the chain

On Sundays there would be old films or shorts on TV. They would be black and whites. “Laurel and Hardy”, “The Little Rascals”, all the Bing Crosby movies where he was still young and slim, were colorless images sculpted only from luminosity. I thought the world was black and white, back then, and used to ask my dad when color was invented. “Why did people only live in black and white back then?” He’d just chuckle.

They must have missed out on a lot with that kind of photography. You couldn’t be permitted the luxury of how blue your mother’s eyes were that day. The odd detail of three strangers at a bus stop all wearing red t-shirts would be lost on the black and white photograph. It’s all grey going to black. But then, no image printed on paper can capture the smell of the flowers or the sound of your mom’s call. Some things just stay lost.

I found two photographs today. I had scanned them at separate times, put them into separate folders, but now realize that my categorization was a mistake. Sure, they’ve obviously been shot with different cameras and in different seasons. But they’re both dated the same year. Both taken as the sun plays a similar angle across the north east side of grampa’s white painted, wooden clap board house. Both show someone I know myself to be related to as they pose, casting light onto the film and a shadow across the yard. All this time I’ve had the images separated. They must have been taken within a few months of each other, some time in 1946.

In one my grandmother, unknowingly just 7 years from her transition out of this world and who was to become my older sister’s namesake, stands in her kitchen frock holding a treat out to an anxious black and white (of course) dog. The pleased smile making its way across her face has moved across that of my dad and sisters, too. Her hand blurs a bit as she dangles the treat to the pet who smiles back. Behind her the branches on the shrubs are empty, although it must have been a warm day as her arms are bare. Well, even as late as May some plants aren’t coming back yet. But the only flowers here are on her dress.

From the background in the next photo, I can see it was quite a garden. Sure, the leaves are a dark grey in the photo. But the plants shout their green. The phlox and obedience are growing well, the climbing shrub has nice, thick leaves, and the lilies are preparing to bloom. It’s late June or early July and my dad stands in the same spot, before bushes whose branches have bloomed decadently. In front of such floral richness my father looks gawky and strange as if his body desperately needed the fattening up mom’s cooking would provide. He wears his band uniform. At 17 in 1946 he wouldn’t be going into the military and go to war, so this was his one chance to wear something crisp, formal and obedient. Although, I imagine that really his dream would have been to go into the military and play with a military band. Wait, Early July. Of course. He was going to play for the 4th of July and his mother took his picture in uniform. The aspect ratio of the photo is more shoe box – that’s how I know it was her box camera. That same box camera was responsible for the wonderful photos of my dad and uncles growing up. I know it was her eye that took this photo as she was much more careful to frame her subject against the backdrop of the garden rather that dead on against the clap board house. Maybe grand dad took the picture of her and the dog. He was proud of his house. She was proud of her garden.

Some of the earliest questions about myself that I remember asking of my parents were not the supposed “where did I come from?” I don’t recall ever giving a shit about that, actually. Storks? Cabbage patch? I knew the truth was not coming on that subject. My questions regarded those things about me that connected me to them and to those people before me. Who did I get my eyes from? Who do I resemble? Where did I get this from? I look at that woman and know I have bits of her in me: funny colored eyes, long fingers, high cheekbones, dimple in the chin. As I’ve gone through her photos and seen how she saw as well as her subjects I know that from her came the photography and art. From her came the Saturday mornings in the flower garden. I wish I could sit down with her, talk for a bit. Would we get along?

These family photos play an abnormally large part in my art work. I write about them, and I spend unhealthy amounts of time with these bits of ether and light. Truth is, they are my rope back as far as I can reach through the human chain to something bigger, older, & purer - to the seat of the many gifts we are all given to share.