Cousins

Bei with her cousin Jesse on the Olympic Peninsula, 2010.

(Click for larger images)

I wrote a short post last year about a quick visit to Austin, Texas, where my two sisters live with their families. Bei has no less than six first cousins, scattered literally from coast to coast and from north to south. My brother, Clark, lived close to us (in Denver) for a while, so Bei is close to his son, Jesse, and they still love to get together even though now Clark and his family live on the Olympic Peninsula. Jesse's enthusiasm is unbounded, and is currently directed towards baseball, but I suspect that he and Bei will manage to find common ground when they (hopefully) see each other this summer.  My sister Emily's daughter Sofia, loves to hang out with her older cousin, Bei. They have a mutual interest in fashion, and generally sidestep their less sophisticated boy cousins.  Em's son, Manny, about Bei's age and an avid guitarist, is a rising young star in Austin's music scene with his band, Taco and the Enchiladas. My other sister, Kim, has a son, Ruess, who recently earned his black belt.  

Ellen's sister, Connelle, in New Jersey, has twin Chinese daughters, Lauren and Leigh, who are older than Bei. They are currently slogging through a tough crew season, and are incredibly talented academically and artistically. Bei has always loved Lauren and Leigh, and now soaks in every insight into their teenage world.  

Collectively, the cousins are a formidable group of kids.  

My parents were both only-children, so I never had first cousins, but I had three siblings.  Bei is an only-child herself, so I love that she has this large group of cousins in her life.  I wonder what stories they will remember together when they are grown up?

Bei and Jesse, Olympic Peninsula, 2010.

Bei and Jesse, Olympic Peninsula, 2010.

Jesse, Lake Crescent Lodge, Olympic Peninsula, 2010.

Bei, Point Breeze, Virginia, 2010.

Jesse, Pt. Breeze, Virginia, 2010.

Bei, Ruess, Sofia, Manny, Pedernales State Park, Texas, 2011.

Leigh (L), Bei, and Lauren (R), Snowy Range, Wyoming, 2011.

Yosemite Valley: 1982-83

Mike Fisher, Rex Hong, Ken Driese.  Yosemite 1983 imitating the famous photo of John Long, Jim Bridwell and Billy Westbay.  I'm almost certain we didn't stuff anything into our pants.  I mean, why would we??

(Click photo to make larger if you dare)

Yesterday was my birthday and as I related on Facebook, 30-years ago, in 1982, I spent April 25th on Dinner Ledge, Washington Column, Yosemite, with a bunch of good friends who jumared up there to celebrate.  We had cake (a little worse for the hauling), beer, and a nocturnal visit from a ringtail cat who enjoyed some cake.  The next morning, Rex Hong and I jumared our ropes over the notorious rope-cutting Kor Roof and continued to the summit of the Column. 

During that same spring, Rex and I climbed the Salathe Wall on El Cap.  It was our first trip the big stone, and I was scared, truth be told, but after a while you are so committed that it doesn't matter anymore.  We did a lot of aid, and we took a long time--at least 4 nights on the wall.  Now, of course, it is done in less than a day.  As I recall, Todd Skinner and Paul Piana were working on the free ascent then, and there was chalk in unlikely places.  I took my two longest lead falls on that route--both caused by inexperience and leapfrogging aid gear while hurrying to beat darkness to a bivy.  

Here are a few old photos that I scanned this morning.  In 1982 I was much more interested in climbing than in taking good pictures.  

Me, following Rex's lead up Adrenaline.  I learned a lot from trying to survive as Rex's partner.  His abilities were considerably more advanced than mine.

Rex Hong at the top of the South Face, Washington's Column.  April 26, 1982.

Jim Olson (left) and Les Hutchinson (right) photographing Rusty Hardin with a damaged cig.  I wish Rusty was still around.

Rex, Salathe Wall.  1982.  Aiding off of El Cap Spire.

Rex.  2nd headwall pitch, top of the Salathe Wall.  1982.

Neil Starret (blue), Jim Doss (brown), Greg Marin (in bag).  Dinner Ledge.  1982.

Rex.  El Cap Spire.  Salathe Wall.  

Rusty Hardin.  Dinner Ledge.  April 1982.

Hauling the pig.  Salathe Wall.  1982.

Governor's Capitol Art Exhibition

All three of the images that I submitted for Wyoming Governor's Capitol Art Exhibition were accepted by the jury.  I'm excited to be part of this show for the 2nd year.  The reception this year is June 30 in Cheyenne.  I'll provide more information later in June.  These images will be displayed as 12" x 18" framed prints and are for sale.  Part of the proceeds support the arts in Wyoming.  All of these images have appeared in this blog before.

Bath Ranch, Laramie Basin.

(Click images to view larger)

Grain Silos, Chugwater, Wyoming.

Boulder, Skull Rim, Red Desert, Wyoming

Ancestors and Crow Indians

Some of my ancestors on my Mom's side, in Alabama.  

(click photos to view large)

Dan Hayward, a photographer here in Laramie, gave a presentation in Laramie yesterday about a project he’s working on comparing his contemporary photographs of the Crow Indian Reservation to photographs from the early 1900s taken by a Native American photographer named Richard Throssel.  Dan’s objective is to compare how two photographers with utterly different contexts view similar scenes, and how these photographic contexts communicate differently. 

One of Throssel’s photographs was a gorgeous portrait of awoman named Pretty Shield, a Crow medicine woman.  Pretty Shield was the great great great grandmother of Audrey Plenty Hoops, who happens to be going to school here at the University of Wyoming.  She spoke for the first half hour of the presentation, walking us through her remarkably detailed knowledge of the lineage of her ancestors from Pretty Hoop to herself.  Audrey  showed photographs of some of them and told funny and intimate stories, as if she had been there herself.  It was surprisingly moving.

The writer Milan Kundera, in his book Immortality, posits that there is no eternal life, but instead that we live on only in the memories of those that knew us personally (he calls this “small immortality”), or for famous or well-known people, in the public memory (“great immortality”).

The Crow seem to embody this notion of immortality in their welcoming of long-dead ancestors into their daily lives. Audrey spoke of her many “grandmothers” as though she saw them every day.  I, on the other hand, know very little about my ancestors before my grandparents.  My parents are organizing our family trees and I look forward to learning more.  I’m slowly collecting photographs of my ancestors that my father scans and sends to me, but in many of them I know nothing about the people pictured.  Our culture could learn from the Crow in this regard. 

Pretty Hoop was born in 1856 and died in 1944, at the age of 88, but she walks today in the minds of her descendants.  Imagine the changes she saw in her lifetime and the perspective that she passed to her children, grandchildren and great great great grandchildren. I wonder what ancestral wisdom in my family has been lost over the generations.

My Dad with his mother, probably during a trip to Arizona.

Me and my sister, Kim, with my Mom's father, Oscar Lee McCall, at his furniture store in Enterprise, Alabama.

Farm Equipment

East of Chugwater, Wyoming. 

(click to enlarge)

I wonder how much old farm equipment is scattered across the Great Plains, sinking into the grass and creating rabbit habitat?  There must be a lot.  Eastern Wyoming is barely hospitable enough to support serious agriculture, at least compared to the heart of the Plains, and yet even here each wheat farmer seems to have his own bone yard of slowly rusting tractors, wagons, and other complicated machines that I can't identify (where I grew up, farming equipment was limited to lawn mowers).  And that isn't even counting the cars and trucks.

Van Tassell Road, north of Torrington, Wyoming 

 Van Tassell Road

Van Tassel Road 

Van Tassell Road

Fashion and Passion

Bei, age 4, with large high heels in China.

(Click to enlarge)

I'm curious about fashion photography in the same way that I'm curious about particle physics or religious faith.  I'm incapable of really understanding it, but sometimes I can't take my eyes away.  At a personal level, I've been wearing the same clothes since I was about 10 years old and except for shorter hair and a general surrender to gravity, not much else about my appearance has changed either.  Still, I sat down last night and watched a fantastic documentary on Bill Cunningham, the famously eccentric and relentlessly productive NYT street and fashion photographer,  responsible for the Sunday NYT "On the Street" column featuring his images of fashion on ordinary people on the streets of New York that he produces each week, despite being over 80 years old and apparently never driving a car.  Cunningham rides his bicycle everywhere, lived most of his career in a tiny apartment in Carnegie Hall (once home to an eclectic mix of artists), slept on a mattress propped up by milk crates, and at least according to him, never had time for a romantic relationship of any kind ("I was too busy.").  He's a testament to the power of passion and love of what one does.  Watch the movie if this sounds interesting--you can stream it on Netflix (I received no compensation for that).

Bei, unlike her father (or mother), is fascinated by fashion, once pronouncing that she wanted to be a "fashion consulter," proving once and for all that nurture and nature are indeed independent forces.  Even when she was four (she's now almost 11) she was very much interested in clothes.  We lived in China that year, and for Christmas her greatest wish was to have her own high heeled shoes.  This motivated me to stretch my Mandarin and my dignity to the limit in a ladies' shoe store in Lijiang, where I finally convinced the skeptical salespeople that I truly did want to buy the smallest available pair of red stiletto heels for my 4-year-old daughter.  They were appalled.  

Passion is a fascinating quality in any context, and a driving force for anyone who loves what they do.  Bill Cunningham, now relocated to a "nicer" apartment (the Carnegie apartments were tragically converted to business space and the artists evicted), had his new landlord remove all of the kitchen cabinets so that he could move six decades of negatives into the vacated space.  Among those are images of some of the most iconic figures (fashion and otherwise) of the last century, along with many more of  unnamed people on the street, dressed provocatively, and captured on film by one of the most prolific photographers of our time. 

 Bei, age 4,  Lijiang, China.

Hawk Springs, Wyoming

Old garage at Hawk Springs, chocked full of interesting looking stuff.

(Click to enlarge)

Hawk Springs, Wyoming is a small "town" that occupies a road intersection between Cheyenne and Torrington.  Ed Sherline and I stopped there in March during our road trip to the Eastern Plains, attracted to the run-down look of the place and the collection of abandoned cars in a small lot to the right of the building pictured above.  There was a not-too-welcoming warning painted on the back door of this place that said something to the effect of "Keep your f-ing thieving hands off of my stuff," so we were a little loathe to penetrate too deeply onto the property, even though I doubt that anyone was watching us down the barrel of their shotgun.  I did risk peering into a broken window.  Some interesting things were in there, including a very old car (Model-T vintage), antique cigarette signs, and old bicycle parts.  The remainder of the space was filled with not-so-interesting things:  old tires (many), milk crates, unidentifiable crap.  I hope to return one day and explore further.

Welding is available.

Old car graveyard, Hawk Springs.