIAMs

EVERYTHING HAPPENS

Matt WILLIAMs 2016

everything happens A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.

By Matt Williams, 2016

Approved by the Master's Examination Committee:

Steven B. Smith, Associate Professor Graduate Program Director, Photography, Rhode Island School of Design Thesis Advisor

Anne West, Senior Critic Division of Graduate Studies & Faculty Mentor, risd Writing Center, Rhode Island School of Design Thesis Advisor

JUSTIN KIMBALL, PROFESSOR OF ART Department of Art & the History of Art Amherst College Thesis Advisor

EVERYTHING HAPPENS

Matt WILLIAMs 2016

This book was designed by Llewellyn Hensley and printed by Blurb. It is typeset in National.

Unless otherwise noted, the photographs and writing in this book are Š Matt Williams.

All rights reserved.

Contents ABSTRACT 9 introduction 11 Everything Happens Chapter 1 13 Role Models with a Capital R I. Walker Evans and the perfect sequence II. Portraits, August Sander and me III. And now for something completely different Chapter 2 Duane’s Wisdom I. Duane Michals and fathers and sons II. Michals and portraits III. More Michals thoughts

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Chapter 3 Eric and Matt Spend an Afternoon with Irving and Larry I. Small moments/decisions become big moments/decisions II. What Larry taught us III. Honorable mentions

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Chapter 4 Influences Beyond I. Unification II. More Iceland III. Sarah as proto–influence

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Afterword Welcome to the Conversation

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Endnotes

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list of figures

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references

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thanksgiving

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abstract

ABSTRACT I am an artist who relies on collaboration between my conscious and subconscious to create work that is both direct and subtle. Often I am not immediately aware of the subtext in my work. It comes to the surface after spending time with my photographs. This allows for what seems paradoxical: wide and universal readings of my work based on my narrow and specific personal point of view, experiences and stories.

1976 is a photographic portrait of male rites of passage from adolescence through adulthood to old age. As a witness to these life transitions I observe and question the terms of my development as a man shaped by experiences as a son to my father and a father to my sons. Through the aforementioned balance of conscious and subconscious thought, I construct a visual narrative that reflects a layered family structure and relational dynamic. It is at once comforting and vexing, predictable and full of surprise. I am both insider and outsider in this portrait study.

The work exists within the genres of family and humanist photography. Through sequencing and pairing images, I suggest a narrative structure that subverts the myth of parental influence as well as any assumption that we know someone through ancestral ties. In approaching this project, I allow the making of photographs to be an interactive exercise. I am a performer, witness and composer in a space that is flexible and complex. This space allows me the opportunity to contemplate, amend and perhaps even shift an inherited narrative.

Through both staged and candid photographs, the work that makes up 1976 is at its core about death both literal and metaphorical, loss and the difficulty of reconciling loss. It is about looking back to try and learn from the past while looking ahead to an unwritten future, at once full of both menace and promise.

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introduction

everything happens My sister Sarah provided the impetus for this work. The trauma imprinted on me and my family in 1976 and 1977 through her short life and sudden death colored and continues to shape our lives directly. That trauma was reawakened in me by witnessing and experiencing the trauma felt by my sons, specifically my older son, through his adolescence.

I am learning that often the real effects of personal traumas and critical situations are uncovered through quiet contemplation after the fact and in the memories of melancholia.

The work evokes this quiet, still space of reflection.

My son’s adolescence is challenging. Less challenging than some but far more so than most of his peers. His has been more difficult than I remember mine being. This is a surprise to me given the perhaps naive assumption I had bought into, that of the American Dream: the lives of your children will be a better version of your own, just as your life improved upon that of your parents. For years I assumed this would be true.

I am no longer so sure. Through watching my son and helping him navigate the waters of teenage life both perilous and banal, I became acutely aware of my roles of father to my two sons and son to my father. I feel caught in the middle of a nebulous, undefined space often performing as role model without any inherent skill or ability to do so. This space is at once predictable and full of surprise.

A myriad of questions, generated by the events of the last two years, inform and shape the work. What is my role? What kind of a role model am I to my sons? Was my father my primary role model? Through the work I also examine and push against my artistic role models. All the while I wonder if through an extended photographic exploration any intimate knowledge will be revealed.

Finally, this work is a love letter to my sons. It is an exploration of the mix of awe, wonder, confusion and fear that has been with me since the days they were born. I am amazed at how much influence I thought I would have in their lives and how little it sometimes seems I actually do. Life trumps all. We keep moving forward no matter what.

Everything happens despite our best efforts not because of them.

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Figure 1. Walker Evans. Joe’s Auto Graveyard, Pennsylvania. 1936.

Figure 2. The Airline in August. 2014.

Figure 3. Walker Evans. Country Store and Gas Station, Alabama. 1936.

Figure 4. Ingram Gen. Store, Virginia. 2015.

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chapter 1—Role models

Role Models with a capital R I. Walker Evans and the perfect sequence American Photographs by Walker Evans was first published in 1938 accompanying his solo show at the Museum of Modern Art. Lest anyone think that a collection of photographs might simply be a finite number of images loosely organized around some central or tangential theme, in an essay written for the book’s first edition Lincoln Kirstein wrote (caps his):

“THE REPRODUCTIONS PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK ARE INTENDED TO BE LOOKED AT IN THEIR GIVEN SEQUENCE.” 1 Already wary of the idea of role models, photographic and otherwise, when faced with the universal acceptance and unquestioned intelligence of American Photographs I balked. I resisted. I argued.

I feared I wouldn’t be able to articulate my inability to understand sequencing in general and the sequencing in American Photographs specifically. What I was struggling with was giving myself permission to participate in a conversation as a serious photographer. Among my fears: I wasn’t worthy of inclusion in the canon. I hadn’t yet given myself permission to tell my story, or really any story at all.

My overt way of doing so was to reject my photographic role models, my photographic “fathers.” Walker Evans certainly qualified. He was a nearly perfect choice. My work is often similar to his; our points of view and methods of imparting them also have elements in common (Figs. 1 and 2). Our photographs often share a way of looking that allows for a broad read of the subject.

We are each looking at something specific and in a specific way but are able to (or at least try to) make room for interpretation of the scene, the place or the person who occupies the frame. I am influenced by Evans and his work without being consciously aware of it (Figs. 3 and 4).

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As such it is very much a father/son relationship. With my eyes and ears fully engaged, I rejected, resisted, avoided, may have even rolled my eyes, and then finally accepted. And then learned. I explored the idea of sequencing as a poetry of contrasts and wondered if there could also be poetry in similarity. I read about Evans and American Photographs and began thinking about my own work in relation to what I read: əə The real vs. the imagined. əə One image representing specificity. Sequenced images representing generality. əə Neutral style making a plain (simple) statement. əə Evans’ frontal shooting style facilitating the presumption of facts. əə Images operating as symbols. əə Sequences as collections of statements presenting a consistent attitude.2 As much as I want to blaze my own trail as a photographer, I also want to allow for broad interpretations of my work. It became clear that paying homage to Evans' style and philosophy, conciously or not, was a good choice, no matter how fraught.

Figure 5. August Sander. Young Farmers. 1914.

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Figure 6. Three Teens. 2012.

1—Role models

II. Portraits, August Sander and Me. Another photographic father of mine, one who is less intimidating to me than Evans, is August Sander. The reasons for this are simple. The Sander I relate to and meditate on is a portrait maker, a cataloguer of the German people between the wars. I didn’t and perhaps still don’t consider myself a maker of portraits, or at least I don't consider it one of my strengths as a maker. Avoiding direct comparisons allows me the freedom to take the lessons Sander has to teach me at face value and embrace them. I was in no danger of being labeled a copycat or worse yet a charlatan with designs on copping the style of an unquestioned titan of the medium. I was free to learn with little baggage attached.

I drank in the work and the technique and the aesthetic of Sander, and still do.

I want to be good at making a portrait so I push myself by making them. It really is as simple as that. I find the portraiture of Sander to be an excellent and timeless guide. His work is of a very specific time and yet still looks contemporary in execution.

Sanders’ iconic portrait Young Farmers (Fig. 5) was on my mind when I made one of my first “real” portraits (“real” meaning I set out to make a formal portrait, stated my intention, my class and my subjects and then made it), Three Teens in the fall of 2012 (Fig. 6). I was fairly happy with the results. I found more satisfaction in the fact that I was overtly announcing to the world and to myself that I was participating. I was actively working as a photographer, as a maker, as an artist.

I kept making portraits now and then. I still had moments when I was wary of my desire to insert myself into the photo world, but the portrait felt like a sort of tether that kept me connected even in times of doubt and cynicism.

Rather than a true father figure, Sander was my fun uncle who was so different and whose strengths were so unlike mine that he was unthreatening. What he had to teach me I was happy to learn (Figs. 7 and 8). The two of us could have fun together as we were not in competition. In comparison with my relationship with Evans, much less seemed at stake.

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Figure 7. Sander, August. Young Farmer. 1906.

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Figure 8. Danny M. 2016.

1—Role models

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Figure 9. Just What I Wanted! 2015.

Figure 10. Pure Virgins. 2015.

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1—Role models

III. And Now For Something Completely Different The last role model I want to talk about is the media. I grew up drawn to advertising and pop culture that spoke of how great America was, how great it was to be American, and the noble causes of capitalism and consumerism (Figs. 9 and 10). A good number of my photographs are a result of a search for residue of what I imagined the American Dream to be. A big house (with a white picket fence) and fancy car (why not a Cadillac?) and a job in the corner office all seemed like interconnected parts of the ultimate and attainable goal (Fig. 11).

I believed, or I wanted to believe, that a beautiful, shiny future would always be easily available to me. I tried to turn my back on the American Dream, but my efforts, often fueled by punk music and philosophy, were half-hearted.

A specific punk rock teaching I remember is this: “Religion is the opium of the masses, the blind will follow like sheep.” For years I attributed this quote (correctly) to the Boston hardcore band The Proletariat. I attributed the idea behind it (erroneously of course) to the same source. As ridiculous as it is for me to admit that rocking out to a band named after the Soviet masses celebrated by Lenin left me digging the hot guitar licks but unmoved by the political messages imprinted on the music, lyrics and band name, here I sit admitting exactly that.

It may have been for the best that my mind didn’t wander in that direction. I was in no good position to be deconstructing the American Dream since I was living a life guided fully by its benefits. I certainly wasn’t in a place where I could have convincingly critiqued or questioned it. So as The Proletariat rocked on fueled by an angst that I envied but couldn’t connect with, I nodded my head to the beat and screamed along with the singer, “The blind will follow like sheep!” All the while thinking to myself, “…silly sheep…” I was, if not happy to follow the dream blindly, satisfied on some superficial level. My dissatisfaction lived buried in a far more subconscious one.

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Figure 11. Sharp Dressed Man Gets the Ladies. 2015.

Figure 12. Risk–Taker, Policy–Maker. 2015.

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1—Role models

The American Dream is outdated. It probably always was. Now it is openly mocked, challenged and rewritten. When I was younger and more impressionable, I bought it. I wanted it. I thought it was the only path available to me and that was just fine. I believed so strongly in this idea that I stopped investigating my own agency and simply put one foot in front of the other in a long, casual stroll towards my grave.

So much was preordained (Fig. 12). After high school I would go to a respectable college where I would competently earn a somewhat practical degree which would lead to a promising job in an interesting city where I would meet a nice girl.

Fast forward 40 years to a gold watch and bouncing grandchildren on my knee in some southern state known for its nice weather and conservative politics.

Turns out it was all an illusion. Or at the very least there was some work I needed to do to steer my life’s course towards it. I didn’t pick up on that part of things.

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chapter 2—duane’s wisdom

Duane’s Wisdom I. Duane Michals and fathers and sons In a sense I have been reverse engineering this whole thing — thinking about photographic role models before more immediate and meaningful “life” role models and wondering about my paternal fitness before looking closely at my relationship with my own father. I suppose like in so much of life I looked up after trudging along for some years in a state of unconscious contemplation to be in the middle of it all. It being life.

It being a father facing challenges I never anticipated in raising my sons.

It being an adult with an odd relationship of benign estrangement with my father.

Figure 13. Duane Michals. A Letter From My Father. 1960.

Enter Duane Michals (Fig. 13).

Writing on the borders of a photograph can express frustration with the lack of power a photograph has to impart any specific information about its subject.

This is one of the more honest reactions I’ve come across in all my photographic research. Michals does this. It is a powerful tool.

I find the simple directness of his comments satisfying as well as the implied comment of the limitations of a photograph. I find the paradox of a photograph being unable to impart the truth delicious too. Michals speaks of wanting his photographs to be unresolved. Yet through his writing he tries to explain or at the least impart a feeling that the photograph might pass to the viewer. This is a key idea for me. I find myself believing in the power and existence of answers even when I have learned that they often don’t exist at all. When they do they rarely provide solace or pertinent information. We live in the midst of questions and it is within the quality and nuance of the questions we ask that lies the stuff of life.

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In A Letter from my Father, paired with an image of his father, Michals tells a story about his hopes that somehow his father would explain his failure to show Duane and his brother and mother his love for them. The letter never comes.

The questions go unanswered.

It made me think about what a letter from my father might look like.

It would likely be identical to the letter Michals received from his father, that is to say no letter at all. I start to think the imagined letter is superior to any real one. This is one case where the truth or an answer might be worse than the hole left by the lack of information, connection, emotion.

I call it A Manila Folder Marked: Matthew. In the image my father is standing in his office in semi-profile. I interpret his look as detached. Where his mind is, and his thoughts are, is impossible for me to know. The writing is in response to his showing me his collection of clippings and pictures of me that he keeps in his filing cabinet. It’s a nice gesture and a pleasant “dad” thing to do. My reaction is a little more complicated than I originally realized.

This is a good example of what I’m both drawn to and what I push away. I like the directness, it taps into some subconscious authenticity. At the same time I wonder if that directness makes the work less accessible to a general audience.

There is an interesting interplay between the two points-of-view. I hope to impart that tension through my work.

I wonder what my sons would write in the margins of a photograph of me (Fig. 15).

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Figure 14. A Manila Folder Marked “Matthew”. 2016.

That didn’t stop me from making my own version of Michals’ piece. Taking control of the story myself is the important gesture. It is empowering and more satisfying than any words from my father could possibly be (Fig. 14).

2—duane’s wisdom

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2—duane’s wisdom

II. Michals and portraits “Since I don’t believe in appearances, I like to do portraits that have to do with what the person is about, rather than what they look like. I knew my mother and my father my entire lifetime, and not once did they ever reveal themselves to me. So I’ve never believed that portraits are what the person actually seems to be.” 3 I am a neophyte portraitist. I have been taking photographs of people for years but in an accidental (or more accurately) in a reluctant, semiconscious way.

Only recently have I been taking overt control and making portraits.

It is more difficult and nuanced than I could ever have imagined.

Figure 15. Old-Selfie. 2015.

Can a portrait reveal something authentic, true or real about the subject? I’m still undecided. Two portraits of my older son follow. One is more candid than the other. Is one more real? What makes a photograph real? This is a question that rarely stops flitting around the periphery of my brain. Given all the ways a photo can be interpreted, looked at, talked about, read, and displayed, maybe the questions are pointless. I’m going to land on this: a photograph is real when it is made. A photograph is a real photograph. Maybe it’s not more complicated than that. It is often said that power lies in simplicity. Could anything be more simple?

In the photograph A 3 Times (Fig. 16), my son A is engaged in an activity he is honestly interested in, showing what he is “about,” to use Michals’ phrase. He is showing the camera old photos of himself. That is something he is endlessly fascinated with. It is an honest depiction of who he is. On the right he sits in quiet (or maybe not so quiet) confrontation with the camera (Fig. 17). Wearing my robe, arms crossed, unflinching, he seems to be saying, “Look at me, looking at you.” It is a direct interaction. But can the viewer know that to be true? Is it more honest, more real, than the more casual one next to it?

I have my doubts.

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Does one photograph allow more room for interpretation than the other? That seems a more interesting question to me than those of authenticity or honesty.

Which one holds that room more effectively is up to the viewer. That flexibility is a large part of why photography interests me. The maker loses control of the message, the story, the questions as soon as another set of eyes lands on the photograph. Michals knows this. His writing on his photographs is one

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Figure 17. A Serious Look. 2016.

Figure 16. A 3 Times. 2015.

way for him to retain some control in a situation or interaction where he as a maker cedes the power position rather quickly and completely.

2—duane’s wisdom

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2—duane’s wisdom

III. More Michals thoughts Michals speaks of the benefits of getting old: “You know what’s nice about getting older? You have a track record. When you’re young you have no history.

When you get older you can look back. It’s like chicken soup: if it sits for three days it gets better. As you get older you collect all these layers of paint. Then you begin to see your track record. You begin to see your foolishness. You begin to see your patterns.” 4 I have subconsciously been sitting on this idea for years. Much of my work is centered around the idea of patina as evidence. I have been trying to make sense of what the layers of life reveal. I look at cars and buildings who have long since enjoyed their primes to see if anything can be learned from their scars. To further emphasize the bumps, bruises and injuries living inflicts I sometimes inflict more on a space or an object by making my own marks.

I want to participate in a history. I want to leave my own evidence. In Fast Phil, by using tape and color Xeroxes of the original photograph, I both repair a building and scene that is clearly past its prime while simultaneously degrading it further (Fig. 18). It is at once a gesture of respect and one of neglect. This paradoxical approach to making and seeing is a core element of my work. I wish to celebrate the unremarkable and tarnish the shiny, the universally lauded, the new (Fig. 19).

As I meditate on the idea of evidence I realize that perhaps the most direct way we humans leave evidence of our existence is through having children. Our children will tell the world we were here. Or at least that is the hope. However, we have little control over the stories they tell about us. That is scary. We parents clamber for control of the uncontrollable. I pay close attention to my sons and wonder what I will see and learn. And then I wonder if my father, in his own way, did the same with me and my sister. It strikes me as both an exercise in futility and a vital way of spending energy. This search for evidence and futile hope for control fuels my work.

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One last Michals' quote that resonates with me: “…I’ve never really grown except through contradiction.” 5 It is a simple idea and one not unique to Michals. But as I read it nodding my head in agreement I molded it to my experience and had a realization. Maybe that is the reason some people have children. Children are wellsprings of contradiction. Children provide endless growth opportunities for parents. As I sit here and look up from my shoes I realize that I am now in the middle of an incredibly rich growing season, maybe even the most fertile of my life. The friction of being both a son and a father (growing pains?) is wearing away some basic assumptions I have been laboring under and hiding behind for many years.

Central of those assumptions reads something like this; “There is some magic key (answer, path, formula, philosophy, way of being, etc.) that will make life easy or smooth or satisfying.”

The time to challenge those assumptions and move past them, or at the very least learn from them, is at hand.

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2—duane’s wisdom

Figure 18. Fast Phil. 2014.

Figure 19. Ol’ Red. 2014.

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chapter 3—eric and matt

Eric & Matt spend an afternoon with Irving & Larry I. Small moments/decisions become big moments/decisions Small decision #1. Matt makes plans to go to Chicago to spend 4 or 5 days with his father, visiting and photographing.

I was taking an independent study centered around making portraits. I wanted to include my father in some of the work so I made plans to spend a few days with him and his wife at their condo in downtown Chicago.

Not a big deal.

Except that my father and I have an odd relationship as adults. One of benign neglect. We talk to each other infrequently. This is not due to some long simmering feud or some slight never apologized for. In fact I’m not entirely sure why our relationship is mostly qualified by our lack of contact. But it is. So to say I was curious about how the visit would play out was an understatement.

When I got to Chicago I was getting settled after exchanging pleasantries with my father and his wife and checking my Instagram. As one does. There was revealed the news that turned this visit upside down. Here and Home, a Larry Sultan retrospective, was in Milwaukee at the art museum. The show was closing the next day. Wondering exactly how we were going to fill some of the hours we finally had with each other after 30-odd years, I practically jumped to my feet. Gazing out at the Chicago cityscape I said, “We have to go to Milwaukee!”

Of course we did. And so we did.

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Small decision #2. Matt and Eric drive to Milwaukee to go to a museum.

Before I unpacked my bags we fired up my dad’s car and guzzled cheap gas all the way to Brew City. I was calling the shots and so far it was good. The drive was short and easy. Traffic was no issue and my dad and I talked.

He knows his grandsons in theory only with one or two real-life sightings, so I gave him the down and dirty version of A’s intense, dramatic and difficult two (19?) years. I caught my dad up on the drugs, alcohol, fights, selfdestructive choices, a forced “experience” in the Utah desert followed by 15 months of intense therapy wrapped in a pseudo-educational wrapper at therapeutic boarding school.

I synthesized a terrifying, soul-wrenching, gut-churning 2 years into a 30-minute soliloquy. When I was done with that I introduced him to his other grandson J, explained my back-to-school experience, told him Tiger had been the best dog ever and that my relationship with my ex-wife was complicated and often difficult. My girlfriend was doing well, we had a great new dog and rents in Cambridge were out of control. And how about those local sports teams?!

Surreal would be one way to describe that 90-minute drive. Another would be easy. He was a good and active listener. I was expecting the distance and aloofness promised by my mother, the self-centeredness, the narcissism.

If he was actively keeping it all at bay, he was doing a good job.

We got to Milwaukee. I felt lighter. We parked and he asked me what we were going to see. I told him who Larry Sultan was and what work he was best known for. I told him Sultan had made work about his father and mother, with his father and mother, that I was especially interested in. We walked into the museum and he reached for his wallet. I told him to put it away. This one was on me. Foreshadowing alert: some role reversal would be taking place this weekend.

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3—eric and matt

Small decision #3. Matt pays the admission fee for two at the museum.

From the promotional materials for Here and Home provided by the Milwaukee Museum of Art: Larry Sultan: Here and Home is the first retrospective of celebrated California photographer Larry Sultan (1946–2009). The exhibition explores Sultan's thirty-five-year career, from his early conceptual and collaborative projects of the 1970s to his solo, documentary-style photographs. One of the most influential photographers of his generation, Larry Sultan explored ideas of home, family, belonging, façade, and storytelling in evocative pictures that challenged photographic conventions. Six major bodies of work make up this presentation: Evidence (1975–77), collaboratively with Mike Mandel; Swimmers (1978–82); Pictures from Home (1983–92); The Valley (1997–2003); Homeland (2006–09); and Sultan's editorial work. Larry Sultan: Here and Home features more than two hundred photographs, a billboard, film, and “Study Hall,” a room offering a unique lens into Sultan’s exploratory process both as an artist and a teacher.6 In short: it was going to be a pretty good look at Sultan.

And it was.

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Figure 20. Unknown. Matt & Eric Visit Larry & Irving in Milwaukee. 2016.

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3—eric and matt

II. What Larry taught us The show was exhaustive. It was wonderful, thoughtfully displayed and thoroughly explained. And my father was drinking it in. He was curious and hungry for information. And he was turning to me again and again as the expert, the teacher, the artist, to explain what we were seeing, why we were seeing it (Fig. 20).

It was both a small thing and the biggest thing. I was now his teacher. He was looking to me for guidance. Role reversal was the order of the day and plain to see; there was nothing awkward or forced about it. It was as natural as could be. Unexpected and unplanned but natural. It was of course the way things are: the student becomes the teacher, child becomes the caregiver. But it was still, to me, a surprise.

Things that Larry Sultan taught me: A fiction can be created from the truth.

This idea suddenly seemed really important in relation to my work. I was profoundly stuck on telling my specific story through my photographs. Without getting too deeply into “Is Photography Really Capable of Telling the Truth?” arguments, I wanted my work to tell my truth, full of the pain, fear, love and angst of the past two years. But I was having a difficult time getting there. It was my almost desperate grasping at the “truth” that was making the work read as bland. By making the “facts” murkier, the emotional content could become more rich allowing for broader interpretations. If we make the leap that by simply making the photos myself they are already imbued with my truth then my story is woven into the fabric of whatever fiction emerges from the work. A wide variety of fictions can be held together by the narrow “truth”.

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3—eric and matt

Parents can be implicated and embraced all at once.

The best intentions don’t always yield the best results. I was now confronting this reality in my existence full-on and from two different perspectives. My dad, and mom too for that matter, have been and continue to be acting from a place of love and support, with regards to me and my sister. It’s what that love and support look like that is up for interpretation. Life is difficult to navigate. Paths are rarely clear or obvious. Choices need to be made. As I looked to my relationship with my father as a guide I saw the folly in doing so as far as informing my relationship with my own sons was concerned. It’s all a jumble. There is no right way. The unifying theme is that we are flawed, the system is flawed and life is a stitched together quilt of flaws. Even if the thread we use to hold it together is made of love and respect the whole thing can tear apart in a million different ways. The thing is the stitching, trying to hold the all the weird intensity of life together in spite of the towering odds stacked against us. That is parenthood synthesized. I see my parents both struggling against and accepting this truth and then I understand it better in me. It is process based, not results based.

Appropriation also takes many forms and shapes.

Like Sultan, I search my family photo archives for hints, clues, treasure, etc.

When I find something of interest I mine it, scan it, print it, and manipulate it to tell my story. I do the same thing with advertising, pop-culture ephemera, other people’s art, etc. This is okay. This is not lying.

Figure 22. Almost Fully Dressed. 2016.

Figure 21. Larry Sultan. Dad on Bed. 1984.

Collaboration takes many forms and shapes.

You can ask for cooperation from the people you are critiquing and celebrating.

They might even say yes! Then they will probably make suggestions, consciously or not, that push your work into places it wouldn’t otherwise go.

There is strength in revealing your vulnerability.

I’m still figuring out exactly what this means to me. I understand it in the abstract. I am not sure I have connected to the strength I am meant to draw from putting myself out there and admitting I am a flawed human. As a father this seems especially fraught when operating under the assumption that I need to be a strong role model for my sons. I'm realizing that being a strong role model and an artist doesn't mean I need to hide my vulnerabilities.

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To be artistically rigid is to be inflexible. Inflexibility is brittle. Something brittle is something fragile. Fragility is weak. Weak is, uh, not strong. Now I just need to apply this formula to life in general. And then I need to remind myself of it now and then.

We looked at everything, read everything and talked about everything in that show. My dad was especially, and understandably, interested in the role Irving Sultan, Larry’s father, played in the making of the Pictures from Home series (Fig. 21). He was taken with this exchange between Larry and Irving: Irving Sultan: I don’t mean to sound so critical. I’m just trying to understand what you see in certain pictures. Like that one you took last time you were here. I can’t figure out why you asked me to dress up in a suit, write on a piece of backdrop paper as though I was giving a lecture and then photograph me standing there with a pen in my hand looking confused, like I didn’t know what I was talking about? I didn’t even spell that word correctly: “it’s empathize,” not “empathy,” a verb rather than a noun.

Larry Sultan: That’s what I like about the picture. I thought that the error is an important detail, one that reveals a basic human quality.

Do you think it diminishes you, makes you seem foolish?

Irving Sultan: I wouldn’t go that far. But that’s not the way I would have set it up. My image of someone giving a lecture is to have them project confidence and knowledge. In your picture, I look frightened by the very point I’m trying to make.

Larry Sultan: Exactly. That particular picture was inspired by the Dale Carnegie course, and by all the lectures you gave me when I was a kid. I can’t name it, but some emotion has seeped into the self that you wanted to project and caused a disturbance. I didn’t notice it when I was taking the picture, but when I saw the print, I was reminded of something you once told me, that your success and efforts have been primarily motivated by fear. Maybe there’s a little of that in the photograph. It’s like a tear in the image that shows both who you think you should be and who you are.7 46

3—eric and matt

My dad wanted to know if I had come to Chicago to make pictures like that with him. He wanted to know if he was going to have a voice in the work. He wanted to collaborate with me.

It felt intense, wonderful and scary. And after a long very pleasant day we got to work on a collaboration of sorts that was a strong start to a project that I hope will transcend the photographic.

Much in the same way Sultan’s photographs of his father were little fictions that revealed truths, I too found something I wasn’t expecting in the photographs I made of my father. In his suit, a uniform that speaks directly to my memory of who he is, he looks uncomfortable, unsure and a little off-balance. It is as if even he isn’t sure he is posing as the “real” Eric even as he looks the part almost perfectly to me (Fig. 22).

It is a collaboration both conscious and unconscious. I asked him to put on a suit so I could make a few photos. He came out of his bedroom after a few minutes in his power suit but barefoot.

It felt perfect to me so I didn’t mention a thing about shoes and neither did he.

It was as if he was unconsciously acknowledging his need for individuality and comfort even while cladding himself in the restrictive uniform of his life choices.

He was giving me a gift whether he knew it or not.

I accepted it with open arms.

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3—eric and matt

III. Honorable Mentions I have been strongly influenced by countless numbers of photographers and artists who have mined the rich family-work vein that I am tapping into.

I couldn’t possibly be aware of them all, much less mention every one.

That said, there are a few I’d like to acknowledge: Sally Mann, for letting me know I can take just about any darn photo I want of my kids and not have to apologize for it. Not to mention the intense work she did with her father while he was dying. Intimacy can be and often is messy and all the more lovely for it.

Larry Clarke, for reminding me that teenagers are no more or less screwy than the rest of us, they just wear their screwiness right on the surface in a painfully authentic way. Authenticity can also be messy.

And Doug DuBois, who I will talk about a little more because he has spent a considerable amount of time with both his father and teenagers and makes work about both. He talks about his father in the afterword of his book All The Days and Nights. It is a clean and direct summation of an aspect of fathers and sons that resonates with me.

“My father and I share certain wrinkles. Genetics govern their imprint but their presence delineates our age and experience.” 8 DuBois looks at his father and sees himself. I do the same while searching for some evidence of myself in my sons.

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Figure 23. Claude Monet. 20 Views of Rouen Cathedral. 1894–95.

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chapter 4—influences beyond

Influences Beyond I. Unification From the beginning I wanted, in the building of a sequence, of my sequence, a unifying theme. I have come up with more ideas than I thought possible; each time after the initial excitement passes I reject it as trite, unconnected or just plain bad. None of those ideas I will share here.

I only mention it at all because I am talking about some of my influences outside of the photo world.

Early artistic influences on me included Impressionist painters, in particular Claude Monet. Long before I thought of myself as a photographer I marveled at Monet’s explorations and celebrations of light. Now as a photographer who aspires to use light masterfully, I have taken one of his concepts and explored it.

Monet painted the Rouen Cathedral 30 times (20 were shown in an exhibition in Paris in 1895) at different times of day and presumably seasons in order to catalog the differences in light, both subtle and profound (Fig. 23). The resulting series had a strong effect on me both because of its complex study of light as well as for the discipline it must have taken to complete the work.

Inspired by this extreme example of dedication and execution, I applied this conceptual ritual to my photographic practice. I set two cameras on tripods in the backyard of my apartment during a 5–week teaching job in Iceland. It was June and the sun never really set. I wanted to explore this round-the-clock sunshine phenomenon as it spoke to an elemental aspect of the experiences I was having.

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Each camera was focused on a nondescript scene in Skagastrond, the little fishing village that was my home for the month. The light fascinated me.

I pledged to shoot a single frame on each camera at the top of the hour, every hour for at least a 24-hour period. And that is what I did, with an hour on either side of each midnight for a total of 27 photographs from each camera (Fig. 24).

It was a long day, one that felt instructive and important. I was acutely aware of being a maker that day as every hour on the hour, no matter what I was doing, or wanted to be doing, I was interrupted by an alarm summoning me back to the yard, my cameras and the task I had assigned myself. The results may not be as majestic as Monet’s cathedrals, but I am happy with the evidence they provide of my homage to his idea and its execution.

I very much enjoy the study of light that the series revels in. As much of a cliché as it is, the chasing and celebration of light is one of the reasons I make photographs.

This series also made obvious another aspect of making photographs that informs my work — that of performing ritual with my camera. The presence of my camera in a place, at an event or with another person is a direct communication from me to the world that I am engaged, present and paying attention. My camera is not a substitute for direct intimacy but neither is it an impediment. Paradoxically, my camera acting as a buffer, provides me with the ability to stay present through feelings and situations that might otherwise be more intense than I am comfortable with.

That discomfort played out directly in a ritual I performed during my 5 weeks in Iceland. I was feeling acutely disconnected from my sons and from my role as their father. I tried modern electronic ways to engage with them to little satisfaction. I had not been apart from both of them for such a long time in their entire lives and I was floundering. I thought about my first college roommate, a kid from Oman who as a practicing Shiite–Muslim, in the heart of American college-culture, would pray 5 times a day, facing Mecca.

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Figure 24. 6 Views to the Left, Skagastrond. 2105.

Figure 25. 4 photographs from To The South/Southwest. 2015.

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No matter what was going on in our squalid dorm room, no matter how many empty pizza boxes he had to push to the side or people he had to ask to move into the kitchen, he would roll out his prayer mat and perform his private ritual 5 times a day without fail. In Iceland, almost accidentally, certainly at first unconsciously, I found myself facing due west, in the direction of my kids, and telling myself that they were fine without me.

It was both a reassuring and sobering thought.

I started making a single photograph from that same spot, looking west, whenever I found myself thinking about them (Fig. 25). I soon realized that along with feeling the absence of my sons I was thinking about the limitations of thinking of myself only as a father. Again the ritual, somewhat facilitated by my camera, became as important as the result. The role of maker and the role of father were working collaboratively.

I decided these photographs of the view west from Skagastrond, made in response to wanting evidence of my ritual, would be the thread that runs through this body of work. It works both visually and conceptually. It connects to an artistic tradition that Monet famously championed but that others before him and since have engaged in. Now I too was joining the conversation.

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4—influences beyond

II. More Iceland While in Iceland, I had the chance to visit Roni Horn’s installation/museum Library of Water in Stykkisholmur. The work is a combination of sculptural elements and text that react with water and light to both impart a mood and engage in a conversation. That conversation is as likely about water, glaciers, weather and environmentalism as it is about clean lines, crisp execution and play of light. It was nice to have the opportunity to see it in person. It didn’t significantly change my life, but it did lead me to be curious about the maker.

I looked up Roni Horn and did some reading.

I learned some practical things about Horn. I learned some artistic things about Horn. And I learned that Horn was really good at art-speak, that is, talking about her work, her process and her concepts in a way that seemed both accessible and obtuse at the same time, which I was initially dismissive of, but am now seeing its value.

That closer look reveals why so many artists and makers seem to be adept at doing just that, being both direct and obtuse. It is something that appeals to me in regards to my own work and engaging in conversation about it. Horn’s ability to reference the specificity that informs her work while speaking generally allows her to be true to her personal motives while leaving room for open interpretations and readings of the work by her audience.

That is exactly the line I have been searching for in my work in general and in this thesis work specifically. The stories that drive, motivate and inspire the work are deeply personal and acutely specific. The conversations and readings I wish them to generate are hopefully wide open and universal. When put into practice the result can be potent and resonant.

When asked about the wide variety of media and concepts that make up her output in an interview with The Journal of Contemporary Art, Horn responds:

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“In subverting expectations you increase the chance of offering a more direct experience; not one that simply fulfills the viewers' desires or confirms their knowledge. It's more of a questioning. I'm not interested in answers per se.

The answers create closure. I don't think that there are any answers anyway…” 9 I appreciate the idea that my work is more about questions than answers. I share Horn’s belief that answers are an end where conversation and exploration stop. I strive to find meaning in my work through the posing of questions. Initially I thought answers were a goal, even a noble one; through experience I have come to believe in the struggle borne of asking questions and striving for answers that don’t exist. The fantasy of finding an answer to a universal human mystery is sometimes seductive but ultimately limited. I want my work to be expansive, interesting and universal.

Which brings me to Sarah.

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4—influences beyond

III. Sarah as proto–influence My sister and I, 8 and 7 years old at the time our parents told us the blessed news, were appropriately excited about our impending sibling. We were kids.

Our understanding of what to expect was based on very little of substance.

This was both a blessing and a curse when my baby sister Sarah arrived.

It was a blessing because we were expecting a baby and a baby is what we got.

A warm and soft bundle that cried, nursed, filled her diapers and cooed. Our new baby did new baby things. We were neither surprised nor disappointed.

My parents were surprised. They were disappointed. And sad. And confused.

And utterly unprepared for the reality that they understood on a far deeper level than my sister and I did.

Sarah was born with Down Syndrome (Fig. 26).

My mom cursed the gods who she felt singled her out for punishment. Her crime?

Being so greedy as to want a third healthy child when she already had two. My father, as a father of his generation when it came to matters of the children, quickly ceded all control and decision-making power to my mom. He did this as a way of showing my mom that he was supporting her in this difficult time. She read it as his washing his hands of the unpleasantness my sister’s inconvenient reality had brought to our family unit.

Figure 26. Bearer of News. 2013.

All I knew was we had a new sister and that Mom was crying a lot and Dad seemed to be at home even less often than before. Or was it more often? Either way, things were different and dicey.

I was smitten (Fig. 27). Sarah was as exciting as things got at our house. I watched her sleep. I watched her cry. I watched her eat. I was vigilant, looking for a sign that she was as damaged as my mom said she was. Beyond the fact that her eyes looked a little more, well, slanted than I expected, I wasn’t convinced there really was anything different about her.

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Figure 27. Genetically Linked. 2013.

Figure 28. Chaise Haut/Hi-Chair. 2013.

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4—influences beyond

And yet everything else, my life, our lives, my family, the daily energy and mood in our home was completely different. Just as I was getting used to the newness and the differences, Sarah died.

I went to school one day, running through the backyards of our neighborhood to catch up with the bus same as any other day. When I came back I found my mom and dad at the door of our rented home, eyes swollen and red. Nothing was ever the same (Fig. 28).

That day I learned viral pneumonia was a thing. I learned how weird it was to see my father cry. I learned that all kinds of crazy shit happens out in the world even when your day at school looks and feels like any other day at school.

I also learned some other things. Things that were reinforced from that day onward: Don’t get too excited. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t strive for, well, much of anything lest you draw that attention and get punished for your hubris. In confronting and weighing those lessons it felt safer to me to make myself small than do anything else.

So I made myself small. I’ve been pushing against that decision ever since (Fig. 29).

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Figure 29. 4th Grade Class Picture, 1976. 2013.

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afterword

Welcome to the conversation The sequence of photographs in the companion to this text is what I consider my thesis story. It is both complete and not. It is a fitting place for the work to sit given my preoccupation with paradox.

My thesis tells a story specific to me. It is a story of loss, fear, tears, hope and love. It is about looking for answers and being overwhelmed by questions. I wonder what it is to be a father and what it is to be a son. I look for myself by looking at others. I search for my place by looking at places. I search for clues in the close examination of things and the spaces between things. As my father becomes an old man and my sons become adults I wonder about death and mortality.

My thesis is about control. It is about who gets to tell a story. It’s about permission and agency and saying, “Hey! I’m right here. Can you see me? Can you hear me? Are you going to listen?”

My hope is that through the specificity of my story I allow a universal read of the work.

Through concept and metaphor I can reference my story while opening channels of understanding and interpretation that transcend the narrowness of my story.

Everything happens. The reason is mutable and depends on circumstance and on what story works for us in the moment. Our control lies in the lessons we learn from our experiences and the directions in which we choose to move based on what we learn.

Welcome to the conversation. RISD announces your acceptance with this phrase emblazoned across a big envelope in bright yellow letters. It is just words, yes, but it’s more than that too. I am no longer operating in a vacuum. Being invited to use my voice is the first step. What matters is what I do once I acknowledge my voice.

Someone asked me what is at stake in my thesis. What’s at stake is my place at the table, my voice in the conversation, my membership card in the photographers club.

What’s at stake is me accepting myself as an artist, as a father, as a son.

That is my answer. My thesis provides the questions.

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endnotes

Endnotes 1

Lincoln Kirstein, essay in American Photographs, by Walker Evans (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1938), 200.

2

Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, “Lincoln Kirstein on Walker Evans’ American Photographs” (paper/lecture presented at risd Photobook class, Providence, Rhode Island, October 13, 2014).

3

Judith Olch Richards, Inside the Studio: Two Decades of Talks with Artists in New York (New York: Independent Curators International, 2004), 67.

4

Richards, Inside the Studio, 68.

5

Richards, Inside the Studio, 68.

6 “Larry Sultan: Here & Home,” Milwaukee Art Museum, accessed April 14, 2016, http://mam.org/sultan 7

Larry Sultan, Pictures From Home (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992) 72-74.

8

Doug DuBois, All The Days and Nights (New York: Aperture, 2009) 115.

9 “Interview with Roni Horn,” Journal of Contemporary Art, accessed March 30, 2016, http://jca-online.com/horn.html

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list of figures

list of figures 1

Evans, Walker. Joe’s Auto Graveyard, Pennsylvania. 1936.

2

The Airline in August. 2014.

3

Evans, Walker. Country Store and Gas Station, Alabama. 1936.

4

Ingram Gen. Store, Virginia. 2015.

5

Sander, August. Young Farmers. 1914.

6

Three Teens. 2012.

7

Sander, August. Young Farmer. 1906.

8

Danny M. 2016.

9

Just What I Wanted! 2015.

10 Pure Virgins. 2015.

11 Sharp Dressed Man Gets the Ladies. 2015.

12 Risk–Taker, Policy–Maker. 2015.

13 Michals, Duane. A Letter From My Father. 1960.

14 A Manila Folder Marked “Matthew”. 2016.

15 Old Selfie. 2015.

16 A 3 Times. 2015.

17 Nineteen. 2016.

18 Fast Phil. 2014.

19 Ol’ Red. 2014.

20 Unknown. Matt and Eric Visit Larry and Irving in Milwaukee. 2016.

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list of figures

21 Sultan, Larry. Dad on Bed. 1984.

22 Almost Fully Dressed. 2016.

23 Monet, Claude. 20 Views of Rouen Cathedral. 1894–95.

24 6 Views to the Left, Skagastrond. 2105.

25 4 photographs from To The South/Southwest. 2015.

26 Bearer of News. 2013.

27 Genetically Linked. 2013.

28 Chaise Haut/Hi–Chair. 2013.

29 4th Grade Class Picture, 1976. 2013.

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references

references Pictures from Home, Larry Sultan All The Days and Nights, Doug DuBois American Photographs, Walker Evans People of the 20th Century, August Sander Family, Chris Verene Portraits, Thomas Struth Family Pictures, Sally Mann Kin, Pieter Hugo Joe’s Junkyard, Lisa Kereszi Family Tree, Glen Erler In The Shadow of Things, Leone Hampton I Heart Transylvania, Jason Nocito A, Gregory Halpern Redheaded Peckerwood, Christian Patterson Portraits, Rineke Dijkstra

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references

How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life, John Fahey This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff Running on Empty, Janice Webb Bullfighting, Roddy Doyle The Great Santini, Pat Conroy My Struggle, Karl Ove Knausgaard Boyhood, Richard Linklater Rushmore, Wes Anderson

Haruki Murakami Mark Oliver Everett Justine Kurland

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thanksgiving

thanksgiving This thesis undertaking would have never been possible without the following people who have had my back throughout. I can most likely never thank them enough but I will, at the very least, try to spell their names correctly. Any omissions are due to a severe case of Thesis Brain and probably not passive aggressiveness. I apologize in advance.

I have a long list of teachers I would be remiss to not mention. Each of you holds a place of esteem in my heart and mind for helping me first find my artistic and photographic voice and then teaching me how to use it. Thank you Michael Hintlian, Sue Anne Hodges, Stephen Sheffield, Dana Smith. Thank you Bonnie Donohue, Matt Gamber, Sandy Stark.

And thank you Deborah Artman, Debra Balken, Jesse Burke, Nelson Chan, Matthew Clowney, Mo Costello, Ann Fessler, Henry Horenstein, Ray Meeks, Jamie MurphyHlynsky, Thad Russell, Jo Sittenfeld, Stanley Wolukau–Wanambwa.

Thank you to the many friends I have been lucky enough to meet and who have been generous with their time and knowledge, creativity and, uh, friendship: Kara Baker, Meg Bergstrand, Aaron Bourque, Emil Cohen, Candy Gander, Llewellyn Hensley, Defne Kirmizi, Cassie Klos, Linda Pagani, Laura Beth Reese, Dayna Rochell.

Many thanks to my classmates who have taught me new ways of seeing, being and doing: Tenzing Dakpa, Caleb Churchill, Svetlana Bailey, Sakura Kelley, Sarah Meadows, Thalassa Raasch; Andre Bradley, Currie Broderick, Elise Kirk, Drew Ludwig, Paolo Morales, Andrew Wertz; Tianqiutao Chen, Alex Gencarelli, Margaret Kristensen, Nathan Miller, Peter Nicholson, Nicole Schwartz, Maria Sturm.

A thank you born of respect, awe and a little fear to my mentors who have held my hand, stroked my ego, challenged my assumptions, questioned my motives and pushed me into places I would never have gone on my own: Claire Beckett, Bill Burke, Steve Smith, Eva Sutton, Brian Ulrich, Anne West.

A special acknowledgment for lifetime achievement: Mom, Dad and Cary.

My family has been extremely generous in just about any way you can define that word.

Thank you for everything Tracy, Aemon, and Julian. I love you. Without the three of you none of this even begins to work.

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bibliography

bibliography DuBois, Doug, and Donald Antrim. All the Days and Nights. New York: Aperture, 2009.

Evans, Walker, and Lincoln Kirstein. American Photographs. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 1988.

“Journal of Contemporary Art.” Journal of Contemporary Art. Accessed March 30, 2016. http://www.jca-online.com/.

“Larry Sultan: Here & Home.” Milwaukee Art Museum. Accessed April 14, 2016. http://mam.org/.

Richards, Judith Olch. Inside the Studio: Two Decades of Talks with Artists in New York. New York: Independent Curators International (ICI), 2004.

Sultan, Larry. Pictures from Home. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992.

Wolukau-Wanambwa, Stanley. “Lincoln Kirstein on Walker Evans' American Photographs.” Lecture, RISD Photobook Class, Providence, RI, October 13, 2014.

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