Let Go II: Ties That Bind

foto of Watches from MINE OBJECTS series

Speaking of letting go, my father, Berthan Macaulay QC, died a little over 3 years ago and it has been difficult to decide what to do with all his clothes and shoes.  When it happened, I think I lost my mind for a solid year, simply not knowing how to process it - except to deny, to focus outwardly, race against time and ahead of ambition, be an emotional support for my mother, and stop sleeping...literally. But in so doing I went to sleep psychically and spiritually for the past two - withdrawing from ... well ... everything, and really only by mid-last year (09’) did I finally wake the hell up to a new world feeling like an orphan. 

It's SO important, where possible, to create and journal when you’ve experienced any loss or dramatic change in your life - SO important.  Many layers of the 'self' are fighting to either be featured or buried on a daily basis.  I think the only way that my grief and resulting changes have manifested is through my photographic work. But finally I'm starting to speak up too, and interestingly that has softened my sight  (or in photog talk - POV) quite a bit.

After all this time, my mother and I reached an emotional and spiritual agreement to unpack, sort, and donate my fathers things to the survivors of Haiti’s earthquake. We felt this was right.  He always loved Haiti, was concerned about their future, and admired their historical achievement as the 2nd independent country in the West, in 1804 [ the  US was the first in 1776) - and for being one of the few nations in the diaspora to openly, boldly, and defiantly maintain their African heritage in the West, despite being  exploited, misunderstood, unsupported, and segregated.  

 

Berthan Macaulay QC

from MINE OBJECTS

I've been shooting a collection of personal stuff, including some of my father's things as part of a photo series, MINE OBJECTS, that I started a year ago. Here's a few, along with ones taken in the last days.
 

also from MINE OBJECTS

 

from just packing up and letting go: 

 

 

Related Journey Posts: The Ongoing Attempt, Sept 2007

                       Let Go: While Haiti Cries, We Must Try

Check out this great NEW YORK TIMES Opinion ARTICLE for a quick historical overview:

To Heal Haiti, Look to History, Not Nature by Mark Danner

Behind the Hidden Gate

Because I never did show you.

This is the first set of a no-frills view of images I have lying around. My friends and fellow collaborators Nina Buisson and Devin Pullins got together to do this shoot with me last summer - intended to be a part of Nina's Avant Garde Festival show at JUDSON Memorial in New York. A handful were used in an onstage projection as part of the show, but most of these never saw the light of day, until now. 

NB: You will need to update Flash Player to view this.  If viewing from Facebook - please click 'Original Post' to see slideshow.
 

I'll post the other set of colour images when I get a few finals sorted. For those of you following my work - you'll notice that the light, abstract period I'm currently in, directly followed this work. The images were created using a similar lighting style as CrowDeD and other dark and isolating portraiture methods that I  employed up until Summer 2009. Things started to get more colourful as my travels began last year in Germany.  (Yes, I've yet to post my video diary - but I will, one day.  haha! )

Concept and Design:

Berette Macaulay and Nina Buisson with commissioned painting by Cristal Albornoz

Title by Nina

All Photography by Berette Macaulay

Location:

Millenium Studios (arranged by Artistic Dir. Devin Pullins)

Make Up: By Margherita Tisato and Cristal Albornoz

(Devin's Make up Designed by Berette)

Costume: Cristal Albornoz & Maddy Kebedjs

RELATED JOURNEY POST:  Avant Garde Festival (May 2009) 

Allegories on Winds of Desire...

...it blazes over seas through the skies burning holes in God's air incinerating all realities and still...


I can't touch you...

...but I remember how you feel.

-------

You.

    Where.

          It.

              What.
                    Who. 

                         The object.

What sends you blindly ploughing forward in a most focused action toward the object of your desire?

Some have defined desire as Will, but does it will your actions towards fertile ends?  Does it consume you or fill you with life? What makes it increase? Does it cease if gratified? What could kill it; how might it die, and should you let it? 

According to Aristotle, there is no movement without desire, though he did concede that not all movement is toward a creative or useful end. I'm constantly, selectively, and frustratingly in the tug of choosing what makes an object worth my drive - especially as an artist.

If desire is the will to drive forward, then as Plato and Socrates offer, it is reason that puts a driver in the seat, and without one there will be fruitless befuddlement.  But what about people who push against the limits of caution, control and good sense,... and succeed?  Are their experiences happy accidents or examples to the rest of us?

Sometimes desire is necessary to move, indeed, but other times it is often distracting and crippling.  When is the distraction constructive or destructive?  A diversion can sometimes lead us to better experiences that we may have otherwise and unwittingly  circumvented - especially when it is supported by passion and belief! [see Treatise on Human Nature, David Hume] 

As Eastern philosophers (particularly Buddhists) posit - impulses of desire or cravings are the cause of destructive suffering and spiritual paralysis, and thus should be quelled. Nirvana is after all, the happiness of nothingness...the extinction of suffering, caused by covetous living. [see Siddhārtha Gautama].  Some Western ideals and morals propel this too - hence the negative connotation of desire as some sort of rude and impractical temptation that will destroy your soul; and those who believe this suffer from guilt when in wanting, immobilized in contrition yet promised eternal salvation.

But without desire, there would be no astounding discoveries; no risky experiments that lead to practice and ritual; no triumphs in the face of adversity; no love against all odds; and certainly no impossible dreams fulfilled.  As such, shouldn't we advise each other the way we do a child?  

I believe that desire is the elixir of life; it lends possibility to the unimaginable, and sets standards for excellence in everything. This driving force is necessary, and the other - cognitive reasoning, can either help to organise and channel it, or hinder it in fear - and thus whose counsel should be managed with care.

photo by Nina Buisson

"I'm youth, I'm joy," Peter Pan answered at a venture, "I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg...So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!"

Fly little children, fly!

Except for the um...obvious exception by Nina Buisson (taken in Central Park, NYC) - I took these photos in Colorado within a 5 minute period - an unbelievable sunset blazing fire across the skies, scorching the clouds and changing the heavens so fast it seemed impossible. 

Don't Cry For Me Nigeria...

 ...while i take a piss. Hahaha

Have you seen this? A comedic spin on Don't Cry for Me Argentina from the motion picture EVITA.  Lyrics poke fun at the unfortunate events in or associated with Nigeria on the backside of 2009:

-Bomber Mutallab with diaper explosives traveling from the Netherlands

-The impromtu unannounced  2 month leave-of-absence of President 'MIA' Yar Adua and his VP 'Goodluck Johnathon'


Love it.

PLUS - shots from 'Liquid Liberty'

Let Go: While Haiti Cries, We Must Try (UPDATES - Jan 20th)

+This Post will be periodically UPDATED
with new info marked in green 


Not sure what to write. Seems everyone is scrambling in the mad dash to help - and thank goodness.  There's been so much devisive shit on the news the past year spurring on the negative aspects of humanity  - and here's one really awful event that is uniting the international community to help the vulnerable.   And the death toll and displacement numbers in Haiti are so staggering at this point (now reaching 140,000 dead according to the Guardian) that there could be no other response than this incredible worldwide community effort. Lets just hope in the next 48 hours rescue efforts will result in more successes. 

I first wanted to share photos from a talented and versatile photographer and purist in the craft, Christopher L. Mitchell (aka NEOERO) living in Haiti (thank God he's fine).  He's been traveling between there and New York city for years, and his love of Haiti caused him to move to Jacmel I think almost  2 years ago. 
Instead of pulling from the major news sites - I'd rather show these images from someone I'm somewhat acquainted with, admire, and support.  He's been posting his images on Facebook and I'd like to share some with you here:

All Fotos © Christopher L. Mitchell

Secondly, I like sharing lists, and below I've compiled a short one mainly for the collection of non-perishable goods (clothes, shoes, sanitary napkins, diapers, canned food, dry food goods, candles, batteries, flashlights, blankets/towels, bandages/gauze - you get the idea), as there are more than enough fund raising options out there.  Whatever you have, you have more than they do. Let go of the extras and find the relief orgs in your community to send stuff.  It's not just for this weekend - Haitians will need help for a REALLY long time. So if not the pockets, dig your closets. I'm doing a lot of packing too.

LISTS For Donations & Drop-Offs

Obama: Já taky jedině Weatherproof Garment & Co.! Hahaha

 

Photo: Weatherproof Garment Co.'s billboard in Times Square. Credit: Timothy A. Clary / AFP/Getty Images

from:

White House rains on Weatherproof's Obama billboard [in Times Square] Posted using ShareThis

 Surely by now we've all heard about this right? It's so funny to me to be honest.  But in reading up on it on a couple of news sites, I happened upon a comment made by a reader of the Chicago Tribune that started out well enough, was actually quite funny in illustrating a main point, and then led in directions that were unfortunate by the end.  In drafting a response I was most disturbed though by the fact that I couldn't respond anonymously to this post, which ironically actually shed a whole other spotlight on this reader's concerns I thought.  That, and, I remembered a similar and rather hilarious photo that I took over the summer that serves as a wonderfully comical visual example to compliment a hypothesis of his. 

comment from Chicago Tribune

The current trend in our government is sinking in slowly. Apparently it is not a free country. The Weatherproof company bought the picture of a public figure from the United Press and put it in an advertisement. I don't believe that the president's control over his image, captured at a public event, is protected by copyright law. I could understand a government's complaint if a billboard had a picture of a public figure's young child or if a billboard was put up by Viagra and contained a public figure's image, along with the heading "I'm the president and when the mood strikes me I choose Viagra". We would all agree about taking down the Viagra billboard, because telling the world that our president might be impotent would be a threat to national security. Suddenly, this sort of American advertising and free enterprise is not tolerated by our government. Look at the other areas of free enterprise the government is attempting to control. For instance, look at the current government attempt to take over control of the privately owned health care industry. I thought we elected presidents in the US, not rulers. The next thing you know he'll try to change the term of office to a lifetime term!

skepticalsurfer (01/09/2010, 9:08 AM )

Taken June 2009      Loose translation: POPE "I only drink OISHI"    OBAMA "I also only drink OISHI"

Obama, along with the Pope,  apparently (and certainly unknowingly) endorsing Green Tea in the Czech Republic somewhere on the way to Prague.  But since I took the photo, and I'm not advertising anything - it should be okay to post it here right?  Heehee -  man I've been dying to post this image.  Haha!  


and I said... 

Blue Moon Desire # 7

 foto taken in Jamaica

Everyone seems to be on about the moon these days, so I figured I'd roll with the tide and share my favourite moon pic of 2009.

Especially too as I was just told that us December babies got a blue moon (two full moons) for the month. No wonder it was such a lucky month!

Took this one in London one night in the summer. Tried to lasso the thing in one shot, fired the shutter several times for the 7 linked shots here...called it Lassoed in Seven Stages.  

Why 7?  It's my lucky number.  Well, no it's not - at least I've never been able to prove it's lucky, but I have a thing for it though. Wouldn't it have been so neat if I posted this on the 7th too?!  

New Year resolution to consider: work on being on neater.

 “All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire.” Aristotle