This autumn's swifts, August 6, 2011 7:15 pm

Notes from a Lecture

Moyra Davey's work is featured in Moma's most recent exhibition of New Photography. The work is direct, deep.

See more of her work here.

Laura Sharp Wilson has a website!

Women's Relief Society, 2010

Acrylic and graphite on Unryu paper mounted on wood panel

18" x 12"

The 14th Annual Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts

Just last night I received Richmond Magazine's Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts. The prize is given annually to a dozen (or so) visual, and performing artists who live in Richmond. The artists are chosen by a committee made of previous award winners. This year's selectors said of my work:  

Michael Lease's photography addresses the familiarity and accessibility of the snapshot with an enhanced awareness of the world. He is a community-focused artist who brings people together in a collective experience, as he did when he choreographed a performance event of onlookers gathering to admire the flight of chimney swifts. He sees things others do not and captures them for us. 


It's a real honor to be in the company of those who have won the Pollak in the past, as well as this year's winners: Tanja Softic, Ana Ines King and the Latin Ballet of Virginia, Rex Richardson, Susan Iverson, Samson Trinh & the Upper East Side Big Band, Eric Knight, Todd Raviotta, Scott Wichmann, Joshua Poteat, and Myra Daleng.

Damn good company! 

 

Brad Walker suggests...

John Stezaker

Small Worlds

Former student and good friend, Ed DeWitt, asked if I'd put together a show for the grand opening of the gallery above his camera shop in Cumberland, Maryland. He suggested I do something with all of the unclaimed pictures that were left in the store when he bought it a few years ago. Agreeing that that was a fine idea, I solicited help from he and Kim, and we've put together Small Worlds: Unclaimed Snapshots from DeWitt Camera Centre.

The exhibit will run Sept 10 - Oct 29, with an opening reception on Sat Sept 10, from 5-8 pm.

July 19, 2011--Dubuque, Iowa

July 19, 2011--Dubuque, Iowa

Northern MN is very flat with lots of lakes and rivers caused by the last ice age. Whenever you look out the car window, if you don't see a lake, you see a pond. Very wet. And flat. About 20 south of Minneapolis, however, it began to be full of rolling farm land, and then it became somewhat mountainous. Not the Rockies, but more than hills. Anyway...

After breakfast this morning we went to the Red Wing shoe store to see the world's largest boot. It's an actual boot about 20 feet high built by the Red Wing shoemakers, just real big! Anything to get into the record books.


Using his thumbnail, Dad carved his name into a hide that was on display at the Red Wing historical exhibit.
I did not do this. 7/18/2011

After our hearts stopped pounding, we continued on our way to Wabasha, MN. The National Bald Eagle Center is there, but there's an admission price, so it wasn't for us. We went to the riverfront and saw our own bald eagle. Wabasha is another one of those towns that died a long time ago but still struggles to stand up. Empty streets at 11:30 in the morning, lots of shuttered stores, etc. Sad. Michael loves to stroll through these towns.


Despite having the Eagle Center, Wabasha was empty. 7/18/2011

We then continued down the road to lock number 5 on the river and watched a boat push I think 12 barges (hooked together) through the lock. The barges had to be unhooked and it took two raisings and lowerings to get them all through. Very time-consuming, and there are lots of locks that have to be gone through. Not the most interesting work in the world. Not like accounting, say.


The gray things in the foreground are the covers on barges in Lock No. 5. We watched as the barges were lowered in the lock. 7/18/2011

The next stop was Winona (Michael said Winona Ryder is named after this town). Larger than Wabasha, and loaded with interesting architecture from the 1800s, but dead. After that we crossed into Wisconsin and drove through the Trempeleau National Wildlife Refuge that is attempting to bring back the prairie grasses. Interesting. We would have taken a walk there, but the deer flies were swarming the car, and we didn't dare.


Hills in the Trempeleau Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. 7/19/2011


The super cool, Prairie School, Merchant's National Bank in Winona was a surprise in the center of a town made up of mostly late 19th century buildings.

After driving through enormous farms of corn, and on our way to Dubuque, we were passing through the little town of Dickeyville, WI, when we stumbled upon the Dickeyville Grotto, an absolutely amazing roadside attraction. The grotto is on the grounds of a Catholic church, The priest, Father Matthias Wernerus, who was there for about 30 years, spent five years building the grotto out of bits of broken glass, shells, stones, and other pieces of stuff he found. It's indescribable; you'll have to Google it or something.


Dad at Dickeyville Grotto. 7/19/2011


The hazy evening made it difficult to capture the grotto's splendor. 7/19/2011


A detail of the grotto. It was made up mostly of shells, glass, and rocks. 7/19/2011

We're spending the night in Dubuque. Tomorrow we head to Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's birthplace.

July 17, 2011--St. Cloud, MN

Dad crosses the Mississippi River, Lake Itasca, MN. 7/16/2011

July 17, 2011--St. Cloud, MN

Calamity!! Michael's computer is broken, so I wasn't able to blog last night. Without constant internet service I feel like the pioneers must have felt (but with a cell phone, GPS, e-reader...).

Anyway... On Saturday we drove north to try to get into Lake Itasca State Park. Like other state run stuff in MN the park was closed, but we found an entrance which, though closed to traffic, was very close to where we wanted to be, so we parked on the road and walked in. The visitor's center was closed but all the info about the headwaters of the Mississippi was posted outside, so no problem.

The Mississippi flows out of Lake Itasca in a very narrow stream, so we were able to step across it. And it's shallow, so you can wade down the middle if you want. We saw some old guy (my age, probably) take off his shoes and wade down the river, but he didn't roll up his jeans, so they were soaked. Old people are crazy! We walked around the lake for awhile battling deer flies and then headed north towards Bemidji.


A wet-jeaned pilgrim's progress, Lake Itasca, MN. 7/16/2011

Bemidji, as all of you are no doubt aware, is the home of the famous huge statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue Ox. You've seen pictures of them. And it turns out northern MN is full of statues of Paul and Babe. We saw one today in which Paul was holding a bowling ball and babe had a bowling pin in his (her?) mouth.


Dad didn't mention the huge lake that Bemidji lay astride. Bemidji, MN, 7/16/2011

After Bemidji we headed south and stayed overnight in the small town of Brainerd.

This morning, while waiting for Best Buy to open so Michael could have the laptop checked out--they said it's toast--we hung around in a huge sporting goods/farming stuff/auto store called Fleet Farm. Among scads of other things, it must have at least 10,000 fishing poles. Fishing is very big here, as are hunting and snowmobiling.


Paul and Babe sculpture, Brainerd. Brainerd, MN, 7/17/2011

After Best Buy we took a walking tour of Brainerd that I had downloaded on to my Nook. Kind of interesting, but most interesting is that almost all the historic sites mentioned are long gone. So walking around looking at the sites is kind of dumb. But we did it. Interestingly, the place where we parked, the First National Bank, which is still actually there, was once robbed by Pretty Boy Floyd and his gang. They left town spraying bullets from their machine guns, just like the movies.


The bowling Paul and Babe were a highlight of Baxter, MN. Baxter, MN, 7/17/2011

Next stop was Little Falls. There's a dam there, and there used to be a logging operation, with logjams and the whole nine yards of logging. No longer there, of course, but still fun to look at the old stuff. We walked around town looking at old stores, etc. The town may bustle during the week (though I doubt it), but on Sunday it is completely dead. And that's part of its charm if you're just visiting.


A big mural in Little Falls depicting River Pigs shepherding logs down the river. Little Falls, MN, 7/17/2011

Some random observations: It's very, very hot and humid. Every time I get out of the car or a building, my glasses fog up. It's supposed to be this way most of the week, with temps in the mid to high 90s. It's hard to believe it gets so cold in the winter. And speaking of snow, mailboxes along the highway are designed so they can be raised as the snowplows pile the snow higher and higher.

Tomorrow it's on to Minneapolis; Michael needs an art gallery fix.

July 15, 2011--St. Cloud, MN

Over the next week (or so) I'll be republishing the entries from my Dad's blog that record our recent trip together down the upper half of the Mississippi River. If you'd like to read his blog, go here.

July 15, 2011--St. Cloud, MN
Because my wife of almost 46 years wouldn't take her husband and son to the airport--she had a yoga class she couldn't miss--Michael and I spent Thursday night at Donna's, and she graciously drove us there.

Anyway, we flew to Kansas City, MO, from Reagan, and then got stuck in KC for about five hours because of storms in Minneapolis, our final destination. The KC airport is designed in such a way that if you're stopping there awaiting another flight from the same airline, you can't leave the boarding area and return unless you want to pass through security again. So you can't take a walk, browse in a bookstore, get something decent to eat, unless you do that. We didn't. We just sat in the boarding area for what turned out to be five hours and watched peoples' Kindles, and Nooks, and laptops run out of battery power.


There really are a lot of lakes in Minnesota. 7/15/11

But we finally got on the plane, and now we're here in St. Cloud, along the Great River Road. Tomorrow we'll continue north to Itasca State Park where we'll be locked out because of the State's budget problems.

Headed down Big River

Image lifted from bchpics.com

My Dad and I are are headed down the Mississippi River for the first ever father-son Lease vacation starting this Friday. We're flying into Minneapolis, renting a car and then driving north to the headwaters in Lake Itasca, MN. Dad will be writing a daily journal and I'll be illustrating it w/ the best pictures of the day. My Dad is a great writer. He's efficient, funny and candid. He'll be posting to Travels with Kenny, and I'll be re-posting here at Annabelle's Aspirin.

Do check in!

Record of Receipt

Alec Soth and Co. over at Little Brown Mushroom were sweet to acknowledge having received FLOWERS.

Hi from DC!

The Original Rhinestone Cowboy

Loy Allen Bowlin

Here he is on his tombstone in Mount Zion Cemetery, Franklin County, Mississippi, USA

Laura Sharp Wilson at McKenzie Fine Art

Utah Laura Sharp Wilson's exhibit of new paintings opens tonight at McKenzie Fine Art in Chelsea. Show runs through April 30. Wish I could be there.
See more of her work here.

Screen, 2010

Ode to a Dead Misogynist, 2010

Nov. 28, 2010

A Smattering

New Jersey Wedding Fruit

Surry, Va's Bacon's Castle

Field of Back-lit Va. Cotton

Fim's First Ferry Foray

Corner of S. Brunswick and Main Streets, Richmond.

TJ's Poplar Forest

So Long (not Goodbye), A Slow Song for Swifts

It happened, it was good-- great even.
I conceived and organized it as a way to say "so long" to Richmond's Chimney Swifts who will soon be leaving for their winter home in Peru.
Somewhere between 60-80 people came.
The cops didn't arrest us (no permission was secured).
Everyone faced the roosting birds.
I read an introduction to the evening, the birds, and my history with them.
Mark from Metro Sound on Broad Street provided power for the PA.
Mary Elfner from the Audubon Society talked about the ways of the swifts.
Jonathan Vassar and The Speckled Bird played music while they roosted.
The band didn't plug in.
You could hear them and the sweet chatters of the swifts.

It was all very beautiful.










All photos by Kim Wolfe.
Poster design, card and text by MKL.
Video by Andrew.

My Intro:

The idea of this- me here, you there, and them there was borne out of looking—looking out a north-facing window, in a room, in an apartment, worlds away from here. This north-facing window was the one I’d use to check the weather—the one I would lean out to talk to a friend passing by the candy store below, that I closed on foggy days because the exhaust from trucks wafts into second floor apartments in small Appalachian towns. The room that held this window was spacious and (no thanks to me) sparsely furnished. On the sill was a small, potted Crown of Thorns (also known as a Christ plant); next to the window was a radiator, next to the radiator a pair of hand-hewn candlesticks, and next to the candlesticks a cherry bookshelf. It was at that window that I would sit and read. I taught myself to play the accordion at that window; late at night I would stand there looking out on my little city before heading to bed.

It must be because I was a bartender and rarely home for sunset that it took me so long to notice the small birds swirling above the slender chimney across the street. I knew the building well—a former Chevrolet dealership smack in the city center—its gaggle of rooftops, skylights and chimneys intrigued me before I lived in the apartment. How could I have I missed the birds? I had even gained access to the shuttered structure to photograph it! The day I noticed must have been a Sunday. The bar was closed on Sundays and when finally I witnessed them swirling, swooping and then dropping into the stack dozens at a time I was thrilled.

Seeing this aerial performance across from where I lived led me to the library, to friends majoring in science and to the Internet. After my numerous conversations and trips to the library my view out that window was changed. No longer was I simply watching some birds fly around outside my window. Now I was looking through glass and seeing much further and much more than what had previously been there. The view became wider, deeper, in all ways more vast.

Before Jonathan Vassar and The Speckled Bird perform, Mary Elfner, a friend and an environmental scientist with the Audubon Society, will be talking to you about the characteristics of these birds that I learned were called Chimney Swifts. I’m going to leave the details of their migration, feeding, nesting and flying to a person I want to call an expert, but was encouraged to call an enthusiast.

I just want to say one more thing before I hand over the mic to Mary and the band. As much as it was the swooping, the flitting, the diving, and THE FLYING, that attracted me to these creatures, it wasn’t my envy for or desire to fly that fueled my interest. Instead it was the birds’ habit to come and go that has intrigued me. I’m not envious of their ease of travel. Instead, I find it fascinating that year after year, they continue to return to the same place. I don’t mean to anthropomorphize them, but I also can’t help but be a little jealous of the ease with which they gather and cohabitate.

Much has been made of the bird as a metaphor and I don’t have much to add to the subject—in fact it’s probably best if I publicly acknowledge that the author Douglas Coupland’s neologism “metaphasia – the inability to perceive metaphor” applies perfectly to me. With that said, I’m thrilled that Jonathan Vassar and The Speckled Bird have agreed to contribute to this experience and I trust that their sonic treatment of the subject will say more than I ever could with words. These swifts are urban birds and their roosting, regardless of how many people notice, is a social experience. Thank you for watching them with me.