Mr. Lee in his welding shop at East 112th and Kinsman, 1994.
Mr. Lee, Cleveland (1994)
Work and truth? It’s simple, truth is work. Work, action, truth. Hunger is the best sauce, fingers came before forks, when things are physical, ain’t got time to think. See, hear, touch, smell, tell you all. Instincts spot truth and completely undertand and recognize its absence.
“At bottom, all experiences are ineffable, which is precisely why they are such a challenge to science.” — Christof Koch
It’s the Long Path. RealStill, intellectually, is rated “X” and a mind, utilizing an unusual level of experience, creates reality-based art that has nothing to do with the business of the art world or the art world itself, because it ends, where it begins, by returning to the folks and places i shoot, and giving them their pictures, and/or giving them prints of my best work. A real money-loser, there’s no currency, for RealStill, in fame, celebrity or the Name, although that’s the only way to have the work be seen and have your work remembered. The work, before this site, was only seen by the people i shoot, and live with, and, it’s work that only ends when i give people their pictures, that we collaborated on, and, Mr. Lee is a good example. He’s also a good example of a person who liked photography above his welding, never made money at it, and handed out his pictures to the locals and friends, and supported by his welding shop.
Mr. Lee made his money welding but his love was photography (not mine). He set up this studio in his shop, where he could shoot all the neighborhood people and display their pictures. We would both practice by taking pictures of one another in Mr. Lee’s studio/shop. This is one of the shots from those times. There are no other pictures of Mr. Lee doing his thing, as he was always busy taking people’s pictures, not to mention, welding.
A few years after this picture was made, fire erupted in his welding shop and Mr. Lee never made it out alive. It’s capture on the level of disappearance, that can coincidentally, sometimes be the only record pf things about to be gone.
To my knowledge, no other shots of Mr. Lee in action exist and his shop has been an empty field since his death. I presume his archive, including his showcases of locals went up quickly in the flames. Photography has no essential connection to the world and basic truth, all art is fictive and self-constructed, the camera lies and deceives and there is no such thing as origianlty? Really? I say it’s operator-dependent and, in realty, in the moment, is where you’ll find tons of novelty. Only one shot exists of an interesting person at work? Then, not everything is a copy.
During those years, i would go to The Bar and other mechanics that drank there, would always tell me to stop by Mr. Lee’s, that he wants to hang out. I never got the chance, thinking he’d be there. And, he left. But these times, captured with Mr. Lee in 1990, remain his only record of his work and life, no copy, no reinvention, no remake.
Authenticity is accessed by deeds, one of which can be shooting pictures, by full participation. With disappearance, it’s the only thing a person can do to fix a memory and a time, whether they know it or not. That’s how i got involved with disappearance all along. Experienced it. Likewise, truth is only accessed by deeds over time. It’s work. While photography is built for the hit and run, using it to go deeper over a long period of time, every day, will give you, not a sense of place but its truth, or, truth of place. In other words, the “field” is also home. When i leave it to go home, i’m still there.
We collaborate on pictures, not an opportunity, simply living life, working, attached to no other goal. “La experiencia es la differencia” or, contact. Thought, alone, in isolation, inside can’t get near truth, or, at least, reality. Thought based on contact with the world, without mediation and limited to all the senses, and lived, in other words, verified is different. Today truth and fact has to now sit next to faith-based facts, alternative facts and millions of “narratives.” Institutional or media objectivity, where all are afforded equal time to express their opinons, fails, particularly in a time of feelings-as-truth and the social schizophrenia of misinformation. Giving equal time to nuts and goofballs, many, with the most lame, unrealistic, society-damaging conspiracies, is absurd. Free speech and this psychotic speech and stupid speech aren’t in the same league, by a long shot.
The starting point and guide is usually invisible, but it’s a life in the world that i shoot and participate in. A shooter like this, i guarantee he wouldn’t take any shit, being equal to the subject, but with empathy and a perspective. You cannot relate to things or understand things by defining them. Language is not the world, there is no alternative to fact, and the past, history, ain’t much without seeing it according to its times, not ours. Yeah, read about it, view it, but go out and experience its full dimensions.
Mr. Lee, outside his neighborhood, wasn’t known. Others in Mr. Lee’s town, some like Alan Coles and especially Jaspar Woods, got some play. There is also Charles Cushman who took care of Chicago and so much more. He also supported his pictures with his job as a statitician.
Going under, and self-cancelling since 1989, to only surface with RealStill, and, obviously i’m still under, it’s not art of anything official, sanctioned or institutional and academic. I’m interested in putting my money where my mouth is, experience and truth, action and verification. A camera can go to the source. Who, amongst artists, go to the source? Lives and works there? Who, amongst people, formulates all ideas and judgements post facto? The source ain’t me, i’m no news agency. The source is where i live and work. It begins with the sun, moon, earth, and all things, both living and not. That’s a ton o work. The poet from Paterson said it the best. “Say it! No ideas but in things.” I would add, or replace, ideas, with truth. But that’s always been my problem.
For RealStill it ends there, the moment i return with the pictures i promised for the person whose picture i took, or the land i shot with that person’s knowledge. Experiencing life is innately meaningful and impactful, that i forget about my own pictures of it, so much so, that all this work has never been seen, before this site.
“I have no secret but hard work. This is a secret that many never learn, and they don’t succeed because they don’t learn it. Labor is the genius that changes the world from ugliness to beauty, and the great curse to a great blessing. I know of no genius but the genius of hard work.” – JTW
It’s cinematic as hell, inborn to the work, shooting stills, many with with movement and love of light. Cinema, i did for fifteen years, and was my core. I like to use light and capture, getting to some truth through hard work.
From the Good Book, “But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” James 2:18
And what would the Bad Book say?
In Deed and Truth
Source Work – The will to RealStill
RealStill is, intellectaully, rated, X.
RealStill is the antipode to screen-mongers and screens and these digital “patriots and warriors” whose version of the world mirrors nothing but measly selves being manipulated by an unregulated screen where anything goes, but little truth. RealStill doesn’t have to go to the source, it’s already there, living and working, in the world of things, where its truth, facts and ideas spring from, and all is post-facto, not pre-facto.
“Voltear un negativo a positivo es el arte. La libertad es nuestro oro. De cuello azul es el modo. El objetivo es la verdad.”
Opere est veritate is just putting your money where your mouth is, and, with regards to truth, it’s a debunking. Flipping negative to positive, and making something from nothing.
Give me truth over falsehood, life over death, and, do something with your life.
Satire arises out of times that have become impossible, or too crazy, but mostly it’s just serious, direct and unfiltered experience, participation, without irony. And, when somethng is at stake, or, with, your back against the wall, perhaps with a weapon pointed to you, things are sharpened by finding what you’re made of, and how much truth you can stand. And, when found, then what?
Certainly no living thing has ever had any sort of choice in its existence, which could’ve been intentional, accidental or forced. What is entirely up to us is what we will do and what path we will follow from birth until death. RealStill’s highest values are freedom and truth. I buy the freedom, use it to find and shoot truth, In America, you want freedom? Make money. Want more freedom? Make more money. I work, like many, doing stuff i might not like, to buy the freedom, to cultivate truth and fact with a camera and a keyboard, like i’m doing now, to render a truthful rendition, about things, places and people that work a certain way, not easy to explain, but if you see it... call it soldiering, and a world of intuition requiring only the five senses, aim, timing and no filters, neutral density and a polarizer.
Work and truth, an entirely actionable philosophy, and working outside the self, to find some basic truth. The performance is when i shoot in the world of people and things, and, ending, not in the show, but only when I return with the prints of this existence. It keeps me acting, not reacting, and that’s one of the keys to life, along with the work it takes to understand what time it is and shoot it. Sometimes it’s the line of fire and sometimes church bells ring, birds sing and a train’s horn is heard in the distance. The point is you’re more alive than you’ll ever be, out here.
Can a website, itself, be art? I don’t know, but RealStill is free, no ads, no careering, no commerce, non profit, free and no has no name, meant to house an archive drawn from at least one thing that’s better than art. Life, and, also, the world. If art, it’s the art of experience, that, at a minimum, captures the physical presence of truth by the actual experience of it.
A camera is equally capable of lies, truth, fantasy, or reality, directed by an operator, in my case, to capture the physical truth of things. After the internet, D. T., and now with, a.i., if we can no longer agree on the most basic modes of language, communication, and methods of proof, than how can we ever expect to…it’s nothing new to make art from what’s real, but it’s rarer than ever in the era of disruption, concepts and conspiracies. Of course, if we limited our ideas to things (reality) we all agree are there, it’s a start, but it’s gone too far. Pictures are no proof to conceptualists and conspiracists.
Veracious culture stems from genuine things and people, something’s at stake. It’s unconcerned by the nature of representation, or, someone’s relation to this thing or that. A source artist is outside overvalued IP, PC, conceptual or appropriation schemes, by its own definition. The source is novel reality, not unique selfhood. The source is not me, it’s where I live, and begins with the sun and moon illuminating the world of actual people, places and things, pictures, sounds and text, done by action, not introspect, artifacts of existence.
Any way we do it, we end up in the same place. It’s just a preference and profession, where ideas and appraisals are relative, taming overvaluations that skewer the actual values and the reality of things, done with soul, and not turning a solid into gas by desublimation, but a physical artifact by sublimation itself.
Soul and truth connect through different channels, and they are magnetically tied. No name, schools, slogans, concepts, but things searched for, and experienced. Pictures and any ideas, remain post-facto, postquam actum est sublatus, by working an open range with an unfiltered mind. Gradually we lost sight of the source. Want some? See what’s gone and still remains. For too real reality, go to – realstill.com. And, always Think and Read.
We have so much freedom, use it while it’s here. A real life in the world is not gone or in the past. You let it be that. I understand about comfort, your family and technology. We make decisions, but it is possible. Stay inside with your devices, cable and your own mind and, i guarantee, the world will appear racist, violent, etc., Go out into the world and mingle, embed and you’ll find a lot tof the isms simply evaporate in the real time and place of things. Ideas, after the facts of living, is where i want be, in the source of all things and not, of course, institutionalized, but free.
Truth by debunking, through experience of just, what is, and what’s common to us all.