by Jonathan Blaustein

By coincidence, I was in New York the day after Lehman Brothers crashed, back in 2008. Fear was in the air. Not a nice smell.

I sat in a Hungarian pastry shop near Columbia University, downing cup after cup of diner-style coffee, chatting with a friend. His name is Ivan, and he’s the only person I’ve ever met who introduced himself as a Mexican Marxist Yankee Fan. Top that.

He was my professor in graduate school, an expert in the Globalized Economy. We stayed in touch after I left school, but this was our first meeting in 4 years. Each sip of the weak, caffeinated beverage sped the pace of our speech. Spittle flew, hair was tossed, eyes ablaze.

In the end, we agreed that the Global Economic System would not collapse. The crisis, in it’s purest form, was not yet 24 full hours old. Still, we thought it through, and both believed that there was too much money in the system, too much at stake, for Chaos to Reign. Whosoever had any money left at all, be it the Chinese, the Oil Kingdoms, the Russians…little matter. Money would, in the end, protect itself.

I clung to that belief as the markets fell. It will get better. It will get better. Back home, my in-laws would make off-handed comments, like, “Well, at least we have lots of water, and we can always grow our own food on the farm.” Or other times, someone would say, “At least Tim (my brother-in-law) knows how to hunt. A big elk can last a long time.” Not. Very. Re-assuring.

By now, we all know it never came to that. The system defended itself, though, of course, many still suffer. Still, the milk trucks run, McDonalds cranks out it’s faux-burger-patties, and now we have Facebook. It’s hard to channel the depths of that early fear, but I remember it’s smell.

There are those, though, who need not fear a system crash. They eschew the system, and re-create the old ways. Living off the land, beards aflowing. We have lots of folks like that in Taos, and we call them hippies. Most of them live on the Mesa, where the water flows 600 feet beneath them. Good luck drilling through that.

But that’s all I know of such communities: local gossip and hearsay. Not much to go on. And the little I’ve seen makes me root for the system to chug along a bit longer. I don’t think I’d like the taste of bony rabbit, but you never know.

That said, I was fascinated to get a glimpse inside the lifestyle, courtesy of Lucas Foglia’s new book “A Natural Order,” published by Nazraeli Press. It’s a straight-forward, very well produced volume that settles down into a group of off-the-grid communities in the Southeast of the United States. Fascinating stuff.

The first test that I give a book, when I pluck it from my stack, is, do I want to see more? Is there a need to turn the page? Do the pictures build to something, or can I get a good sense of the thing from the first 10 pages? You’d be surprised how many books, by great artists, are not designed to hold attention. Simply to show off the plates. (Just this morning, I set down a book by Daido Moriyama for that very reason. A big name artist does not guarantee a great book.)

When I picked this one up, though, I was captured, and transported. Ironically, I’d seen some of these images before on the Internet, and was unimpressed. But a book is a thing, with a built-in structure. Not a few illuminated pixels on a screen. And in book form, this work shines.

I’d guess that the artist was using a large-format camera, given the sharpness and clarity of the photographs. But the angles and setting, deep in the woods, would have made that a difficult proposition. Either way, kudos to the image quality.

The photo on the cover shows a young red-headed lad, in the woods, holding up a big cast iron skillet filled with mystery meat. The title, given later, confirms that it’s possum. Yummy, yummy possum. (I think I’ll keep my refrigerator, thanks.)

After the title page, the artist delivers a short statement about his upbringing. Apparently, his family lived off the land, not far from NYC. But they didn’t take it as far as the subjects of the book. So Mr. Foglia, curious to see his how far the lifestyle could be pushed, set out to discover the answers for himself. That is how it’s done.

The pictures are well-composed, and slowly build together the details that matter. Animal skins covering windows, teepees popped up alongside pretty lakes. Guns, and bows and arrows, and chainsaws and women with underarm hair. Water serves to bathe, but also as a mirror for a man checking out his new haircut. An oxplow is pulled by a Toyota pickup truck, a boy drinks raw goat milk from the teat, and a poisoned dead bear rots on the ground. (We also see a token boob shot. Remember, Boobs Sell Books.℠ To be fair, it’s balanced with two penis shots, one belonging to the perfect cross between Chris Robinson and Jesus.)

It’s a seamless vision, clad in cloth, of some people who don’t conform to the standards of the majority. Will you be curious to see this book? I don’t know. Will you?

Bottom Line: Happy Hippies, one possum at a time

To purchase “A Natural Order” visit Photo-Eye

Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.

Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.

by Jonathan Blaustein

Just now, not three minutes ago, I saw a hummingbird. Clomping down my dirt road in flip-flops, I was lost in thought. The first few paragraphs of this column were dancing through my brain; synapses firing, mentally banging on my keyboard. A hundred yards from my computer, and already I could hear the rhythmic song of plastic on plastic.

Then, I saw the whizzing wings out of the corner of my eye, hovering above the most beautiful orange/red wildflower. I stopped dead, turned my head towards the little creature, and watched. Of course, you can’t see the wings move. Everyone knows that. But the blur is hypnotic.

Suddenly, I could hear a magpie squawking. Then, two different bird calls joined the chorus. Next, the sound of the Rio Hondo behind me, whoosh, whoosh, gurgle, gurgle. A symphonic moment, all thanks to Nature.

Of course, the sounds were there all along. I just didn’t hear them, as I was too busy listening to the voices in my head. Ironically, I was planning to write about the intersection of Nature and religion. I had it all worked out.

Then, I saw the hummingbird, and everything disappeared. I was left with only my immediate surroundings. My mind cleared, and I felt much better than I had the moment before. Now, I’m writing a different column than I would have otherwise.

If you were trite, you might say I had my “Moment of Zen.” (Thank you, Jon Stewart.) To all the urbanites out there, I’ll tell you this: I know it sounds cliché. Mountain guy writes about hanging out with the birds, while your background noise consists of honking horns, cursing neighbors, ice cream trucks, and jackhammers working on the roads. (I think they were hammering on Canal St. the entire time I lived in NYC.)

Or, maybe you’ll think something else. “Wow, that sounds amazing. I wish I could live in such a pretty place.” I tell you, we have problems here just like everyone else. Violence and poverty and addiction and wildfires. And you can’t get a decent slice of pizza to save your life, even if you have mad cash like Mikhail Prokhorov.

With respect to the idea of Zen, though, I think it’s worth taking a step further. Art communicates information. (For once, I state the obvious.) Information is a general term: it can mean ideas, of course, but also emotional energy. We’ve been through this before.

Most of time, we tend to focus on the Art that shakes us: dynamic, baroque evocations of Environmental disaster, sexual trafficking, or death. Things like that. Everyone’s always talking about whether Art can change the world, or how images of War are so important for our general body of knowledge. All true.

But how often do we talk about Art that will simply change your mood? Is there value in a photograph, if it only slows you down, soothes your mind, and hijacks your brainwaves away from anxiety or fear or exhaustion, if even for moment?

Minimalism and abstraction have been around for a long time. (The former was popular in China 800 years ago, and the latter evolved in painting a Century ago.) Personally, I tend to prefer my minimalism Sculptural, in the Donald Judd or Carl Andre style. Minimalist photography is not normally my thing.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see Uta Barth’s new book, “to draw with light,” recently published by Blind Spot. Slowly tease the simple hardcover out of its matching slip-cover, and the world’s noise begins to melt into the background.

The volume is broken down into three sections, each displaying a very narrow range of imagery. The first, my favorite, connects to the title. Curvilinear, wave-like forms of white light are depicted on luminescent, white curtains. Again. And again.

One person’s seductive beauty is another person’s “boring as hell,” but hear me out. One minute, I was stressed out about having to write this column, not sure I had the proper creativity-juice-cocktail today. The next moment, my mind was still. I felt better.

The photos are unquestionably beautiful, and simple, lacking any over-arching socio-political message. If you asked the artist, she might not discuss the Zen qualities, the hint of Buddhism. Or perhaps she might. It doesn’t matter.

The other two sections are similar. The second depicts white light on white studio cabinets. The final returns to the curtains, this time interjecting solarized images with the normal ones. Not my style, as I’ve seen a few too many student-cell phone-solarizations to find the tactic worthy of such a major artist. Little matter. I’ve had my few minutes of peace for the day, and have emerged thankful.

Bottom Line: Beautiful and simple, which ought to be enough

To purchase “to draw with light” visit Photo-Eye

Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.

Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.