(In)Fame(Y)

Originally Posted Sunday, January 5, 2014

(tribute)

Bad things happen when you die.  I did an image search for Phil Everly.  Apparently reporters had a difficult time finding a good photograph of him.  This is the best of the lot.  Most showed him in recent years bloated like a toad.  You have no control over these things.  I worry about it. 

Somehow I got caught in the internet version of the card catalog yesterday and found myself in the Jayne Mansfield section of the library.  I was going to write this morning that Phil had gone to meet Jayne and planned to post his pictures with this.

It was only at the last moment, though, that I realized I had been duped just like hundreds of customers, I'm certain, who ordered this breathtaking film only to find that Jane Mansfield was not Jayne Mansfield.  Smut mongers are like bankers, creepy, cheating capitalists. 

*     *     *     *     *

Let's begin again. . . sweetly.  It is difficult.  I woke once again too early in the dark with a runny nose and an aching knee and a crippling back.  It is difficult not to lash out at everything holy and sacred. 

I spent yesterday trying to organize my studio.  I have had stacks of prints lying about without care, but recently I discovered transparent envelopes that are big enough to hold even the largest of them.  For the smaller 16x20 and 16x24 prints, there were envelopes available at the local art store.  For the prints that were 20x30 and 24x36, I had to order envelopes from an internet source.  I didn't realize how many pictures had piled up.  I have made six or seven trips to the art store buying progressively more packages of envelopes each time.  There are hundreds of prints.  Not figuratively.  I may be underestimating.  I am overwhelmed.  I haven't seen many of the prints since I made them.  Wow!  I was by turns amazed at my genius and stunned by my idiocy.  They are testament to one or the other.  At first I thought I would have to buy a print cabinet.  I wanted one of the beautiful antique wooden ones, of course, but as the prints began to pile up, I realized that I would need three or four of them. 

WTF?

Now I am thinking about having a giant print sale, dent and scratch style.  Normally I would sell one of the prints in a gallery for $1,200.00.  That's what the gallery owner said he would have to charge.  He takes half.  I pay for framing.  Then there is the cost of printing and cotton archival paper.  You can see that I walk away with little of that money.  And then there is the cost of the studio, the software, the cameras, etc. 

Want a 16x 24 print?  I can give you a very good price. 

As I worked alone sleeving prints, I thought I needed an archivist.  I am not good at cataloging things.  I will also need someone to help me curate the prints.  I began thinking that when the reception room was cleaned up, I would get some decent furniture where people could lounge comfortably.  I would set up a bar and invite some friends over to help me evaluate prints.  One by one, I would put them onto a big easel where they could be easily viewed and get their opinions on what they thought, jotting down notes about their reactions that I would then slip into the sleeve behind the print.  Of course, I would sell them the prints they wanted at a very good price.  "Bring some money," I would tell them.  "You might want something." 

And then they would tell their friends.  Friends of friends. 

It would be like hitting the lotto. 

And then I would suddenly get the big chill and think, "Nobody is going to want these.  What a colossal waste."

If you have been following this blog as well as the last one for years, you have only seen a fraction of the images.  It is truly overwhelming to see the prints.  While my friends have been watching golf on t.v. or drinking with friends at the local bar, I've been working maniacally toward (in)fame(y). 

I kept thinking to myself as I sleeved and sleeved and sleeved that each of those pictures took twenty minutes or more to print.  How much time?  Each took approximately an hour in post-processing, maybe for some a bit less.  More time.  And I haven't printed one fortieth of the number of images I've processed.  There are, too, endless hours of studio time with models and without. 

I am so fare ahead, I don't think anybody can catch me now.  I'm a fucking miracle.

Or an idiot. 

I have to wait for the art supply store to open so I can get some more sleeves.  I will buy them out today and then go to another that I haven't depleted yet.  I will put on the music and bend my painful back to the labor.  It seems infinite.  I can't explain fully. 

The sun is up now, the coffee pot depleted.  My nose has quit running and the pains have somehow lessened.  A woman jogs by my window.  The day begins.