Rediscovering One of My Favorite Books...Disfarmer

I'm not sure what I loved first.....the quote or the photographs. There was something familiar about both.

"Sometime during midlife, he was taken with the idea that a tornado had carried him at birth from his natural parents and deposited him in the midst of the Meyer family, which raised him."

I took a couple of steps back from the dimly lit placard on the art museum wall and smiled. I liked this man......I liked the idea that he reinvented himself in midlife....by postulating that the life he was leading was not a result of his own doing but the result of a ferocious natural force that carried him off from his original destiny.

Mike Disfarmer was originally named Mike Meyer. He changed his name to Disfarmer in an attempt to recapture the concept that he was not from around here. Around here ....meant Heber Springs, Arkansas....which during the 40's and 50's was a rural cotton farming area north of Little Rock. Meyer means farmer in German and since he was not a farmer.....he renamed himself Disfarmer...to further distance himself from his surroundings.

About 10 years ago, his negatives were discovered and in 2004 researchers and collector went door to door in Heber Springs digging through old photo albums to find more of his work.

Disfarmer who died in 1959 was described by folks as lacking in basic social skills and without friends. Yet he was the town's commercial photographer....the man who recorded and knew everyone and their memories. He died in his early 70's....his body discovered in his studio days after his death....wearing his uniform....his white shirt and black pants. Supposedly, he ate only chocolate ice cream for months before his death.

He seems the classic brilliant but eccentric artist. The man who couldn't fit in....yet he could capture the very essence of people he could not bond with....he could see what they did not see in themselves.

His photos are simply. He took them in front of a concrete wall...and used only natural northern light. Folks complained that he never asked them to smile....and sessions were long because he was looking for something they didn't understand. Yet when you look at the photos....you see exactly what he was looking for....because he captured it....without a word....you can see stories in each of his pictures.

Another reason I was drawn to the pictures is because they remind me of photos my grandparents saved. The hard scrabble look that characterized Heber Spring natives was also the look my relatives carried from small Eastern European villages.

Take a look.

You can click on each picture and enjoy it....solo.

~~

~~

We're Buried under Two Inches of Snow!

Yes...I know... you're astonished ....overnight....another 1/2 inch of snow fell...1-2 inches accumulation in two days....that's BIG for down here. But unlike yesterday when it was cold and gray and icy....today the sun is shining...and every time I look out the window, it's like viewing picture-perfect winter postcards.

I was out in the snow and walking around by 8am. I opened our back gate, which leads to the main street in our neighborhood, and was greeted by a happy "woof" from an exuberant boxer running and leaping like a rabbit. His owner, practical and cautious, was a half a block away and carefully navigating the sidewalk in big sloppy rubber boots. He waved...I waved back.

In a few minutes, kids' voices were booming from various backyards. It made me chuckle-- when my kids where little I held them back to the magical morning hour of 8 am too...just in case any adults neighbors actually thought they were going to sleep-in on this snow day.

I decided to see if any of our dogs might like to frolic. You can see the wildly enthusiastic response Mattie gave me to the idea of walking in the snow. Maybe white dogs don't do snow.....

When I brought Mattie back, I found this on my car....I felt the same way too...this will all be gone tomorrow....but we can boast to our Northern friends and relatives ....."Well, we made it through one big winter storm down here this season too."

And if anyone wants to come over...please do....I have 3 gallons of MILK, 2 loaves of BREAD and one steamy romantic movie left.

Rediscovering Paris

I was searching for a picture yesterday and was surprised to find how many photos I have completely overlooked in my files because they are from Paris versus Africa. These pictures, now months old, seem new and undiscovered. I sat down with them on this cold rainy day and looked to see if there might be a few I could share.

I remember shooting this picture for a couple of reasons. I loved the man's arm crocked at his elbow (so continental!) and I loved the woman's shoes. I spied those heels from across the street and immediately had shoe envy since I was walking in oh-so-practical athletic shoes. I also liked the light....it was blue... just like in this picture....a consequence of walking down a narrow street with tall venerable old buildings casting gray shadows which reflected the overcast sky.


Here's another photo that surprised me. I took it in the Rodin Museum. I remember passing by it without much thought.... then retraced my steps. "It looks like a Van Gogh," I said to myself but it seemed so ordinary....no glass to protect it....no huge lumbering guards next to it...not even a spot light..instead it just occupied space quietly....as if it was confident that eventually it would dawn on you that it was a Van Gogh....and you would rush back....to adore it. Which is exactly what I did.....

The picture is titled "Portrait of Pere Tanguy" and it has a curious Japanese background. Pere Tanguy owned a paint shop in Paris and apparently was immortalized because he made generous advances of supplies to Van Gogh and other unknowns such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Signac. Van Gogh, during this period, had purchased over 400 Japanese woodcuts which he exhibited in small cafes and studied. He felt their clean lines and their effortless style had something to teach him and some critics feel they helped him break away from Western convention. Van Gogh's painting room had many of these woodcuts pinned to the wall....which is why they appeared in this portrait.

I found 6-7 other pictures from my Paris trip that I thought were interesting...a chocolate shop, a little itty bitty smart car, the Eiffel Tower...and ohhhhh a wonderful food picture from Montremarte. Instead of clumping them here out of context....I decided to post them in my Paris entries in August/September of 06. So please scroll down (a one second scroll) and have a peek at them.

The one I have absolutely fallen in love with is titled.."Window Shopping in Paris." It's wonderful and quiet.

Forest Meditations