Alone Together

In this project I am telling the story of three months in which my wife and I sheltered in-place during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. It’s one shared by millions, but our own day-to-day lives together in our condo in Lowell is a story that is unique to us. It’s about the daily emotional and logistical rollercoaster, and the sadness and frustrations of being isolated, albeit together, from family and friends. It’s also about seeing and appreciating the beauty in one’s own environment when other options have been taken away.

My work is about the people, things, and places that surround me and define who I am. I make images of the small corners of my life that attract me. I am drawn to scenes of beauty, emotion, and of the stories that are there to be told.

A Long Desire

On February 28, 2020, I retired from the Postal Service into a world of anxiety and longing. This project is my attempt to cope with the circumstances that define this new reality. I am trying to grapple with my fear of human beings as contagion and my desire to return to some kind of normal that would involve family visits, dining with friends, and great numbers of people gathering in joyous celebration instead of agonized protest. I chose black and white for this work in order to amplify feelings of distance and reflection.

The death throes of the tree, perhaps, followed by an explosion of new life in its shadow.

Evolution proceeds in recognizable patterns in response to the new conditions created by an endless, essentially infinite number of chance occurrences. These closely-observed landscapes manifest both the chaos and the miraculous success of natural selection.

I approach these scenes with both a sense of awe at the struggle to survive and flourish, as well as an intense wonder at the perpetually unfolding beauty of the world.

Boston’s Chinatown

Chinatown is the only true immigrant-derived ethnic enclave left in Boston, my hometown. My interest in this community was sparked by witnessing street scenes identical to those I had experienced while visiting China. Since the late 1870’s, Chinatown historically has served as a home for Chinese immigrants and laborers, and as a textile center. It now is a community fighting, so far successfully, to keep itself intact; it is the hub of the Chinese community of greater Boston. In this exhibit I wish the viewer to see beyond the restaurants: The workers and residents in Mary Soo Hoo Park, playing cards and Chinese “chess,” while speaking only Chinese; stores selling traditional herbal medicines; bakeries making and selling typical Chinese pastries; and the existence there of branches of many international Chinese family associations. The Chinese language and culture still are very much alive in Chinatown, despite the threats it faces from the powerful forces of gentrification, compression of its space, and an affordable housing crisis. As a second generation American, I can identify with the stories of the several immigrants I interviewed and photographed, who discussed their history and their families’ successes since coming to the United States. As in the case of other immigrant groups, they are making our city, region and nation both stronger and more vibrant, while also enriching its soul.

AKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank profusely two people without whom this exhibition would not have been possible. These are Susan Fung and Eric Schwartz, who are co-authors on the narrative aspects of this project. Susan provided her time and guidance and introduced me to important components of the Chinatown landscape, her Gin Family Association and the people I interviewed and photographed. She also served as translator when necessary. My son Eric Schwartz created a video record of the interviews, without which the narratives for the project would have been incomplete.

Still

Most of the time my home is bustling with life and activity and the accompanying clutter and chaos.  But when everyone leaves for the day, I have the privilege of some quiet time alone in the stillness to admire the dancing light that nobody else sees.  I relish these unexpected moments and appreciate the color and quality of the light in the spaces where my family loves, plays and grows up.  These rooms are the landscapes where many memories are born and each vista can evoke joy, nostalgia, wistfulness, melancholy, magic or all of the above.

This work is an exploration of my domestic world at a time when my kids are beginning to choose their own paths.  I am aware of time fleeting and try to hold on to the now.

Origami-grams 

These photographs are portraits of origami as a memory keepers. I bent, tore, arranged and rearranged origamis and noted became aware that they held the memory of my actions in their delicate small thin physical shapes. The resulting images can appear both two- and three- dimensional, playing with the viewer’s perceptions of flatness and space in both the subject and picture plane.

This series was created using cyanotype materials, colored pencils, and origami papers similar to those I played with as a child in Japan. As an artist who works primarily in digital photography and Photoshop, I particularly enjoyed working with my hands to create these one-off images.

Urban Awareness

I’m fascinated with the inherent beauty and geometry of the city.  However, what is even more intriguing is how we, as humans, can lose ourselves within our own minds dreaming of either the future or the past and transport through this beauty without noticing the subtlety around us.  The texture, strength, arrangement, thought, and soul left within the structures by their creators is so pervasive…yet often unnoticed.  With camera in hand, I strove to capture the incredible dichotomy within this human condition first-hand.  It is in studying closely individuals in this state, that allows me to strive to transcend this condition and simply appreciate the incredible beauty of our surroundings within the moment. Urban Awareness is a call to awakening to the here and now, the beauty of the moment.

I feel passion for blending scale and geometry, while using available light, shadows, and leading lines to draw the viewer into looking at a city in a more deliberate manner.

Ode to a Town Village

In 2005 a developer proposed to town officials that they level two blocks of underused storefronts in Cushing Square, one of Belmont’s three town villages, to construct four oversized buildings for 100 upscale apartments, office space, and commercial use, ironically called Belmont Village. By 2013 the Planning Board approved the final design of a development which has crowded neighborhood homes, blocked parking,
sidewalks and streets, and driven out some of the area’s remaining intimate small businesses. Nearly three years ago I began photographing the snail-like progress of this construction. Stalled by lawsuits and finances as in a Dickens novel, the endless construction of these massive box-like buildings with their incongruous and pretentious architectural facades has forever altered the experience of most townspeople. This series is my attempt to capture the clash of history and cultures, the dimensions, textures and mood, and the simple poetic dignity and warmth of an intimate community, which might forever be lost.

Chasing Memory

I’ve lost the connection I’ve had with the town where I have spent all of my life. So much change has happened and is happening in my hometown of Everett, MA. The personal cost for me of almost running from this town in pursuit of growing as a person was losing a sense of the place I grew up in. So I returned and found myself chasing memories of what the town used to mean to me and after all this time, trying to forge a new connection.