Full Transcript for David Sokosh

Canaan, but I have the sense that my mother spent a lot of time visiting her grandparents because when I was little, we went to the to Bear Mountain to go ice skating and to the Yonkers Museum, which is now the Hudson River Museum. 00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:44.800 A stone mansion. 00:04:44.959 --> 00:04:46.639 And we went to the Catsco Game Farm. 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:54.000 So she knew all these places over here in the Hudson Valley that I knew as a kid. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:05:00.720 But what led to us, my my partner, my let me try that again. 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:03.040 Because I talked to him about what were what I was going to say. 00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:14.319 My spouse, Bob Goldstrom, who's a painter, and I lived in Brooklyn in a townhouse there that we bought in the before times, when two artists could buy a house. 00:05:14.959 --> 00:05:18.240 So roughly when is that we bought that house in 1996. 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:18.720 Okay. 00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:21.279 And it was pretty much a wreck. 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:26.879 Yeah, that was sort of in my mind anyway, that was early years of the Brooklyn Renaissance. 00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:30.720 You already had stuff going on in Park Slope more than Kingdom. 00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:31.199 Yes. 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:32.160 Absolutely. 00:05:32.319 --> 00:05:35.519 It's like Hudson in in many ways, Brooklyn. 00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:38.000 That's why we call Hudson Little Brooklyn. 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:44.319 Brooklyn Heights never really went down, but Park Slope was pretty used up. 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:47.439 And people started moving there in the late 60s, is my sense. 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:52.480 So Park Slope was first, but Clinton Hill and Fort Green came soon after that. 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:53.839 We lived in Clinton Hill. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:02.160 And so people had been doing that kind of work of buying old houses and fixing them up in the 70s and 80s. 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:03.519 And we came in the 90s. 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:07.680 We were at the end of that first round. 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:11.120 We bought a house that had never been restored. 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:17.199 It had never been, it had just been added to over the course of a hundred years. 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:22.160 But it had never been taken back to an original state or any anything like that. 00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:28.560 No one had really modernized it beyond linoleum and refrigerators. 00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:30.879 That's an important modernization. 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:31.680 Yeah. 00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:45.680 But we were there and we were just starting to talk about what would happen when we got old enough to not be able to deal with this house anymore. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:50.240 And also it was becoming clear that we had done a lot of work ourselves to it. 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:54.800 New plumbing, new wiring, new bathrooms, kitchen, those kinds of projects. 00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:59.040 But the house was really starting to need a millionaire. 00:06:59.199 --> 00:07:05.680 So we were talking about when would we want to sell it and what would we do next. 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:07.759 But it was in somewhere in the future. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:13.920 And I had been working in New York for many years in the photo industry. 00:07:14.079 --> 00:07:17.040 And I worked for a high-end lab there. 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:26.160 And then I opened my own art gallery in Brooklyn in this is 2005. 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:37.600 And one day this guy walked in named Jan Hanvick, and he was the head of the Columbia County Community Arts Council. 00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:40.240 No, Columbia County Council of the Arts, I'm sorry. 00:07:40.959 --> 00:07:44.560 And he said, Hey, I'm I have this arts group in Hudson, New York. 00:07:44.879 --> 00:07:54.720 And what would you think about bringing a group of artists from Columbia County down to Brooklyn and having a show and bringing a bunch of artists from Brooklyn up to Columbia County and doing a show? 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:57.040 And I thought that sounded like something. 00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:08.639 And um, and so Bob and I decided we came up with we had a car and we came up for the day and toured around with Jan and it all looked beautiful. 00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:15.600 And he brought us into Kerry Hadad Gallery and said, Here's Kerry Haddad, and she said, Bob, what do you do? 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:17.759 And he's like, Oh, I'm I paint urban landscape. 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:20.480 And she's like, You want to be in a show? 00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:23.759 So this is 2005, right? 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:26.319 Yeah, 2005 or six, somewhere in there. 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:40.320 And I remember coming here, our first trip hit to Hudson was 2011, and still had a little bit of grittiness, but the art galleries, I think Kerry Hadada and a couple of others were the preeminent art gallery in on Warren Street. 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:40.720 Yeah. 00:08:41.039 --> 00:08:45.360 And very friendly to local artists and representing artists from New York as well. 00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:52.399 Yeah, and it's one of those dream those dream stories where you walk in and they say, Hey, you you want to be in the show. 00:08:52.559 --> 00:09:08.639 And and he was in the in the show, and that was it was the very early winter, like February of 2008, and there was a big ice storm, and we couldn't come to the opening, and then there was a recession. 00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:14.720 Like the everything kind of collapsed, I think, right in the spring, or during that sh exhibition. 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:16.559 People just stopped buying stuff. 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:17.120 Yeah. 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:18.799 It was such a weird time. 00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:19.360 Yeah. 00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:30.399 Everything kind of pulled back, and we're back in Brooklyn, and that that gallery that I mentioned, I couldn't survive the that

recession, so it closed. 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:38.000 And some time went by, and some friends of ours bought a house on Mount Merino around 2012. 00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:42.720 And they had it for a while, and then they did some work to it. 00:09:42.879 --> 00:09:46.960 And in 2014, in the summer, they said, come up. 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:48.240 And I came. 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:49.360 Bob couldn't come. 00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:51.840 He might have been in, he might have had a show or something. 00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:53.919 He didn't come with me that time. 00:09:54.720 --> 00:10:04.720 But it I I saw more of Hudson during that trip and came back from that weekend saying, Well, I think we could move there. 00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:09.600 I think that if we want to sell this house, we could go there and be happy. 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:16.399 And I think in those days, selling a house in Brooklyn would go a long way towards establishing yourself up here. 00:10:16.799 --> 00:10:18.559 Yes, that is absolutely correct. 00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:24.639 And we started looking at houses pretty quickly, I think in October. 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:26.240 That was August when I came up. 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:42.559 And we were up here in October, and it was magical because when we bought that house in Brooklyn, the Sunday New York Times would come out with all these little classified ads with secret codes like wood-burning fireplace and washer-dryer and things in these little tiny listings. 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:53.840 And so it was a whole new world that you could sit in Brooklyn and look at a computer screen and see houses and find different realtors and all those kinds of things. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:12.399 So we started contacting realtors and looking at houses, and we were very attracted to Hudson because it was like Brooklyn, big houses close together, outbuildings behind for work, because we were looking for two artists' spaces and a small house. 00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:15.519 Very walkable restaurants, bars, walkable. 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:16.799 The train is right there. 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:18.000 The train is right there. 00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:28.320 So we really we were drawn to Hudson, but it became clear very quickly that we could afford to buy one of these big old houses, but we couldn't really afford to run it. 00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:30.399 The taxes were too high for us. 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:38.559 And the fixing up a another, like a wooden house, a freestanding wooden house, there was a lot to that. 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:42.720 Plus, it's less exciting in my experience the second time you do it. 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:52.720 There was this sense of now maybe somebody else could do it and they could do it fast and it would be done rather than it being on my list for 10 years. 00:11:53.039 --> 00:11:53.600 Yeah. 00:11:54.080 --> 00:12:05.919 So we started looking outside of Hudson and eventually teamed up with Sarah Lipskey, who was with Peggy Lampman. 00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:10.480 And and she started showing us things, also old. 00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:13.279 All these are 18th or very early 19th century houses. 00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:17.200 When you eventually bought, was it a similar house from 18th century? 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:17.840 No. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:18.159 No. 00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:19.759 No, 1920. 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:26.559 It's an American Four Square with a big red barn behind it, and that was the big selling point. 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:27.919 Turn that into the studio. 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:30.320 Yeah, Bob's studio is in that barn now. 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:32.639 It had been an antique shop for a long time. 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:37.519 And I gather before that a like a craft store and maybe a hobby shop. 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:48.159 So since the 70s, I'm guessing because of the age of people who I talked to who remember those places, it had been a a store in that barn. 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:53.759 So it had windows, it had a cement floor, it had heat and electricity. 00:12:53.919 --> 00:13:00.159 We looked at a lot of barns that you could see the outside from the inside, and they still had dirt floors and stalls and things. 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:06.159 So it was something that we could move into and Bob could start working right away. 00:13:06.879 --> 00:13:10.080 But the house is humongous for two people. 00:13:10.559 --> 00:13:12.399 So we traded off on that. 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:14.879 And it's in the hamlet in Claverick. 00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:25.840 So we it was more the house and how it functioned and its proximity to the train station. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:36.159 And also being out of town a little bit, it was starting to become clear that maybe it could be calmer than living on Warren Street. 00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:45.519 Because we looked at things on Warren that had businesses on the on the first floor, and I'd had this gallery and thought, oh, we could open a gallery and live upstairs. 00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:49.200 But we're both happy that this is where we ended up. 00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:56.080 But it was really more about it was chance rather than a lot of research saying, Oh, Claverick is the spot. 00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:03.519 Yeah, we probably looked for two years on weekend trips out here from Boston and drove all over Columbia County looking for something. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:20.320 Our basic requirement, or my basic requirement, was that we be within a reasonable distance of Hudson, because in the 2010s, at least, most of the music and restaurants and things that we liked to go out to were in Hudson. 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:25.679 And then, of course, there was the train because my wife at the time was still working in Manhattan. 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:30.639 And so going back and forth, we had a great time meeting up here on weekends. 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:36.720 I was running a company in Boston, we'd come out

from different directions and meet up here in the Hudson area. 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:48.559 But we had the same experience that buying in Claverick was a very beautiful area, a little bit more space that was gave us what we wanted, and a little bit less restrictive on what you could do with it. 00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:54.240 You needed a studio space, and we were in kind of a similar boat in that my wife is an artist as well. 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:54.799 Oh. 00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:55.360 Yeah. 00:14:55.679 --> 00:14:58.159 But it has worked out very well to be here. 00:14:58.399 --> 00:15:07.840 And and then in in the background of all of that, of course, as we know, in the last seven or eight years, Hudson's changed dramatically, and I'm glad that we didn't end up buying there. 00:15:08.159 --> 00:15:09.759 Yeah, it seems like it. 00:15:09.919 --> 00:15:15.840 We I have to admit, uh, during COVID we stopped going out we stopped going out to restaurants because it was COVID. 00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:21.519 But we ha what I want to say is we didn't really go back to restaurants in the same way. 00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:33.679 And so our experience of Hudson is more art exhibitions, m musical performances, the movies sometimes at TSL. 00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:42.240 So so we're not exposed to the the street life of a Saturday or Sunday. 00:15:42.639 --> 00:15:43.440 Yeah, we're the same way. 00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:49.759 I think the restaurant culture that we liked there has changed a lot. 00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:52.639 And partly that is just people have changed, right? 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:55.519 I I think that we used to meet a lot of people in restaurants. 00:15:55.759 --> 00:16:06.720 We used to have these long conversations, sitting at a bar or something like that, eating dinner, and you'd meet people that came up on the train, or you'd meet people that lived here for all of their lives. 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:17.279 And it seems that I'm maybe overstating this, but it seems people just don't do that talking thing very much anymore. 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:17.919 Yeah. 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:22.320 Yeah, we're we which is why I have the podcast. 00:16:22.559 --> 00:16:23.200 Yeah. 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.399 It's it's you get to talk to people and then we get to listen. 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:27.039 That's right. 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:29.679 No, you're doing most of the talking, which is what I like. 00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:42.399 And I guess I should add, since I said at the beginning, that about the expense of running a place, things were cheaper in Calaverick, and that but the tax rate was lower also. 00:16:42.639 --> 00:16:45.120 So we felt like we could do it. 00:16:45.440 --> 00:16:52.159 And of course we then there was a little cottage next door that was in foreclosure, and then we bought that too. 00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:59.200 So and now that property has two buildings on it, a little Dutch style cottage and a workshop. 00:16:59.360 -->

00:17:15.440 And when I made some changes in my photo practice, moving away from a process called wet plate collodion and into cyanotype, wet plate is making images on metal plates that don't require a lot of washing. 00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:22.799 Cyanotype can be, it is as I do it, on paper, which requires quite a bit of washing. 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:29.680 And the studio that I had set up behind our barn didn't have plumbing. 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:34.559 So I adopted this workshop next door. 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:42.720 Okay, so that's good because I was going to ask the question of how did you deal with the fact that you'd lost your laboratory space down in down in the city. 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:44.799 I really missed it at the beginning. 00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:51.680 The the idea that Bob really needed to move right into a functioning studio was true. 00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:58.480 He has always had the bigger career as a painter than I have had as a photographer. 00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:07.200 And he had a, I think he had a show that had to be finished by August or September or something. 00:18:07.359 --> 00:18:08.400 He had to get working. 00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:09.680 He needed someplace to work with. 00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:20.240 If they're working artists, they have to engage in the process of setting up a show ahead of time. 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:23.200 And there has to be at least a certain amount of new work in there. 00:18:23.359 --> 00:18:23.519 Yeah. 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:27.519 So it took me longer to get that together. 00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:30.720 And I missed the dark I had a real dark room in Brooklyn. 00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:41.759 It had subway tile and stainless steel sinks to make big black and white prints, like 30, 30 by 40 inch prints on paper. 00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:59.759 But working with first the wet plate, which tends to be smaller, 8x10, 11 by 14 is about the size, and and then transitioning over to cyanotype, I could work not in total darkness, which is handy. 00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:07.599 So processing film, I which I I really love still shooting on film, does require total darkness. 00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:14.880 But you can load film into the tanks in a dark bag or in a a room that you've completely made dark. 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:22.480 And then you work with you you're pouring solution A and solution B and then rotating it. 00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:26.880 But cyanotype doesn't require that level of darkness. 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:29.839 So it I t you can do it with the lights on. 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:35.920 And sometimes I even have open windows nearby because it's a fairly slow process. 00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:47.200 If you're exposing a piece of cyanotype paper in the sun, it m could take five or ten minutes, and I have a big UV exposure unit. 00:19:48.079 --> 00:19:54.319 Where you can set a timer and do X number of seconds, and you know you're going to get the same exposure every time. 00:19:54.720

--> 00:19:57.039 You hope you're going to get the same exposure every time. 00:19:57.359 --> 00:20:09.839 I've just been noticing now it's a 30 by 40 inch wooden box with a lot of LED ultraviolet tubes built up inside it. 00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:19.039 And I think that electricity fluctuations, like it the exposures are different because the air conditioner is running or other kinds of things. 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:24.400 Lately the electricity seems to have been going up and down a little bit in the last couple weeks. 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:28.640 Yes. 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:33.359 So it's I always hope that the prints are going to come out the same. 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:37.039 If you do the same thing twice, it should come out the same way it doesn't always. 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:42.799 Cyanotype's beautiful, it's blue process that does not use silver. 00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:52.720 People might be aware of a of the term gelatin silver print, that which basically means old-fashioned black and white print on paper. 00:20:52.960 --> 00:21:01.359 But so silver is the metal that made all contemporary photography work, color and black and white. 00:21:01.519 --> 00:21:06.880 But this process uses iron instead, and so it's naturally blue in color. 00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:12.880 And so it is slower than silver in its printings. 00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:14.480 And also less predictable. 00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:21.599 Because you're coating, you're mixing the chemicals by hand, you're coating paper or fabric by hand, things aren't the same. 00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:22.240 Yeah. 00:21:22.480 --> 00:21:30.240 So you've made this move from Brooklyn, where many different resources are available to you, to Claverick, where you have to set up everything. 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:31.279 It takes a little while. 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:35.839 But now you and Bob are up and working and everything is going well. 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:38.720 You've changed your process, but that's not a bad thing. 00:21:38.799 --> 00:21:44.799 There's millions of photographic processes, and you I'm sure you can find something that you enjoy. 00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:48.160 But but how do you begin to get integrated in the community? 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:53.119 Is it through the arts, through doing shows and meeting other local artists? 00:21:53.279 --> 00:22:06.799 And this is something that I've found over and over again is that when people move here from the outside, it seems to be Maybe there are people that just move here and then they stay indoors all the time and watch TV and read books and they never go outside. 00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:13.039 But for most of us, we've got to establish a whole new kind of network into the community. 00:22:13.279 --> 00:22:15.200 And Claverick is not New York. 00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:16.960 No, it isn't. 00:22:17.200 --> 00:22:19.200 And how'd you guys go about that? 00:22:20.799 --> 00:22:26.319 We at first, at the very beginning, we had, as I said,

these friends on Mount Merino. 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:38.400 We knew they knew people, and we knew other people that were up here from various other visits and other amounts of time. 00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:42.559 And and we came here in 2015. 00:22:42.720 --> 00:23:02.799 And I was still working in Brooklyn on the weekends then, because as part of that transition away from owning an art gallery and keeping the mortgage payments up, I started selling things at the Brooklyn Flea, which in 2008 was a hot, fresh, new thing in the times. 00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:08.799 The vendors there were in fashion magazines and on television programs and all kinds of things. 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:13.039 It was a seemed to be a precursor to the Basilica Farm and Flea. 00:23:13.440 --> 00:23:13.599 Yeah. 00:23:14.079 --> 00:23:17.519 The feel of those two events is very similar. 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:27.759 It was, I think it was the first time I had heard the term curated in relationship to a flea market or an antique show or a craft fair. 00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:32.160 That's sort of an old-fashioned term, but artisanal makers. 00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:37.440 Someone was consciously choosing who those people were going to be and getting a mix of things. 00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:40.400 And Brooklyn was in the ascendant at that moment. 00:23:40.559 --> 00:23:42.000 So it really worked. 00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:45.920 And so I was still doing that work when we came here. 00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:50.480 So at first we didn't have much of a social life. 00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:54.880 And I stopped doing the Brooklyn Flea in 2018. 00:23:55.440 --> 00:24:01.279 And that's when we really started noticing that we didn't we hadn't met that many new people. 00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:06.720 And we actually got involved with the Claverick Democrats. 00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:10.240 And they were very active and having meetings and things like that. 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:16.079 But COVID changed that in as far as social interaction. 00:24:16.319 --> 00:24:26.480 And somehow we didn't get back to that after, in a way that is not easy to pinpoint. 00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:28.960 But we didn't we didn't go back to it in the same way. 00:24:29.440 --> 00:24:38.559 I think it did not resurface after the pandemic in the same way either, because I've been involved with the the Glover Democrats as well. 00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:46.000 And they one of the things that I noticed was that the interaction was pretty much all Zoom during the pandemic. 00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:48.240 Now they still lean heavily on Zoom. 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:50.480 And so you don't get to know people as much. 00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:52.880 Yeah, it's a different thing. 00:24:53.519 --> 00:24:54.720 It's limiting, let's say. 00:24:54.960 --> 00:24:55.440 That's a good word. 00:24:55.920 --> 00:25:03.920 And we still get a lot of political information through Columbia County and Claverick Democrats. 00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:09.359 And people come over and and door knocking and yeah, I guess all of the things. 00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:11.279 Brenda Schufeld came by. 00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:12.640 And Mame Bradley. 00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:27.519 And so but people that we had met through those political social groups became the conduit for new meeting new people now. 00:25:27.759 --> 00:25:31.039 And the center of that for us is MAME and John Bradley. 00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:31.519 Okay. 00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:35.359 Because we met at their house, I think. 00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:38.480 I think yeah, you and I met at their house, if not before. 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:46.240 Yeah, it's possible we'd met before, but but that was the first time that I was aware that you were the guy with the podcast. 00:25:46.559 --> 00:25:55.039 And MAME and John have been friends of mine and my wife, Katie's, for since they first moved here from Long Island City. 00:25:55.200 --> 00:26:06.720 And and we got together with them not so much through the Democrats as through Climate Smart, which is really more of an advisory and a conservation advisory group to the town board. 00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:23.039 I think that that we're among a large group of people who want to see Claverick remain pretty and and safe from just safe from urbanization, safe from catastrophic weather events, safe from the difficulty that farmers are having now. 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:28.480 I mean there's a certain desire to preserve what was here for many years. 00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:38.000 No John and MAME have both been pretty active in this. 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:38.400 Yeah. 00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:43.279 I know that one of the things that you're do you're working on now has to do with Ilana. 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:45.599 So how did that materialize? 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:49.839 I I'll try and keep this short. 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:51.920 Or not or maybe not. 00:26:52.240 --> 00:27:02.319 I'm interested in how you got integrated into the Alana system because it's almost a mini ecosystem of its own, a mini social, social, what gathering, a social network of its own. 00:27:02.640 --> 00:27:05.440 People that are involved with that have are really dedicated. 00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:07.039 Absolutely. 00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:15.039 The first thing that happened was I knew Shelburne Museum in Vermont. 00:27:15.359 --> 00:27:19.839 See, this is the part where the story gets longer before it gets before we get to Olana. 00:27:20.160 --> 00:27:24.640 I going back and forth to my aunt's house, she was a big collector of antiques. 00:27:24.880 --> 00:27:27.039 We would go to museums and things together. 00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:31.599 And so I had been at Shelburne in as a kid. 00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:35.039 And it's a museum of American things. 00:27:36.640 --> 00:27:45.440 And I was in a group show through my association with Kerry Haddad. 00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:52.799 They the Shelburne Museum sent out a call looking for contemporary

photographers working in historic process. 00:27:53.279 --> 00:28:02.000 And at that point I was making science, or I'm sorry, at that point I was making tin types and met with the curator. 00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:12.079 She came here actually on a studio tour and uh was lucky enough to get into that show. 00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:22.240 And then and the last thing I did was pick up those tin types from Vermont on about the 10th of March in 2020. 00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:23.279 Oh, right before. 00:28:24.319 --> 00:28:28.000 It was a it was them in your car and then everybody everything shuts down. 00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:37.519 Carolyn Bauer, the curator there, was upset because a show that she had curated wasn't gonna have a reception. 00:28:37.759 --> 00:28:40.880 And sh they weren't thinking about closing the museum. 00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:42.720 They were just thinking about not having a party. 00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:45.839 But then within a couple of weeks, it was all very different. 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.759 And I remember going up there thinking people in Vermont are very sensible. 00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:57.920 They're not gonna be going crazy with toilet paper and hand sanitizer because there was nothing like that here. 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:02.000 And we were having people in Brooklyn saying, Do you have any of these things? 00:29:02.079 --> 00:29:02.720 We can't get them. 00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:05.279 And we were like, Well, there were some at the store, but then they weren't. 00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:09.119 So I was sure I was gonna go to Vermont and be able to find all these items. 00:29:09.359 --> 00:29:10.480 There was nothing on the shelves. 00:29:10.880 --> 00:29:19.680 I remember the first day I walked into the Hannafords here in Claverick, and that entire paper towel and toilet paper and Kleenex Isle was the shelves were completely empty. 00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:24.880 You could still buy milk and eggs and beer, but you couldn't buy toilet paper. 00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:25.759 And I was like, really? 00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:26.319 Yeah. 00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:26.799 Really? 00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:27.359 Yes. 00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:32.880 So that's that moment, and so nothing happened for a couple of years. 00:29:33.119 --> 00:29:48.000 But when they reopened, Bob and I went up to see a show of a painter, his name is Luigi Lucioni, early to mid-20th century Italian-American painter whose work we knew and liked. 00:29:48.319 --> 00:30:04.160 And at that time I saw Carolyn Bauer and I asked her, Does anyone ever come in to the museum and work with objects in the collection to make new art rather than most of the things that I had seen there? 00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:11.359 It's an established artist out there somewhere working, and they bring material in and have an exhibit of it. 00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:15.599 And she said, No, people are we haven't really done something like that. 00:30:15.839 --> 00:30:17.039 Let's talk about it. 00:30:17.279 --> 00:30:28.880 And so that conversation led to a two-year project of working with items in their collection, and which ranges from thimbles to steamships. 00:30:29.359 --> 00:30:33.200 So all different kinds of things, sizes, lots of buildings. 00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:44.720 So I worked on that project, and it became a solo exhibition last summer in 2025 at at Shelburne in Vermont. 00:30:45.039 --> 00:31:01.440 And so that project was over, and I started to think about why I liked it and could I find another institution that would offer the same kind of opportunity to work with things. 00:31:02.079 --> 00:31:24.559 And because I I tend now to do still life photography, and part of that for me is the adventure of gathering the objects, because I'm a collector of things, but that's expensive and not always easy. 00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:34.799 So this access to beautiful things that there's not that collecting aspect to it is attractive and economical. 00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:44.559 So for the museum in Shelburne, that you're collecting a series of objects from their collections and placing them on a table like a painter would for a still life. 00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:45.119 Correct. 00:31:45.440 --> 00:31:52.319 And the arrangement is important and the lighting is important, and you're creating a photograph from that. 00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:54.400 The working cyanotype there. 00:31:54.799 --> 00:31:56.400 Yeah, I was shooting on film. 00:31:56.559 --> 00:31:58.079 I never made any prints there. 00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:12.960 I shot on film with uh what you'd think of as a big old-fashioned camera, something with bellows that focuses and shooting on both roll film and four by five sheet film in that camera. 00:32:13.519 --> 00:32:17.200 I don't know if I I don't think I ever shot 8x10 up there. 00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:18.480 I don't think I did. 00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:26.400 But for the most part, but as the project expanded, I realized that the buildings are part of the collection. 00:32:26.559 --> 00:32:32.079 There are objects in this museum as well, uh, steamship, locomotive, other things. 00:32:32.240 --> 00:32:55.519 So I did start working with handheld cameras to some degree, which was one of the reasons I wanted to switch from wet plate collodion to back to shooting on film and makings, because it does allow you to walk around and hold a camera in your hand and say, ooh, look at that, and take a picture without the structure of the technological restrictions. 00:32:56.079 --> 00:32:58.240 I can see why Olana would be appealing then. 00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:10.799 I seem to have brought together since we arrived here, Olana's what they're able to offer in terms of a window on that period of time and on the artists operating at that period of time has really expanded. 00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:11.680 Yes, absolutely. 00:33:11.839 --> 00:33:24.160 And then of course the grounds have become much more of a thing because I think that church

had spent a tremendous amount of time sculpting the grounds around the idealized sort of painting that he was doing. 00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:29.680 It's as if he's making a gigantic subject to paint. 00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:44.079 And at the same time sculpting and creating with trees and with hills, manufacturing that that landscape to a small degree or a large degree. 00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:45.839 It depends on what you're talking about. 00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:47.759 Making lakes where there weren't lakes. 00:33:48.160 --> 00:33:49.359 So what are you doing now then? 00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:50.480 Are you shooting now? 00:33:50.720 --> 00:33:51.599 Are you printing now? 00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:53.119 Are you getting ready for a show? 00:33:53.279 --> 00:33:54.240 You have a show mounted? 00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:00.880 Shelburne ended, and I'm thinking, where else can I do this? 00:34:01.039 --> 00:34:11.840 And one of the one of the things that was that I realized after thinking about it was that the Shelburne collection was created by a single person. 00:34:12.159 --> 00:34:19.199 Electra Havermeyer Webb was American things were in the air in the early to mid-20th century. 00:34:19.360 --> 00:34:25.679 So she was not alone in sort of Sturbage Village and Colonial Williamsburg. 00:34:25.920 --> 00:34:29.760 This this idea of collecting American things was together. 00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:35.679 But she her parents were Louis Seen and Henry Havermeyer, and they owned sugar. 00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:40.400 So she had funding behind her to be able to do what she wanted. 00:34:40.480 --> 00:34:48.639 And so she collected cigar store Indians and quilts and weathervanes and houses and steamships and pulled them all together and made this museum. 00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:58.559 And that was part of it for me, that she was a collector of things, and that you could see her eye in the place. 00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:10.159 And so, in addition to thinking, gee, it would be nice to do something like this that's closer to where I live, I realized that Olana was that same kind of thing. 00:35:10.239 --> 00:35:11.199 It looks very different. 00:35:11.519 --> 00:35:14.320 The impression is not the same at all. 00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:32.800 But the idea that, in this case, the church family had this idea and they gathered all this material together and they built this structure and created the the grounds around it, and how similar that was to what I had liked about Shelburne. 00:35:32.960 --> 00:35:37.599 And to now to get back to your question, sorry, it took me a long time to get there. 00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:40.320 It's early stages for this project. 00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:45.679 And it takes a while to figure out, it takes a while for me to figure out what how it works. 00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:46.960 What am I doing? 00:35:47.119 --> 00:35:48.239 Why am I doing it? 00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:49.599 What can I do? 00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:54.639 The structure of Olana is quite different from the structure of Shelburne. 00:35:55.039 --> 00:35:59.199 I guess the house is a museum in itself, but then there's so much more. 00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:06.159 And it's owned by the State of New York and the Parks Department, but it's run by the Olana Partnership. 00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:11.519 And that's the the group, those are the people that I'm dealing with. 00:36:11.760 --> 00:36:16.320 But there is this whole state level interaction as well. 00:36:16.559 --> 00:36:25.599 So it's not as easy as walking through rooms with the objects manager who and s and me being able to say, can you move this and this? 00:36:25.760 --> 00:36:27.760 It's a different structure. 00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:28.800 I see. 00:36:29.440 --> 00:36:40.320 And this year is the besides being 250th anniversary of the United States, it's the 200th anniversary of Frederick Church himself. 00:36:40.559 --> 00:36:42.639 It's his he was born in 1826. 00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:48.320 So they have a whole year of programming planned for that. 00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:59.440 And the State Parks Department is stressed because their objects that they hold, a lot of them are Revolutionary War era. 00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:07.360 So the idea of asking to pull something from storage or to move something somewhere, this is not the year for that. 00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:20.960 There's interest and enthusiasm from the Olana partnership, but I kind of was figuring out that world and what approach I wanted to make. 00:37:21.280 --> 00:37:29.599 And I had applied for a number of grants, and I got a grant from CREATE Council over in Gatsco. 00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:41.920 Which interestingly enough, it seems to be the they have they inherited what the Columbia County Council of the Arts was. 00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:46.719 That that group doesn't exist now, but Create does that work. 00:37:46.960 --> 00:37:56.639 So I worked with them and figured out how to apply for a statewide community re-grant and got a grant to do this project at Olana this year. 00:37:57.679 --> 00:38:01.519 So with everything else going on, you've got to complete this sometime within this year. 00:38:01.679 --> 00:38:02.480 Have you got a deadline? 00:38:02.800 --> 00:38:03.119 Yes, I do. 00:38:03.440 --> 00:38:04.000 What's the deadline? 00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:05.360 December 31st. 00:38:05.679 --> 00:38:06.000 Oh, okay. 00:38:06.159 --> 00:38:09.920 And does that mean that they will mount a show of your work at some point? 00:38:10.079 --> 00:38:12.559 Has that been decided when that would go up? 00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:14.559 That is not happening this year. 00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:25.199 That this is part of the kind of figuring it out and thinking that this project, which at the moment is called the Olana Project, we're working on a better title. 00:38:25.599 --> 00:38:33.920 I have suggested a number of things and I've sent them off to the education people at Olana to say, let's figure out what this thing

is called. 00:38:34.159 --> 00:38:42.480 But the grant is for a zine, a 48-page booklet magazine art piece that's going to be commercially printed. 00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:50.400 The grant is to cover the publication of a 48-page zine or booklet and do a lecture. 00:38:50.960 --> 00:39:00.960 Community outreach component, do a lecture at and it's scheduled for November 14th, which is a Saturday afternoon, and at the Wagon House. 00:39:01.039 --> 00:39:04.559 So it's on the grounds of Olana, but it is not in the house. 00:39:05.039 --> 00:39:14.239 Then you'll talk then about what you've found at Olana as well as your process for creating these still lives and photographing them. 00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:15.039 Yeah, exactly. 00:39:15.519 --> 00:39:15.840 Yeah, great. 00:39:16.239 --> 00:39:32.400 It's a a little bit about me and my career, a little bit about the history of photography and how my work fits into the history of photography using these antique processes, and then a lot about what I've found. 00:39:33.039 --> 00:39:38.960 This is a great moment to learn new things about Frederick Church because a new biography has come out. 00:39:39.119 --> 00:39:42.719 There's an exhibition at Olana that has a catalog. 00:39:42.960 --> 00:39:47.039 There's another book coming out in September about Frederick Church. 00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:53.840 There's a huge amount of interest, and it's perfect for me because I'm not a researcher. 00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:00.960 I'm not, I don't have skills to see first-hand documents, read through letters and things like that. 00:40:01.360 --> 00:40:07.440 But that's the beauty of this, is you've got everybody else in the mix already studying this for his 200th anniversary. 00:40:07.840 --> 00:40:53.360 So I've been devouring these publications that have already come out and now starting to send out tentacles, trying to find things about him or objects that somehow relate to him from the period, and switched from wanting to move objects into a studio space at Olana, trying to move something into a controlled environment so that I can take these sort of more formal images, to doing a lot of handheld work inside and outside to create this publication, which at this moment is changing. 00:40:53.519 --> 00:41:00.639 It's transitioning right now because I'm starting to figure out what's happening with the images that I already have. 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:02.320 What do I still have to take? 00:41:02.400 --> 00:41:17.920 They Olana has a wonderful thing called explore at your own pace, which means that as a member, I can go, I can make a reservation to go in on a Saturday afternoon at one o'clock, and I can stay there till 4:30 if I want to. 00:41:18.079 --> 00:41:20.880 It's two o'clock, I think, is the first one. 00:41:21.199 --> 00:41:26.800 But a person can go and it's not a tour where you're going from room to room with a guide. 00:41:26.960 --> 00:41:34.800 The rooms have have guides in them, and you can move around,

and as long as there's no flash and no tripod, you can take pictures. 00:41:35.199 --> 00:41:42.159 So I've transitioned into that as the approach for how I'm making images right now. 00:41:42.719 --> 00:41:50.559 And then figuring out are they formal pictures of an object on a table? 00:41:50.800 --> 00:42:03.599 A lot of the work I did at Shelburne was collage, taking something and repeating it and setting it in a circle, or in some way making something that looks different, more abstract. 00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:08.000 It doesn't look like a photograph of one object sitting in a space. 00:42:08.320 --> 00:42:42.400 And responding to the Persian influence of the structure and a lot of the objects, taking uh pattern and detail and making them into things that resemble rugs or tile work panels, somehow making a fireplace mantle look like some sort of a frame in curves and shapes that remind me, and I hope the viewer, of Persian design. 00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:48.000 Yeah, I always think of that as a uh somewhat geometric repeats, things like that. 00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:48.320 Yeah. 00:42:48.639 --> 00:42:49.440 That type of theme. 00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:52.960 And there's no lack of material at Olana. 00:42:53.360 --> 00:43:00.800 And also finding out things that I had never thought about before. 00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:27.920 I'm sure other people have in the past, but it might not be at the top of the list of things that you hear about Frederick Church, but he's a guy who moves to New York to become an artist, is very successful, and buys a farm in Hudson and moves up here with his family and builds a new house, and then builds a second big house, and then travels and fills it with things. 00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:28.480 Yeah. 00:43:28.719 --> 00:43:40.400 So he's very modern in this tendency that he has to travel and see things and create art and bring that back here. 00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:41.199 Yeah. 00:43:41.360 --> 00:43:44.960 And that story repeats itself for the next 200 years. 00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:45.840 Yeah. 00:43:46.719 --> 00:44:05.119 And there and there is another level of sort of modern thought that I'm always excited to read about and the This catalog for the show, gosh, it is called Global Artist. 00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:10.960 That's the title of this exhibition and the title of the biography. 00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:12.400 I think I'm right. 00:44:12.639 --> 00:44:14.400 I hope I'm right about that. 00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:18.159 I don't want to pitch the wrong title of their show. 00:44:18.400 --> 00:44:29.679 But the catalog that's part of that exhibition has essays in it by a number of contemporary historians, photography, painting, all kinds of things. 00:44:29.760 --> 00:44:37.039 And one of them talks about Frederick Church in relationship to the places that he's depicting. 00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:49.199 And this is a this is there's a lot of debate now about you go to a place, there are indigenous people there, you put them in your artwork, and it's it's exploitation. 00:44:49.519 --> 00:44:50.880 Yeah, it's cultural appropriation. 00:44:51.199 --> 00:44:55.679 Cultural appropriation, bringing those things back and doing things with them. 00:44:55.840 --> 00:44:57.039 You've appropriated all that. 00:44:57.440 --> 00:44:58.800 That's the British Museum right there. 00:44:59.039 --> 00:44:59.280 Yes. 00:44:59.599 --> 00:45:04.800 So very natural in in the middle of the 19th century to work this way. 00:45:04.960 --> 00:45:07.599 Now sometimes that's more problematic. 00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:18.159 There's another level of that where you are making an image of a place and you're excluding the indigenous people. 00:45:18.320 --> 00:45:19.280 You're not including them. 00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:21.679 So you're erasing them from the record. 00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:22.559 Yeah. 00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:28.400 And this is new thought for me in the past five years or so. 00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:32.639 I think we're exposed to seeing how that's happened in our own history. 00:45:32.880 --> 00:45:46.320 I know the phrase was always the history gets to be written by the victors, but it's as as it becomes clear that victor-victim split is happening and widening every single day. 00:45:46.480 --> 00:45:46.639 Right. 00:45:46.880 --> 00:45:50.239 We're seeing so much more of the erasure of history. 00:45:50.639 --> 00:46:02.400 But what I took from this essay about Frederick Church is that he painted these glorious images of Niagara Falls. 00:46:02.639 --> 00:46:07.199 And the viewer, when you look at one of these things, some of them are ten feet wide. 00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:08.880 They're gigantic paintings. 00:46:09.119 --> 00:46:18.960 And when you stand in front of one and look at it, it's as if you are in a barren wilderness and this natural wonder is there in front of you. 00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:23.039 But the reality is if you're seeing it for the as the first human. 00:46:23.519 --> 00:46:26.000 Yes, you're the first person to ever see this thing. 00:46:26.239 --> 00:46:29.360 No one has experienced it before, it's all for you. 00:46:29.599 --> 00:46:37.360 And the reality is that Frederick Church could get in a train in Manhattan and go to Niagara Falls. 00:46:37.440 --> 00:46:47.440 And when he got there, there were hotels and souvenir stores and all kinds of services catering to the tourists. 00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:55.679 And even when Thomas Cole went much earlier, that was already true. 00:46:55.920 --> 00:46:58.000 Thomas Cole taught Frederick Church. 00:46:58.159 --> 00:47:00.320 So there's this relationship between the two of them. 00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:03.039 A large amount of his work was 20 years before. 00:47:03.519 --> 00:47:03.840 Correct. 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:04.239 Yeah. 00:47:04.320 --> 00:47:04.880 He dies. 00:47:05.280 --> 00:47:10.000 Cole dies in 1848, six, something. 00:47:10.239 --> 00:47:13.280 He dies just as Frederick Church's career is

beginning. 00:47:13.599 --> 00:47:21.760 And Frederick Church ultimately becomes the most famous and I guess the most wealthy painter within his lifetime. 00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:22.239 Yeah. 00:47:22.559 --> 00:47:23.039 At that time. 00:47:23.360 --> 00:47:26.800 He's not the most wealthy ever now, but he's a but at that time. 00:47:29.519 --> 00:47:29.679 Yeah. 00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:34.159 And in a world where America, there are no painters. 00:47:34.639 --> 00:47:37.199 Europe is looking here, not thinking. 00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:52.000 So he he's there are people who are thinking that there are no artists in America, that there's no value to this work. 00:47:52.480 --> 00:48:11.440 And Church is proving that's not true, both artistically but also financially, that and he was a genius because he would make a big painting like Niagara, like Heart of the Andes, is the one that I that you hear most about. 00:48:11.679 --> 00:48:15.840 That is an image that he made in South America. 00:48:16.079 --> 00:48:21.199 And it's finished in his studio in New York, and he charges 25 cents to see it. 00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:23.840 And people line up for a month or more. 00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:27.360 I'm I hope I'm getting this close to being right. 00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:29.280 I think it's the right sense of it. 00:48:29.840 --> 00:48:36.480 He is charging a quarter for someone to s to view this painting like you would charge somebody$20 to see a movie. 00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:42.480 It's not 25 cents is not nothing, but he makes a tremendous amount of money. 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:51.519 And he uses that model numerous times, having people pay just to look at the picture, then he can sell the picture as well. 00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:59.280 So he sold a painting for more than any American artist had ever sold a painting before. 00:48:59.360 --> 00:49:00.639 And I think it's$10,000. 00:49:01.119 --> 00:49:08.719 But he could still control it and charge people, even though someone else owned it, he could still show it for a while. 00:49:09.039 --> 00:49:12.320 So he's a mastermind of making money. 00:49:12.639 --> 00:49:21.519 But this got me thinking about what was it like for him to go there and what choices did he make. 00:49:21.679 --> 00:49:30.880 And I don't, so far I have not seen any writing by him saying why he chose what he did. 00:49:31.440 --> 00:49:47.920 I've seen reports of later things in traveling in Europe, like going to Rome and saying, oh, there's this big hospital, this big brand new 1870 hospital in the way of me seeing this classical architecture. 00:49:48.159 --> 00:49:55.679 So it seems like he didn't he wasn't a big fan of new things in the way of whatever he was wanting to look at. 00:49:56.159 --> 00:50:06.559 I think this is probably a good place for us to wrap up, but because I'm very interested in seeing your presentation in November, because I think you'll get more perspective on this. 00:50:06.719 --> 00:50:08.559 And I've always wondered about this too. 00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:12.480 I you could call what Church did was romanticize things. 00:50:12.559 --> 00:50:26.559 You could say he goes there and he creates this idealistic point of view of Niagara Falls or of Rome or of the Andes, and he puts a little human in the corner like Thomas Cole did to give it some sense of scale. 00:50:26.719 --> 00:50:37.199 And it makes the world look so grand in and of itself compared to the works of man. 00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:44.639 And there's a beauty to that, but there's also a degree of deception, self-deception maybe, to that. 00:50:44.800 --> 00:50:48.239 And that that's what romanticization is. 00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:48.719 Yeah. 00:50:49.280 --> 00:51:02.159 And I'm fascinated by photography as an art where because of the high contrast, because you're capturing all of the information within the frame that is there, that the film can capture. 00:51:02.960 --> 00:51:07.840 Photography doesn't allow you in some ways to romanticize. 00:51:08.079 --> 00:51:14.320 You have to do that in the print or in the interesting contrast. 00:51:14.639 --> 00:51:14.960 It is. 00:51:15.039 --> 00:51:21.119 And it's another thing that has changed in my lifetime. 00:51:21.280 --> 00:51:41.199 I'm doing air quotes, but when I went to school till now, so 1985 till 2026, photography was thought of as this truthful thing out there that it's a photograph, it's real, it's true. 00:51:41.519 --> 00:51:44.159 And that was never true. 00:51:44.400 --> 00:51:45.679 Yeah, no, I get in that way. 00:51:46.079 --> 00:51:50.159 I get that I oversimplified both church's work and the nature of photography. 00:51:50.639 --> 00:51:58.559 But the world of Photoshop, all of a sudden, people said, wait, photography isn't always real, and it never was. 00:51:58.800 --> 00:52:12.159 But the way I think about it a lot of times is you go to Paris and there's the Eiffel Tower in front of you, and you point your camera at the Eiffel Tower and you take this picture, and Paris is beautiful and the tower is perfect. 00:52:12.480 --> 00:52:21.360 But there might be some kind of police action to your right, and if you push the camera that way and include that in the image, it's a very different image. 00:52:22.000 --> 00:52:26.000 But if you swing the camera to the left, you're getting a whole different story. 00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:29.280 If you're talking about reportage, these things are happening. 00:52:29.440 --> 00:52:32.400 You're having to choose what you're including in your image. 00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:39.599 And so that's what Church could also do to the time of the day and the light and the weather and so forth and so forth. 00:52:39.920 --> 00:52:40.639 All those things. 00:52:40.800 --> 00:52:47.760 And eventually, it's my impression that he is they're really collages. 00:52:47.840 --> 00:52:58.159 These big paintings of foreign lands like the Andes are collages of impressions that he has from various places.

00:52:58.239 --> 00:53:04.880 And I heard one of the docents at Olana say, it's South America in a painting. 00:53:05.039 --> 00:53:10.079 So it's not necessarily this mountain with that palm tree and this river. 00:53:10.400 --> 00:53:22.000 But when he went to Jerusalem and painted the city from the Mount of Olives, he that's a view that everyone in New York already knew. 00:53:22.159 --> 00:53:26.000 They had engravings, there were photographs, people knew what that was. 00:53:26.159 --> 00:53:35.199 And so his painting with that title is very accurate because I don't think he wanted to get involved in this discussion of that's not how it really is. 00:53:35.360 --> 00:53:40.159 That's really not there, or there's a dome here, or there aren't any trees. 00:53:40.320 --> 00:53:46.000 So he's careful in that way if his viewers are familiar. 00:53:46.239 --> 00:53:52.559 And the Niagara Falls paintings are like that to some degree as well, because it was already a famous place. 00:53:53.039 --> 00:53:59.039 I think that's probably the best statement to advertise what you're going to talk about in November, too. 00:53:59.199 --> 00:53:59.920 It's Yeah. 00:54:00.079 --> 00:54:07.760 It's a creation of art as an from an as from aspects of reality. 00:54:08.079 --> 00:54:08.320 Yeah. 00:54:08.880 --> 00:54:09.199 Yeah. 00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:22.719 And to answer your question from way back at the beginning of this, I hope that this will this this project will move forward and turn into a uh a body of work that will be shown. 00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:24.719 That's that remains to be worked out. 00:54:24.880 --> 00:54:27.920 We have to figure out what that is and how to pay for it. 00:54:29.679 --> 00:54:31.199 Well, this is a great conversation. 00:54:31.280 --> 00:54:33.440 Thank you so much for sitting and talking for so long. 00:54:33.840 --> 00:54:34.960 Sure, thank you. 00:54:38.079 --> 00:54:46.719 Okay, so as promised, I did capture about 10 or 12 minutes of the geeking out on photography processes conversation. 00:54:47.199 --> 00:54:55.360 And just for those of you that are fascinated by David and his way of looking at things, as I was, here you go. 00:54:58.239 --> 00:54:59.679 Chemical photography. 00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:02.800 Have you ever pro shot film and processed it and made prints? 00:55:03.199 --> 00:55:13.920 Yeah, once I I took a class when I was doing a uh postdoctoral fellowship at Ohio State a few years ago, many years ago, and I took a class in darkroom processing. 00:55:14.159 --> 00:55:14.320 Okay. 00:55:14.480 --> 00:55:20.559 So basically went out and shot a bunch of roles of in that case, it was uh women's basketball team. 00:55:20.880 --> 00:55:23.840 They were in the national championships of that year. 00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:32.000 And so I went out and shot a bunch of practice shots that when they were doing their practice and played with processing on those. 00:55:32.239 --> 00:55:36.480 And it was fun, but it wasn't something that that was very involved. 00:55:37.360 --> 00:55:52.719 But it was more like it was the dark room processing that I was learning was do this with your film, put it in this container, add c add bottle A, wash with the sink, don't turn the light on until you've done bottle B. 00:55:52.800 --> 00:55:56.719 And it wasn't anything where I was learning much about the film chemistry. 00:55:57.119 --> 00:55:57.280 Okay. 00:55:57.760 --> 00:55:59.440 But you've seen that happen. 00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:00.000 Yeah. 00:56:00.400 --> 00:56:02.880 And then contact prints and then and then a little bit. 00:56:04.719 --> 00:56:26.800 Because uh now with other technologies like smartphones and computers and printers, you can shoot on your phone and then manipulate those images and output them onto transparent digital negative film with a Epson printer. 00:56:27.360 --> 00:56:29.519 Yeah, just like an inkjet printer or a laser. 00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:31.840 Uh inkjet printer. 00:56:32.320 --> 00:56:34.639 So you don't need to process film. 00:56:34.960 --> 00:56:42.559 I tend to still do that, shoot on film, either with a medium or a large format camera, and then process that film. 00:56:42.719 --> 00:56:44.320 But then after that I scan it. 00:56:44.800 --> 00:56:54.960 The moon book that you mentioned earlier, that was the first project, and it was early on in my uh experimentation and figuring the whole thing out. 00:56:55.119 --> 00:57:00.880 So that is printed with real four by five film negatives, which give beautiful results. 00:57:01.519 --> 00:57:09.920 Oh, I can imagine, yeah, you're not losing any integrity in the image by digitizing it, then printing it, maybe digitizing it again, whatever. 00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:10.159 Yeah. 00:57:10.639 --> 00:57:23.920 So it's uh really is easy to print them, but if you're doing a book with 16 of them and they weren't shot, I didn't shoot them all at once. 00:57:24.079 --> 00:57:25.280 I didn't shoot them together. 00:57:25.519 --> 00:57:25.679 Yeah. 00:57:25.920 --> 00:57:28.719 I shot them over the course of a year as the project. 00:57:29.760 --> 00:57:32.159 But there was all a studio setup, right? 00:57:32.239 --> 00:57:45.679 Because as as I remember, the the book is a series of images that are all the same size, but they're of different objects that are round or spherical, and so they resemble the moon in some quality. 00:57:46.159 --> 00:57:46.480 Correct. 00:57:46.639 --> 00:57:46.800 Yeah. 00:57:47.360 --> 00:57:53.119 But they weren't all exposed, they weren't all shot in the same room, and they weren't all shot with the same kind of light. 00:57:53.840 --> 00:57:58.480 So printing them is a in cyanotype is a big challenge. 00:57:59.679 --> 00:58:10.480 Because they're all there are either there's one image and two text blocks, or two images and one text block on each sheet of paper that makes that book. 00:58:10.880 --> 00:58:15.440 And those two negatives aren't necessarily balanced to be

printed together. 00:58:15.679 --> 00:58:17.119 I wasn't thinking that far in advance. 00:58:17.519 --> 00:58:18.159 So what did you do? 00:58:18.320 --> 00:58:38.960 Just a lot of trial and error to get it to uh a l a lot of burning and dodging, which involves in this case putting boards down on one and this this image needs to be exposed longer, so that's exposing while this one isn't, and then at the certain moment taking that one off so that they're exposing the other. 00:58:39.199 --> 00:58:39.360 Yeah. 00:58:39.519 --> 00:58:45.280 And you're you're exposing not with the sun like people sometimes do with a cyanotype, which is very variable. 00:58:45.440 --> 00:58:47.280 You're using some sort of light box, right? 00:58:47.599 --> 00:58:47.920 Correct. 00:58:49.199 --> 00:58:55.840 I when I was in school, I learned cyanotype. 00:58:55.920 --> 00:58:57.280 I don't know how much of this you want to talk about. 00:58:57.440 --> 00:58:58.079 Do you want to ask me this? 00:58:58.559 --> 00:58:59.440 No, we're we're recording it. 00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:13.519 And if it's an interesting conversation to me, and so I may leave some of it in there, or all of it in there, or whatever, but at some point I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna geek say, let's stop geeking out on the photography stuff and start at the beginning of like, how do you end up in Klaverick? 00:59:14.239 --> 00:59:14.480 All right. 00:59:14.559 --> 00:59:15.760 So so let's keep going. 00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:22.800 Because I'm eager for you to guide me in a direction because I've got more organic conversation. 00:59:24.239 --> 00:59:24.800 I don't know. 00:59:25.360 --> 00:59:36.960 But so with digital manipulation, you have the ability to balance those images and make them print at the same time. 00:59:37.360 --> 00:59:48.880 Like if there's one image that's too dark and one that's too light, you can adjust those files so that when you print them out, they'll all expose in I aim for five minutes as the exposure time. 00:59:49.119 --> 00:59:59.199 And you can adjust contrast and density and manipulate images and combine things and do all this wonderful modern stuff. 00:59:59.440 --> 01:00:01.519 So I'm drawn to that as well. 01:00:01.840 --> 01:00:03.840 But the quality of the image is different. 01:00:04.320 --> 01:00:12.559 So you do work with some sort of digital manipulation program like Photoshop for other kinds of projects, but you can't in the cyanotype printing. 01:00:13.039 --> 01:00:13.519 No, you can. 01:00:13.760 --> 01:00:20.320 You can also, yes, absolutely, because cyanotype tends to be very contrasty. 01:00:20.480 --> 01:00:25.760 Uh it was used for a hundred years to reproduce architectural drawings. 01:00:26.079 --> 01:00:26.480 So an architect. 01:00:27.360 --> 01:00:27.440 Yeah. 01:00:27.679 --> 01:00:34.960 An architect would take a pen and a ruler and draw a line on some kind of translucent material like vellum. 01:00:35.199 --> 01:00:47.199 And then those could be copied so that the engineer could have one and the contractor could have one, and the guy who's figuring out how many bricks they can all have a copy. 01:00:47.440 --> 01:00:49.679 They don't need to share the original. 01:00:49.920 --> 01:00:59.039 So starting in the 1870s, they used cyanotype, which ended up being called blueprint blueprinting, to make big negative prints. 01:00:59.199 --> 01:01:03.679 So those black ink lines became white lines on a blue field. 01:01:03.920 --> 01:01:04.320 Yeah. 01:01:04.559 --> 01:01:04.880 Yeah. 01:01:05.360 --> 01:01:08.239 And so it's perfect for that. 01:01:08.639 --> 01:01:13.199 But it and when I was in school, that's what we were told. 01:01:13.360 --> 01:01:19.360 You couldn't really do full tone cyanotype work, that it had to be contrasty. 01:01:19.679 --> 01:01:25.920 And there way back then, there weren't these digital tools. 01:01:26.320 --> 01:01:38.000 So we were making enlarged negatives in a dark room situation and using graphic film, things that stuff that really had almost no middle. 01:01:38.400 --> 01:01:40.000 It was either black or white. 01:01:40.320 --> 01:01:44.960 But it is absolutely possible to print cyanotype in a full-tone image. 01:01:45.599 --> 01:01:55.199 And that ability is enhanced when you can adjust the contrast and essentially make the negatives most of the time flatter. 01:01:55.519 --> 01:02:00.159 So that there's less contrast there to try and get highlight and shadow detail at the same time. 01:02:00.639 --> 01:02:03.679 We'll have to talk more about that at some point offline, I think. 01:02:04.079 --> 01:02:16.000 Because I might it all kinds of thoughts are occurring to me as to how you might do that both digitally and by manipulating the negative and by manipulating the amount of exposure, as you said, burning and dodging. 01:02:16.079 --> 01:02:25.920 So and the the thing is that the the idea that you mentioned before, people think of cyanotype as being printed in the sun, and it's absolutely possible and it's free. 01:02:27.519 --> 01:02:38.480 And here in the Northeast, there's rain and clouds, and it's summer and it's winter, and the height and distance of the sun affect it greatly. 01:02:38.800 --> 01:02:45.199 I would go insane if I was trying to make a set of prints using the sun. 01:02:45.920 --> 01:02:46.320 People do it. 01:02:46.639 --> 01:02:51.519 I know people do it, and it's got a certain beauty to it because it's again, it's something you don't control. 01:02:51.840 --> 01:03:03.280 Because you mentioned before we started recording, you mentioned that the kids, whoever the kids are, kids like these sort of lo-fi types of camera application. 01:03:03.440 --> 01:03:06.239 I know that people are shooting a lot of stuff on film now. 01:03:06.400 --> 01:03:09.920 My daughter's a photographer, she much prefers working with film. 01:03:10.000 --> 01:03:15.119 She'll use old film, she'll use cheap cameras, she'll do all kinds of things. 01:03:15.280 -->

01:03:20.000 And then there's a big resurgence in using Polaroid film or whatever. 01:03:20.159 --> 01:03:28.880 It's probably not made by Polaroid anymore, but it's one of those films where you peel off one layer and people used to scratch in part of that and see what came out. 01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:32.320 And all of that kind of I don't know, what would you call it? 01:03:32.559 --> 01:03:35.760 Like wabi-sabi type of you don't know what you're gonna get. 01:03:36.239 --> 01:03:37.199 That that is true. 01:03:37.440 --> 01:03:38.000 I don't know. 01:03:38.320 --> 01:03:41.760 I haven't ever heard wobbi-sabi combined with photography, but you're right. 01:03:42.320 --> 01:03:47.119 Um it does have a certain beauty to it, but yeah, as I said earlier, I'm a scientist. 01:03:47.199 --> 01:03:51.599 I'm by nature a control freak, and I would like to know how everything's gonna come out. 01:03:51.679 --> 01:03:55.199 And the sun is in and out of clouds, that's gonna throw me off. 01:03:56.159 --> 01:03:56.880 Absolutely will. 01:03:57.119 --> 01:03:59.920 And and I l I loved Polaroid. 01:04:00.079 --> 01:04:05.920 Polaroid had a big grant program in the 80s and 90s. 01:04:06.079 --> 01:04:13.360 They commissioned artists to use their material, and so you could they would gift you material to use. 01:04:13.440 --> 01:04:19.280 So I did a lot of 8x10 Polaroid work, and then I did 2024 images with that. 01:04:19.599 --> 01:04:24.639 They had a big camera in Manhattan that shot 2024 Polaroids. 01:04:24.880 --> 01:04:29.119 William Wegman used that camera a lot for all those big color pictures of dogs. 01:04:29.440 --> 01:04:30.079 I did not know. 01:04:30.239 --> 01:04:34.719 Well, I'm trying to Andy Warhol used a lot of Polaroid, small, smaller. 01:04:34.960 --> 01:04:41.679 Uh photographer named Timothy Greenfield Sanders, who's a commercial celebrity portrait guy, used that camera a lot. 01:04:42.000 --> 01:04:56.000 But uh and Polaroid went out of business, but there is a company now called Polaroid that is making those peel-apart materials and and the SX 70 style where it shoots out the front. 01:04:56.159 --> 01:04:58.320 And I know that they're making 8x10. 01:04:58.559 --> 01:04:59.760 It's expensive. 01:05:00.320 --> 01:05:02.400 So 8x10 Polaroid again. 01:05:03.519 --> 01:05:13.039 The kids, again, kids, whoever the kids are using those ones that come out and they're like two inches by two inches, and they're ex I guess, again, just capture the moment. 01:05:13.360 --> 01:05:13.519 Yeah. 01:05:13.920 --> 01:05:16.960 That might be Fuji in stacks. 01:05:17.440 --> 01:05:21.280 They're they tend to be rectangular, but they're small, like a business card. 01:05:21.519 --> 01:05:21.920 Yeah. 01:05:23.039 --> 01:05:36.960 My daughter's getting married in September, and they're gonna do one of the classic things that everybody seems to be doing these days, and put out a lot of plastic cameras on the tables at the receptions and encourage everybody to take shots of whoever's there. 01:05:37.119 --> 01:05:37.280 Yeah. 01:05:37.519 --> 01:05:39.679 It's a interesting way to document things. 01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:40.239 Yeah. 01:05:40.400 --> 01:05:46.559 And it and you have something in your hand at the end, like something analog where there really are prints. 01:05:46.960 --> 01:05:47.599 Exactly. 01:05:50.960 --> 01:05:55.199 All right, for those of you that hung out to the bitter end, this was the Claverick Podcast. 01:05:55.360 --> 01:05:56.719 Thank you for being here. 01:05:56.960 --> 01:06:00.880 We try to post a new one every two weeks during this summer. 01:06:01.039 --> 01:06:04.000 I have not been good at that, and I do apologize. 01:06:04.159 --> 01:06:18.239 I want to announce that one of my next interviews, one of the ones that's upcoming in the next few weeks, will be with Matt Zucker, who is probably known to some other podcast listeners in the area as host of the Sidioit podcast. 01:06:18.400 --> 01:06:24.320 So I'm going to be the Sidiote for that one, and Matt's going to be on my podcast, and we'll see how that works out. 01:06:24.559 --> 01:06:25.679 Thanks for being here. 01:06:25.760 --> 01:06:28.079 Thanks for listening to the Claverick Podcast. 01:06:28.239 --> 01:06:35.280 We are the only podcast with the word Claverick in the title, so you can find us online by using that Google thing. 01:06:35.920 --> 01:06:38.159 Or whatever search engine you prefer. 01:06:38.480 --> 01:06:43.360 We are on all the major platforms, so I encourage you to subscribe. 01:06:43.599 --> 01:06:44.559 Thanks again. 01:06:44.800 --> 01:06:46.239 See you next time.