a letter to a friend...

G,

I'm reminded of a carriage house I lived in back in Chicago in the late 80's. It has been to this day my most favorite home to live in. It had a deck right out my front door, a 2 car garage underneath where I kept my car and 2 motorcycles. I had a little hibachi grill on the deck and because to the west of the deck was the back of the "main" house, afternoons into the evenings was absolutely gorgeous because I never got the direct sun light that heated up during the summer months. Inside was just 3 rooms, which consisted of a very large kitchen/dining area, living room and bedroom. The bathroom to the place was also very large. It had a sliding door closet, where I ended up setting up my enlarger and developing gadgets, etc... I had a stainless steel sink that I made to fit above my bathtub to soup all my prints and film. It was the only pain to printing, having to set up that sink.

It was evenings similar to tonite where I decided to get started on working a selected image and create, and print into the morning. My carriage house was its own building, no neighbors to piss off because of my pacing back and forth, loud jazz playing on the radio from station WBEZ. Neil Tesser, then Larry Smith opened up so much new music to my ears. I often shut down as Larry did around 4 A.M. In and out of the "darkroom" to the kitchen I paced, to view my latest test strip, then photograph....

Those days to me will always be heartfelt because of the creativity that exploded out of me and into me. I led a carefree life, without headache or heartache to deal with. Opening up a new file, late into the evening, [my daughter] sleeping in her bed, new music playing out of itunes and me in front of my screen working on a beautiful image... I'm making fond memories for myself and I'm realizing it in real time. The desire to create and keep on creating has suddenly become much more important, the desire to seize, much more important...

Thanks,

Ted