Note & AttributIons

These are a series of digital archival prints of images about the massive migrations from violent situations that are currently occurring. 

These migrations from Central America, the Middle East and Africa  are  dramatic events that are changing our global socio/political stability and evoking the worst and the best in humanity. And this phenomena will continue as climate change is exacerbated by ongoing drought, loss of arable land and conflict over resources such as oil and water.  Research reflects that the global areas experiencing the most intense conflict also have the greatest problems with shortage of water in the Middle East and Africa.  And in Central America the migration north has largely been the result of civil violence that can be traced to U.S. interventions that have supported well being of global capitalism as opposed to the well being of citizens. Thus it makes sense that a subtext to each of these images is the concept of "fire", as the vast majority of asylum seekers are escaping from some sort of metaphorical fire, have to "walk through" fire to make the journey, and have no guarantees of safety when they arrive at their destinations.  My humble objective is to make images that can depict the experience of these asylum seekers to evoke a sense of compassion and empathy for them in the viewer.

Inspiration and direction for my images comes from global news, and excellent photojournalists*  who are in the field recording this mass exodus in so many places; renowned artists who have been able to capture important historical moments  through their inspired artistic innovations. Everything I create comes through many filters, and I stand on the shoulder of many creative beings.  

My creative journey:
I have been reviewing images from the migrations from both Central America to the United States and Middle Easterners to Europe for the last year as this topic touches me.   Feeling a compassion for and a separation from the individuals making these treks I wanted  to create art that was both compelling and beautiful to enable me to "metabolize" the catharsis I was experiencing about the plight of the migrants.   Then in August 2015 I spent some time at the De Young Museum in San Francisco viewing the paintings of J.M.W. Turner, the English painter often described as the "painter of light".  What I saw J.M.W. Turner doing so effectively was clearly and tightly focusing on selected elements in his paintings, while at the same time distancing, diffusing the viewers attention thus emphasizing certain elements.  I was particularly struck by the way he painted fire in different images.

In the series I developed this last year called "Elements" I was somewhat hypnotized by the image called "Fire".  This series has an image for each elements: Earth, Air, Water, Fire.  In the image "Fire" there is a woman, hands over her face, surrounded by fire with a background of the pictograph of the horse found on the walls of the Lascaux caves in France.  For me she came to represent the collective grief of the feminine over the destruction generated by the greed, fear and egocentricity of the archetypical masculine  in so many cultures.  Clearly  the image of Fire is a potent issue in my psyche.  

Inspired by Turner I created these studies.  Several of them are based compositionally on photojournalists work in the field, as I obviously am not in the field.  Each image has additional elements/images.  But the photos I refer to (see below for attribution) were major references for 3 of the 4 images I present here.  I hold these sources in deep respect and appreciate the inspiration I received from their work.  

This then takes me to the issues of “attribution”, credit for the use of the work of others in my images.  I want to credit the photographers in the field whose content inspired the structure/content of some of this work.  In each piece there is additional work (digital drawings, additional elements, layers, filters, etc.) that have been added to elaborate and enhance composition, tone, structural elements to create emotional and artistic integrity. My motivation is to "drill" deeper into the  emotion of the image by moving past realistic representations of characters - reducing them to silhouettes, layering with other images, adding non realistic elements.  I do not want them images to be personal, rather I want them to be transpersonal, archetypal, universal.

There is so much visual material available that inspires, triggers me to create that I move ahead with the flow of what is emerging.  My purpose is not to seek financial gain for what comes through me, but rather to continue to create what feeds my soul and psyche.  And if the images I make are useful or inspirational for anyone they are free to use them.  As stated here, attribution  to all involved is appreciated.

We are awash with material - images, ideas - and that as all of this swirls inside our psyches.   For me, creating social justice images feeds a humanity inside me that strives to understand and reconcile the world as it is in the here and now.  This is what my creativity is for me.  And I am sensitive to, and have reviewed the practices and regulations around “appropriated” images and want to use as much integrity and transparency with this issue.  I want to credit the photojournalist whose images I have worked off of.  I am trying to contact them and allow them to make comments. I am using these images for educational purposes and will not sell them directly. They will be given to non profit organizations that serve the community of immigrants and displaced people to use for educational or fundraising purposes. I will label and ask subsequent owners of the images to donate at least 50% of their potential profits to non profits who serve immigrant populations.  In this way I am hoping to address the “appropriation” of whatever images I use; and to benefit the migrant population that these images focus on.

Photojournalist images that inspired these works:

•"Escape From Fire: train Image: AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, June 20, 2014;  Central American migrants wait atop the train they were riding north, hours after it suffered a minor  derailment in a remote wooded area outside Reforma de Pineda, Chiapas state, Mexico.  The structure and idea of  a train with people traveling on top of the train come directly from this image, as well as the man crossing from one train to the next. 

•Walking Away From Fire": Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008, AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini, Migrants near the city of Sasabe, Mexico. This was one of many photographs of Central American migrants making the long trek north. The final image is very different but the inspiration came from this image, and there are many of the same elements.

•The underlying Damascus image is "unlicensed" & I don't know the author. This image was taken in a sector of Damascus where approximately 100,000 Palestinian refugees were under siege for almost 2 years.  My understanding is this neighborhood has been bombed and i have not been able to find out what happened to the people living there.

•"Mother & Child: Escape From Fire": The underlying photograph is by Dan Kitwood.  Only the stance of the mother and child and their faces remain of the original photograph.

•"Refugee Camp Syrian": The camp part of this image was taken by Lukas Rüttinger of a refugee camp in Turkey on June 18, 2011 on the Turkish - Syrian border and publish in A New Climate For Peace online June 24, 2015. The hands were from another photo in a refugee camp yet unidentified.