Top of my bucket list/family pottering

It was actually work, a day planned back in January. But Trouble 1 felt it was more pottering. I am thinking quality family time.

It was in 2002 I had my separate photo exhibit at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, commissioned by them. It was a big show, 44 B&W selenium toned pictures and 8 large in color. In 2007 the region museum in Umeå (Länsmuséet) put them on display too.

The reason the exhibit works in both cities is that it’s about both cities. Or actually, one city and one village. When I first came to Seattle I started shooting what I perceived as the soul of Seattle. Not the typical postcards, but odd parking meters, dressed up sculptures, crummy house boats, the rain. This was easy in those early years, as I was shooting with my outside eye, looking in. The assignment picturing Umeå in the same way was impossible though. Umeå is too close to me, I can’t see it.

Arriving here 1997 after a year in Seattle brought me unexpected help though. I was so miserable coming back. I didn’t want to leave Seattle. Although it was Midsummers, wonderfully light and green, I couldn’t see it. It was black around me. Until I picked up my Rolleiflex and looked through the lens. That’s when I started to notice. The tall shadows in the evening light. The reflections. The details. And that’s when I knew what the Swedish part of the exhibit would be. The micro cosmos here in my village. My front yard.

Trouble & Trouble grew up with their mom constantly around and about with her camera. Always attentive of the light. Hey, I need someone sitting on the dock, the light is falling! My friends and family were haunted by me for years while this epic project was going on, poor guys. 

But the efforts were worth it (at least for me!), because in the end Away is Home, Home is Away (Borta är hemma, hemma är borta) was a really nice show. The title tells the story about having two homes, being enriched and divided by the constant longing for the place where you are not.

Anyway, since 2007 the show has been stored in boxes. I have this plan though. At the top of my life bucket list is making a book out of that show. I have the pictures, the titles and the texts which accompanied the photos. It’s just doing it!

Well, it’s not just just… as I can’t do it myself. I assembled every single photo, mat and fram myself in 2002, disassembled to clean the glass and assembled again for the show 2007. But today… I can’t do any of that. And it’s hard for me to even understand that I once could. The only way getting it done is asking my sons for help. And I know it’s not something they would be over the moon for. But they agreed on helping out.

Trouble & Trouble were here a little after noon last Sunday. The first hour we spent on trying out which scanner to use and the technicalities to get an as good image as possible - my analog prints are (as my printing teacher at Pacific Photo Center Northwest put it - outstanding (yes, really!), and to make digital copies at the same quality is pretty much impossible. The next hour I taught my sons how to dissemble and assemble the frame kits, and then it took us some more hour to get industrious about the whole thing. Work stations, flow. I was lying in my office on my portable sun bed doing the delicate job taking out and putting back the photos in the mat package.

Late afternoon Audrey and Fay joined and we took a break for dinner and some birthday celebration - spring is the family birthday season and everyone except Fay changes numbers at age. Then back to business again. Trouble 2 and Audrey were the last to leave. At 00.10. It took us pretty much 12 hours to digitalize Away is Home, Home is Away - Borta är hemma, hemma är borta, but now it’s done. It’s really done.

Which is nothing but incredible. And I am so grateful. But I am even more grateful for all those hours together with my sons. It was something about knowing and being ready for the assignment. Everyone mentally there and in a good mood. Hours floating away meanwhile we got to hang out together, being industrious. Planning for summer work days around the house. Chitchatting. Pottering. It was something in the dynamics. 

Usually when we get together it’s for an hour or two and for a dedicated subject that isn’t leaving any room for chitchatting. Most of the time the girlfriends are there too, which I love, but I am realizing it was a very long time since it was only me and my sons. I can’t even remember when it last happened. And it just gave me the feeling of family. Family as it once was, minus one, but still, family. Sad, in a way, bitter sweet. But nice. Warm and nice.

The book, at the top of my bucket list, I want to do for myself, but also for my sons. The years for that project is a big chunk of their childhood. And Seattle and our village are their two homes as well as mine. And I am hoping that book, when it’s done (and it will be) is something they will cherish and take pride in.