melissa shook
Self Portraits (92-93)
About Self Portraits
A series of self portraits from 1972-73, 1992-93, 2002-03, and 2008-09
Self-Portraits, 1992-93
Ten years later. I started in September rather than December. I used the Leica. I did finish eight months, but I never printed the whole set. Now I was living in Boston and my inability to promote myself was evident. There was no reason to produce the series, since I couldn’t imagine where I’d show it. Now I recognize the value of this extended project and will go back to finish it.
It’s fitting that the photographer, Elsa Dorfman, appears on the December 1st. She has a remarkable website (www.elsa.photo.net) and for years urged me to set one up.
I like seeing Damien DiBona, a painter who recently taught me Finalcut Pro while I worked on the short videos, and of Kevin Viens, who I’ve worked with for years and who introduced me to Feet of Clay, the pottery studio in Brookline where I made the installation pieces.
And there’s my cousin, Jacqueline. It was too late when I decided to interview people who had known my mother, hoping to learn something about what she’d been like. But in the process, my cousin, Patsy, told me that Jacqueline Sachs, uncle Henry’s daughter, was living with her husband in Connecticut. I hadn’t seen her since she visited Pat’s mother, Marion, when we were both sixteen or so and in high school.
And there’s Jani, who for at least twenty years edited much of my writing and was so supportive of my photographs. She’s my only friend who has had a successful, long marriage. There’s even a photograph with her husband, Eric Peterson.
Loi, a student who had escaped from Vietnam by boat, produced a remarkable series of photographs symbolizing that harrowing voyage. I introduced him to Jim Fields, the curator at the Cambridge Center for the Arts where his work was shown.
Millie Murray and her husband, Tom, used to hide in the confessionals at Mission Hill Church until it was locked for the night. Then they slept on the pews. Sometimes they stayed out on porches under blankets. Finally a storefront social worker convinced them to sleep in his office until they’d agree to go to Pine Street Inn. Thought that meant separation at night, they spent the days together. When I met Millie, she was on live-in staff. Her job was to fill cups of coffee for the women guests in the morning. After Tom died, I often took her to a donut shop in South Boston where she ogled policemen on their coffee breaks. Then we’d go to the cemetery where her husband, who she called Dad, was buried and she’d say, “Don’t you roll over to that woman in the grave next to you. Wait for me.” And I’d say, “Yeah, you’ll be dumped on top of him.” She’d chuckle.
Maria Magdalena Capos-Pons invited me to show work in her section of an exhibit at the ICA, then on Boylston Street. I’m staring out, the prints of “Streets Are For Nobody” in back of me.
I like seeing the younger version of myself. In my mind, I still look like her.