Verde Smoke

Those of you from my former life, who’ve called me “Teach” and railed at me when I made you edit a story down to one page, might have a chuckle at the thought of me writing a script and storyboards of my own. What’s the old adage…”Those who can’t do, teach”? But here I am again, starting at the blank page wondering how to tell the story I want to share about Lawrence.

I’ve approached this project and my work with MIT@Lawrence with great trepidation. I have the arrogant task to enter a community and both witness and portray it through photography and action in a very short time. My own ideas or predispositions about what it means to live in Lawrence are thick lensed glasses I need to shed quickly. I’ve found it helpful to not shown up in Lawrence with the specific purpose to photograph. I’m scheduling meeting after meeting, armed with only a brief paragraph description of what I hope to bring to Lawrence, a spiel with hints to some sort of qualification, then an army of questions. I ask if my ideas would actually be useful and how I can add to the great work they’re already doing everyday. Then I try to shut up and just listen. THEN and only then, taking a deep breath, do I pull out the camera from my breast pocket and try to recreate those conversations by snapping a photo. It could be standing on a corner, in the middle of the street, crouching behind a wall or pole, or even out my car passenger window.

I describe my methods not for validation or superiority, but rather to convey how this journey of mine isn’t leading to a clear narrative arch as others have done. Every person I talk with complicates the narrative, making it more and more like a choose-your-own-adventure in Lawrence novel. The youth workers struggle to teach the youth to value where they come from, in an environment where integration devalues anything old, moving on means progress, and success is escape. There is a stark contrast in the intense need and the sparkling new capacity to serve it, both in the physical facilities in Lawrence’s community centers but also in the people that open the doors. The looming mills aren’t as empty as you would assume….but is what new business people fill them really what Lawrence needs to grow?

At this point, I’m seeing the landscape of Lawrence as a well designed shell, with beautiful concentric compartments, but the occasional bump or anomaly. The first creature who built the shell has gone, grown too large for it, and careless left it behind to find a new, bigger better home. And other, new arrivals have since moved in, repaired some cracks, used old spaces for new purposes. But they want to grow and leave as well. What does this mean for the continuity of the landscape and structures left behind? How do they evolve if ownership of them seems so tenuous and brief?

In an effort to brainstorm a bit, the characters in the story should be the river, the mill buildings, the churches, organic evidence of growth (trees, grass, spider webs), and hints of human presence (small silhouettes, shadows, footprints). The voice of the story should be a meld of the tones of all the residents, community workers, and business people, but obviously conveyed from my point of view as an outsider.

So I’m hoping my final essay can play up the contrasts and movements, being honest of my role as new observer. I’m also hoping to use some natural sounds, bits of audio conversations (that I haven’t recorded yet by the way), and my still photos to create some very short video pieces that perhaps can popup from one central image (a map? the windows of a mill?). I’m thinking I won’t include any titles or words for reading but instead try to use the audio and photos to tell the themes.

Also, I plan to do some more reading about the history of Lawrence, with an eye to the recent years and also find some evidence of poetry in Lawrence, by reading some Martin Espada.

Also, I took a few new photos on my walk from Our Lady of Good Counsel School down Essex St last week (see Flickr).