Nomad by Design Tea Ceremony

 On the second evening I start to make dinner.  I've pulled out my new Death Valley kitchen I made with leftover Japanese Pagoda Wood from the Oakland kitchen.  A young woman rushes over, "Hey, may I look at this?"

I laugh so hard.  "I've never made such a total failure in my life.  It's so bad, it's good."

I run through all the things on the new kitchen that doesn't work, doesn't close, warps, and shrinks.

She's from SF, from Tech.  9 months she's been on the road.  Chucked the life in the City for a life on the road.  Got rid of everything.  No mad by design. (Thanks Tony for that turn of a phrase.  Appreciate it.)

The Covid Moment brought The Great Migration, The Great Resignation, The Great Retirement and The Great Unfettered Mobilement.

In past years staying at Emigrant Campground, there were always a good stream of Nomads coming through but it was usually not by choice but by necessity.  Just didn't have the money for anything else but a home on the road.

This year, though the stream was different.  Single males, single women, families.  In nice rigs with canopies and solar panels and pull out shelves.  Min, the woman from above had a white bike that she put in front of her new white Sprinter that had "You are Love" written in red on it.

She wanted to know what I do out there in the Desert.  "I try to sit.  That's all there is to it."

This didn't satisfy her, so I made something up.

I think where I sit there in Death Valley there are more rocks than there are stars in the universe.  A infinite amount of Random out there with the rocks forming an infinite amount of Patterns.  I look at how Nature is Composing using wind, erosion, rain, gravity and Time to arrange the rocks the way they are.  I'm looking at these patterns so I can Put It in the Bank. (Thank you Cary for that turn of a phrase) Doing something over and over implants it, it's putting it in the bank.

The next day she heads off into the desert and comes over to my area at the end of the day and says, "I looked at the rocks like you said.  But what do you really do out there?'

So I had to make something else up and make some more stuff up the next time we spoke.  Whatever I said wasn't right for her.

I say, "I'm looking for the stream that runs under the stream."

I told her everything I’m telling you is made up, I will start a sentence and have no idea how I’m going to finish it, it’s all fictional.

Still she wanted to hear it though.

She thinks I know something she needs to know.  I start a sentence, not knowing where to go with it. The Arc of Western Science is to understand it all and it does it by slicing up the whole into ever finer slices thinking by knowing the small it can put it back together again.  We are born with all the knowledge we need.  You already know everything.  You're wearing the red ruby slippers, all you have to do is click your heels three times.

Even at her young age, she gets the reference and laughs and looks at her bare feet.

My red ruby slippers fit my feet, only your slippers fit yours so I have no knowledge to share.

I go and sit in the desert for eight days to understand the whole by feeling the whole.

My new friend Sean drove his motorcycle up from Phoenix to spend a couple days in Emigrant Campground, Death Valley with me.  I'm not sure if he's my disciple or I'm his.  He listens to me and I listen to him, he has lots to say.

He somehow finds me out in the desert the first day he's there and we sit out in the heat, in the sun, on rocks and talk for a few hours.  An hour into the conversation, I remember I'm wearing a goofy looking hat I made for the trip.

I point to my hat and "I look like the Flying Nun."

He laughs and agrees.

He's quite young so I say "Do you get that cultural reference, the Flying Nun?"

No, he doesn't so I explain.

Sean is one who understands the sitting on a rock in Death Valley.  I don't need to explain anymore to him.

Couple days, Sean leaves and I found a sketch he made of me under a rock by my tent.

 

 

Morning that I'm leaving, Min, the above woman comes over and offers me a macaroon fortune cookie she made.  I take one.

She says, "So what you do out there, would you say it's a Vision Quest, do you know what that means?"

I say "Yes, I have heard of that grouping of words but no."  "And it's not meditation, it's the opposite of meditation."

So I make something up.

I want life to be one tea ceremony.  One long uninterrupted tea ceremony where each moment is revered for whatever form that moment may be.  Every act is given a reverence and a conviction. An importance. Each act.  The next act doesn't take place until the one before finishes.   It's that simple.

She may have believed that one.

 

My macaroon fortune and Sean's sketch from memory

The Flying None (Thank you Sean for the turn of a phrase.)

It's funny how he missed the year by a year.  He drew it in 2022

Breadcrumbs

 The result of a broken wine glass on set

I have a friend.  Won't say his name.  He has his monkeys on his back for sure.  Head barely above water. Airplane vodkas in his satchel. You know, for that early morning snack.  He throws these "I'm going to kill myself" sentences with abandon.  I'll be shocked if he did but not surprised.

Another phrase of his is, "I've lost my shit, man."

This one I understand.  I took an eight month period of time away from commercial photography, got a large wine job and found I had lost my shit of what I've been doing for the past thirty years.

Started to take little snappy poos of the breadcrumbs I had left behind just for this time when my tao was off center.

This lens shade I made, I call it "Infinahood".  It's a black velveteen rubberized fabric taped to the lens.  The front of the shade has a bendable wire in it.  I can shape the hood as fits the occasion.  The tape allows it to be used on any of the lenses.

I take it off quite often during a shoot and put it on the viewfinder.  The tape has etched the surface.

I once did a bunch of Oral B (my overseas readers, that's a toothbrush company) work and these were part of a set.  Plexi-1inch thick.  Probably have 20 of them.   They make the greatest blocks.

On set, lifting up the top surface three inches.

The little control box on the camera stand.  There are four remotes that control four strobe packs.  You can dial up and down the power from behind the camera.  I use white tape to mark where the packs should be.  The wooden structure on the left is where I used to store 4x5 polaroids and the holder.  That loupe in the middle I've been using for 30 years.

This also has a home on the camera stand.  It was important during film days but not in the digital days.   But damnit, I told myself to save it so save I do.

This is how you make a fake leg on a fake table in a fake photo set.

A set in the morning light.

I did come up with my new way of getting wine into a glass on set.  Gooseneck pitcher is the new part.

A stick of sorts in the funnel, wine gets poured in a controlled manner, the stick takes the wine into the glass without creating splashes.

I was told I should not use the house gooseneck pitcher as it puts in the taste of wine and needs a wash to rid it.

The heads have a number at the head and again at the pack.  You need to know what head goes where.

I rigged up the camera I shoot with now on the rail of the camera I don't shoot with now.  The view camera rail.  I can rack the camera forward or backward while maintaining the same proportion of camera to set ratio.  Here's it's racked way back so I put a C-Stand under it keep from moving around during multiple exposures.

All these things I've been doing and using forever were looking alien to me.  I had to relearn how and why and when and what again.  I was telling the same story to everybody in my sphere.... don't lose your shit, man, because once you lose it, it may not come back, ever, like my friend's shit isn't coming back and if it does come back, it's not going as good. 

Annie finally held up a metaphorical mirror in front of my face.  "Get back to the center, you know where it is."

 

Morning sun through wine glasses under my feet.

 Skylight on viewfinder

The objects needed to change the size of the softbox light.

A brief interlude.  Made a wine rack and cut way too many slats for it.  Pissed me off that I missed it by that much.  So to use them up, made a rack for John.  Dropped it off today.

Seems to me, the world has lost it's shit.  There's something big going on right now in mankind.  Have no idea on what it is though.  I can see the breadcrumbs that we've dropped for when we get lost.  They're right there, right where we put them. 

Hope they are still there for when we decide to find our way out of the abyss.

Boom arm of the softbox.

Strobe cords and duvateen

And working in The Photo Shop.

At the Base of Veindgofth Mountain

 One of the truly unique of human distinctions is playing music together.  Don't let that anthropomorphism stuff lead you to believe other species do it as well.  We do.  At it's best, you leave this earth as a singular being and meld into the other players and soar upward as one.  Even when it doesn't slot right into the sublime, it's a beautiful time as you try and reach that state.

I started to play with Jules, oh, maybe when he was 11 years old?  He's 18 now

                                                       First official band pic. 2016

 This was after a gig for a Sunday Brunch at the now closed Divewalk Cafe in Sonoma.  Leah was in the group at that point and most of the vocals came from her and Tone Tones.  Jules was on banjo.

                                                                  MemFest 2018, Chico, Ca

We were calling ourselves The Family Jules (even though there was another band out there with that name) because Jules was writing all the songs and becoming the force in the group.  Leah was gone and Meg with her violin came in....Megolin.

                                                                  A few months ago.

We said Hello to Ken and his Cello.  We either do long winded trip jams or Jules' songs based on a novel he's been writing for years.  Jules is no longer living in Cali right now.

It's been nothing but an honor and privilege to have played all those years with Jules.

Here's a link to his first serious recording.  It's a lush cinematic soundscape of his based on a earth that is inhabited by two top of the food chain species. 

Each line is something that needs to be thought about.

At the Base of Veindgofth Mountain

Gather round

 This is for future photographers looking for what it was like during the Post Golden Age of Photography.

 

 

Gold light in a motel in Missoula, Montana

Above photo is unrelated but going through the hard drive looking to find the second to last photo for this post, I saw this from a trip a few years before my tale I'm about to tell.  And it is goldish.

From the archeological data I could find, the first message was September 1, 2016 at 1403 hours.

Tony says, and I'm paraphrasing here to get around potential copyright law suits from ADG, 

 

"Hey there. We are looking for super eerie, hauntingly mysterious images of anything related to wines, wineries and/or vineyards. Gnarly old vines in fog come to mind. So does creepy, dark cellars. They don’t have to be obvious as to what they are of. They could take a little work to figure out and it would be okay

They are for a potential wine brand. 

Got any stock images you’d like to submit for consideration?"

 

 

 

I went through my stock of vineyard stuff and sent some images off.

Above is unrelated also.  Took a camera one year to Death Valley and made little compositions out of the daily find.  They're all on leather drum head.

So, the next time I hear about the gnarly vine job was two years later.  2018.  Again an email from Tony looking for stock images of creepy vineyard stuff.  "Time is of the essence."

I was on location that day and couldn't get to it so he got nothing from me on that ask.

Visually, I was thinking about the #23 hexagram (Splitting Apart) of the I Ching on the photo above.

That was 2018 August.  It's now January 09, 2019 at 0752 hours and this terse email comes in.

 

"Friday or early next week. I want to make sure it’s nasty weather. Going for super moody spooky mystic dark imagery. 

Bring your Gortex."

We talk. It was about a shooting job.  I was to shoot some old vines in the nastiest of weather to give it that authentic look.  He found the different vineyards and I met the owners by the side of the road in downpours in the early morning so I could be let onto their property.  We worked a deal that would pay me for one day of work.  I gave him probably 5-6.  But I did say this job I'd have to bill for the top shelf stuff, not the normal stem and shake, and that would be listed under "expendibles" on the invoice.   It was a such a great job.  Laying in mud, shooting in rain, dense fog, the entire inside of my car was caked with mud, one lens still doesn't work right.

 

 

Unrelated.

  Self Portrait, Chico, California circa before now.

Shot most of the job using a $25 slide projector lens without an aperture. 

 What the slide projector lens can do.  Remember what the directive was, "super eerie, hauntingly mysterious images of anything related to wines,"

 

I see this was shot May 03, 2019.  That's pretty quick I think to have had it done and printed.  It's a wrapper for cases of the wine.  I don't think I've seen the packages out in the wild at this point.

 ADG's waiting room.  The signature metal wall using magnets to attach the art work.

 

Yesterday, I said I should tell the tale of a typical 3 year job from start to finish.  

I pull out my copy.

 

 Edited.  Added a photo of a camera

Time to build an Ark, Ken!

 Ken asked if I could photograph some of his latest pieces.

It was perfect timing, coming off of an 8 month no photography period.  I took a little self imposed sabbatical from the exciting world of commercial photography and needed something to get back into my groove.

Bugs!

Ken has been sculpting animal forms for I don't know how long.  How long Ken?  Moose size, American Bison size down to bugs and insects.

Maybe an Ark is in order at this point.

On set

And in the Photo-shop

Just what I needed to remember how to light something again.  I have a 2-3 month wine job starting that needs what I have forgotten.

"God I love eggnog"

 This morning,

drinking a coffee from the Huehuetanago area of Guatemala,

talking about the color and character of the early AM light,

I said, 'what the fuck, the table just moved'.

 

I picked up my messaging rectangle,

'This is Gail, Ben's wife,

Ben passed away early this morning.

He was so looking forward to your visit."

 

I was going up to see an old friend from Missoula, Montana days,

January 27th arriving at 5:04 at the Whitefish airport.

He lives just outside the western gate to Glacier National Park.

I was going to pitch a tent in his backyard and sleep outside,

He was hoping for deep snow and cold temperatures he said.

I looked at the last time we spoke.

Two days ago.

My last sentence to him, 'I've learned the value of crying everyday."

His was, "God I love Eggnog especially with Rye Whiskey."

Good Bye to Twenty Twenty One

 I said no more pics of the winery table until it came to it's final resting place but that was before recent developments.  For reasons unknown to me, it will probably be 9-12 months before the table is actually situated in the tasting room.

So it needed to be stored somewhere other than my studio.

Some professionals came to take the table away to a storage facility.  

From this morning mere minutes from when the movers came and carted it away.

The professionals came.  I'm using that word because some banter that took place between me and them.

They came a bit understaffed in my estimation so I ordered myself to be drafted into duty.  That's why there aren't any photos of the top being loaded up.

But I took this, when Lulo took off his jacket to show me his professional shirt!

They wheeled everything away into the truck and that was that. 

Bonus pics!!!!

Decided after decades of storing wine in cardboard boxes that a wine rack was needed.

Here seeing how the spacing was before gluing.

Also decided I didn't need one more trivet but decided to make one anyway with left over wine rack plywood strips.  Skylight reflected in the puddle of oil used to finish it.

Goodbye to a very interesting year and a see you later to the table I made during the year.