[I originally posted this image as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 September 2020].
annunciation
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 8 August 2020].
This is another image from a new series I'm tentatively titling stained glass.
The first image I shared, in case you missed it, is pietà, interrupted.
It may seem like a straightforward, perhaps bland, title for a series of photographs of stained glass windows but - like many of the images themselves - it's actually more layered.
Although the central subjects of the images are, unsurprisingly, stained glass windows, many of the photos from the series also make the glass appear 'stained' by the outside world:
the sky and/or trees may be visible through or reflected in the stained glass
adjacent mausoleums may be visible through the stained glass
the view of the stained glass might be obscured by elements of and in the mausoleum
parts of the glass might be missing or damaged
I'm not generally one for explaining my image or series titles. I often prefer a certain level of ambiguity and to see if the viewer 'gets my drift'.
I love words and language, especially puns, double entendre and euphemism, as you may have noticed. But sometimes I feel simple titles convey more than you might initially realise.
I'd be interested to know what you think about the series title. Do you think it's:
Deceptively simplistic and too bland?
Works when you know my thought process?
Do you think you would have related the title to my thoughts above based on the two images from the series I've shared so far?
pietà, interrupted
[I originally posted this entry as early access for my Patreon patrons on 16 July 2020].
Almost exactly nine years ago, I finally had the opportunity to visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery. I was in Paris to meet my friend Victoria.
As you might have read in the encrypted instalment of my postcards from another's life series, I've been somewhat obsessed with cemeteries, graveyards, churchyards and such from a young age.
So when Victoria offered me the opportunity to meet her in Paris, I jumped at the chance, knowing she would be up for visiting the cemetery. And it did not disappoint.
We only spent a few hours there. I felt we like barely scratched the surface (we didn't even visit Jim Morrison's grave). But it was wonderful.
We visited the final resting place of Oscar Wilde - before they cleaned the lipstick off and created a barrier to stop people kissing it - and some other celebrities from the ages.
But most of our wanderings were among the graves of those less known.
I found patterns forming in my photos as we wandered; some definite series forming.
Despite visiting the cemetery on 17 July 2011, I only edited one photo on my return. I edited others in 2014 that haven't yet been posted online.
This photograph I edited tonight.
It fits with a series that formed during my visit. I hope to share more of the images from that series in the coming weeks.
I'll be sharing a post (hopefully within a week!) about my thoughts on the 100 Day Project I just finished. But I don't want to lose momentum on sharing work.
Compared to the time it took to create a digital collage each day for one hundred days editing photos is a walk in the park. And I have so many of them to share!
Not every photo I post will come with so much rambling, but I hope you enjoy them!
encrypted
I don't remember when death was first explained to me. Strangely, because I have a lot of vivid memories from childhood and adolescence. I feel like it's something I should remember.
When did I first become aware of the fact that everyone dies? That my grandparents would die? That my parents would die? That I would die?
I, strangely, don't know. I don't remember that ever being explained to me.
I remember hearing that my grandpa had died. The first of my close family members to pass away in my lifetime. But what I remember most about that was that my parents decided that we children wouldn't go to the funeral. That my father would go, but my mother and the three of us kids wouldn't. I don't remember the whys or the wherefores, but I guess I was okay with that.
My parents had tried to keep us away from seeing him the way he was towards the end. A non-smoker dying of emphysema. A horrible way to die.
My younger brother insisted on visiting him in the hospital to the point that my parents finally relented, but I recall being told that all my grandpa could do was wink at him, as he would always do when he caught our eye across the dining table as we carried on playing in their lounge room while the adults talked around the table and drank tea.
I don't remember the explanation for death I was no doubt given as a child, at some point.
I remember the talk about making love, having sex, fucking. The explanations of puberty and menstruation. The books my mother borrowed from the library to help me understand what would happen to my body as I moved through that awkward stage between being a child and being a woman.
Those discussions, her openness and the books she gave me to read meant I didn't face those things with fear the way her mother had. It meant I could ask any question of her about those things that I wanted an answer to. But I don't remember asking her about death, ever.
I remember my mother telling my brother and me that one of my father's former co-workers in the Northern Territory had passed away from AIDS when we were both still in primary school after we'd moved to Melbourne. Her explaining homosexuality in a non-judgmental way and probably a vague explanation of AIDS; as much as we needed or wanted to know at the time. I guess I didn't ask many questions. I listened. I took it all in. I learned homosexuality wasn't bad from a young age, but I never really thought about his death as deeply.
Then, in 1992, at 14 years of age, I found myself in a cemetery in New Orleans. A cemetery many know from the film 'Easy Rider'. A cemetery full of vaults built above ground to avoid human remains draining off into the river.
I was fascinated. This was the closest I'd ever come to death and I found it intriguing. The way life and death was celebrated through these places. The way their graves were created in as elaborate a fashion as their homes.
They were beautiful, despite the death they encased. They were time capsules. Memorials to those inside. A fashion statement. A record. Bragging rights after death.
Even at that young age, I knew I didn't personally want to be buried, but I had fallen in love with cemeteries. With graveyards. With the art of the stonemason. With the ceremony. The ritual.
Over the years I found myself consuming books about death; documentaries about death and the places people are buried. About how our bodies are handled after we die. About burials. About graveyards. About cemeteries.
I've spent countless hours, camera in hand, wandering through churchyards, graveyards, cemeteries, crypts, and whatever other names you want to call those places where people are laid to rest.
Generally, I find them places of peace, of relaxation. Like parks, but with the remains of those who came before still present in them.
But I know they often have reputations of being places of unrest. Of disrespect to those interred there. Not all of these places are peaceful or have been peaceful in the past.
In the decades since my grandpa died, I've managed to avoid the realities of death. At 42 years of age, somehow, I've managed never to attend a funeral. Never to have seen a dead body. Never to have spent time in the company of someone in their final hours or watching them pass from this world.
I consider myself lucky, but I'm also aware that I live a closeted life by not having been exposed to those things. Death is, after all, a part of life. From the time we're born we're dying. This is a simple fact not even I can escape. And for someone who actively seeks out the final resting places of the dead, it's not lost on me that I’ve managed to evade being exposed to these things.
However, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had an overwhelming awareness of my own mortality. I’m conscious this impacts me in terms of my fear of falling, for example, but also my reluctance to get a driver’s licence. My fear of others around me dying. My fear of dying. And more specifically, my fear of dying alone and no one knowing or being nearby to prevent that.
I often choose a solitary life which means I’m more likely to be alone if something unfortunate happens. Best case scenario: my flatmate will find me hours after the fact, too late to change the outcome. Worst case scenario: he or someone else will find me weeks later, again, too late to change the outcome.
Even in my worst stages of depression, I knew I wasn’t a suicide risk because what was making me most unhappy was not living my life the way I wanted to live it. I’ve always loved life and been aware of how much more I want to do, so my depression has always been related to not being able to live the life I’d like. Not due to wanting to end my life. I count myself lucky again for that.
But it doesn’t lessen my fascination with death. With how we handle the dead.
Despite my fascination with graveyards, I don’t want to be buried. I’m an outspoken advocate for organ donation (and, in fact, donation of anything that can be donated) and, as an atheist, I don’t believe in the hereafter or reincarnation or anything that requires my body to remain whole after my death.
So, while I love the stonemasons’ artistry, and the pomp and circumstance of heraldic funerals and elaborate mausoleums, vaults and headstones, I’ll settle for returning to ashes and the earth when it’s my time.
Though I hope my time doesn’t come anytime soon.
larry the ledge lizard
now playing: violent femmes - out the window
end of a century [almost]
Sometimes the information superhighway isn't so super, even in this day and age. Firstly, because some people still don't use it, so information doesn't always pass across the world instantaneously; and secondly, because sometimes the information crossing that superhighway is not what you want to hear.
I found out yesterday (Sunday) that my Grandma passed away last Tuesday. Her funeral took place at 2:30pm today AEST.
My parents were just arriving into Bucharest on Sunday, and finally had access to internet after not having reasonably priced access to phone or internet since they heard the news from my Uncle, and my Uncle is a Luddite (this is not a criticism, just a statement of fact), thus the delay. My Uncle had tried to call me a number of times, but he doesn't have to make international calls often, and it turns out he was only pressing '0' once before the UK country code 44, so his calls must have been going to someone else's Australian mobile number.
Either way, despite the fact I knew this was coming, it still felt horrible reading those words in the Gmail email preview as I clicked through to read the full message from my parents. It was like a kick in the guts, and after a relatively positive couple of days previous, was even harder to take.
When I left Australia I told my Grandma to look after herself, and that I'd be back for her 100th birthday. That last day I saw her, I knew I'd be emotional, but was totally unprepared for her crying as I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek and said my goodbyes. I was trying not to cry before I left, but as soon as she started I couldn't hold it in any longer.
I remarked to my parents about it, somewhat in shock, because my Dad's family have never been big on emotion. My Grandma, like all of her immediate family including my Dad, generally held her cards close to her chest. I mentioned it to my Uncle last night when we spoke on the phone finally, and he said that she told him about it when he visited the next day, and even she seemed surprised by her own behaviour.
We both knew that day there was a pretty strong chance this would be the last time we would see each other. Neither of us said that, but our tears were pretty clear indication that we knew, though I'm sure we both hoped otherwise.
As with my Mum's mother, I only really got to know Dad's mum better as I got older, over the past few years. With living in different states most of my life, my interactions with Grandma were intermittent and brief. Probably the longest amount of time I spent with her was staying with her and my Uncle in 2002 because I was then living with my parents but they'd gone away for a couple of weeks. Not being able to drive, their then home in the Gold Coast hinterland wasn't as accessible as needed for getting to work, buying groceries, etc., so I stayed with Grandma and Uncle John.
Visiting Grandma about every second week during the time I lived in Brisbane (September 2009 to January 2011), we built up something of a bond, though generally not through conversation or shared interests. It just happened, maybe because there are so many things I have inherited from her - good and bad: stubborn Aries traits; small (especially facial) features; worrying and over-thinking things; a love of crosswords (shared with both Grandmothers).
I also keenly understood her frustration with and rebellion against being placed in a home. It was a necessity - she was no longer able to look after herself, and it was too much for my family to take on, due to a very bad fall - but to go from being fairly independent and active to being in a hospital and then not being able to go back to your own home was something I understood would be very hard. My Uncle did take her to visit, but it must have been so hard for her.
She did end up enjoying the home, despite her initial feelings. The staff there were absolutely wonderful with her, and she quite clearly touched a nerve with them. Despite being of a generation preceding political correctness (I would often cringe at things she said, but knew it was just a generational thing, that she did not hold prejudices), staff of varying ancestry at the home loved her and joked with her. She often displayed a cheekiness with the staff that we as a family rarely saw, and I finally got to see more of that over the past few years.
Also generational, I know many of the things I do (nude self-portraiture), the way I live my life (living with a partner before wedlock, piercing my nose), were concepts she would not have understood / did not understand (she did stop staring at my nose-ring when talking to me after about a week), because her life was so utterly different to mine, but she rarely judged, to my knowledge. Her comments, when she did make them, seemed more concerned than judgmental.
I do regret never asking her about Grandpa and her relationship with him. I would have liked to hear her talk about him, but I suspect she wouldn't have opened up much about that. Unfortunately she burnt a lot of papers and photos at one point, but letters my Uncle passed to my Dad give an impression of their love for each other, and their affectionate joking, with Grandpa referring to Grandma by her sisters' pet name for her, Scraggie Aggie.
I know my wanting her to reach her 100th birthday was utterly selfish, and even though she didn't reach that milestone, I'm still proud of her. Since soon after I left Brisbane she was on oxygen, so was pretty much bedridden, and her quality of life dropped quite substantially. She would make comments to my parents about 'how much longer', quite clearly tired of life, so it was really just time; I would not have wanted her to hang on for the sake of a number, or for me.
For all that I know that, it was still hard to receive that email yesterday, and still very hard today.
The portrait above was taken on my Dad's birthday in 2007, about a year before she had her fall and was put into the home.
now playing: aimee mann - one
fur from flesh
now playing: inspiral carpets - uniform
work is the curse of the drinking classes
I returned to London today after spending a few days in Paris with Victoria, a friend from Australia who was in my hemisphere all too briefly, and who invited me to join her in Paris in an apartment overlooking Parmentier Metropolitain station.
We spent about 2.5 days together wandering around Paris. Our first stop, on our first afternoon there, being Pere Lachaise cemetery. Though I’ve been to Paris twice before: the first time with my family on a ‘round the world’ holiday in 1991/92; the second on a ‘team-building’ day out with my work colleagues in 2001, I hadn't yet had a chance to visit this icon of cemeteries.
My obsession with cemeteries began only a few short weeks after my first visit to Paris. My family and I went on a tour of one of the major cemeteries in New Orleans and I fell in love. I would have to hunt through records to confirm 100% which cemetery it was, but it was majestic, full of mausoleums (above ground burial is compulsory in New Orleans because of the swampland) and full of history.
On my second visit to Paris, with co-workers, I didn't feel comfortable asking if we could wander amongst the dead so I could take photos, though we did wander freely through Pigalle (admittedly in the ‘downtime’ of daylight hours).
So when Victoria sent me details of the apartment she had booked, the home of an American musician who was back home on holidays, and I saw it was near Pere Lachaise Cemetery, I was pleased to find she was as keen as I was to visit this fantastic cemetery.
Visiting there during intermittent rain on Sunday afternoon, we wandered amongst the elaborate mausoleums and statues and even met a ‘local’, a lovely man with the surname Papillon who was visiting his late wife and showed us her grave.
We both managed to get numerous photographs of various resting places in the cemetery and we decided to forgo visiting Jim Morrison, but dropped in to see Oscar Wilde on our way out.
The few days we spent in Paris were really enjoyable: wandering around the city without getting too caught up in the tourist fray. Apart from Pere Lachaise Cemetery, the closest we got to tourist spots was Montmartre's Place du Tertre and Basilique du Sacre Coeur, both of which I'd visited before.
I found the Metro quite easy to navigate (especially with the assistance of an app on my iPhone), and actually felt much less daunted by the city than I expected, even with my limited knowledge of the French language (I recognise far more words in written form than I would ever understand spoken to me!)
One of the highlights of our trip was totally fortuitous: we had bypassed a cafe in the Marais area after quailing at the sight of the line for the free Impressionist exhibition at Hotel de Ville, and stumbled into Le Pick-Clops, a cafe down a side street, to grab a hot chocolate and a tea out of the rain, on Tuesday. Speaking broken French to the waitress, I was embarrassed to realise she was actually American, but she was very helpful with suggestions of places to while away our rainy day, including Jeu de Paume where we were exposed to the self-portraiture of Claude Cahun.
The only downside to the trip is the amount of weight I may have put back on from indulging in copious amounts of cheese and bread and wine. Even with all that walking, I possibly overdid it!
now playing: the dead milkmen - beach party vietnam