Stay Curious

Staring at the yellow club bow tie resting just below my teacher's scrunched chin, I sat listening to his systematic dissection of my final high school paper. "Sentence five on page three uses the passive voice, you should know better," the infamous Clint Darling said stroking his immaculately trimmed goatee. Years earlier, as lore had it, Gus Van Sant had sat in the exact same chair, enduring similarly pedantic conversations. Inspired by these exchanges, Gus based the teacher's character in Finding Forrester after this very same English teacher.

Having been accepted to Colby a few weeks earlier, I sat pleasantly disconnected from the well-worn editions of Homer's Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn stuffed into the built-in wooden cabinets. Like a snowboarder looking down from a fast moving chair at the long lines of Camelpack-wearing yahoos waiting their turn below, I glowed with a naive sense of accomplishment having made it through the gauntlet only to wait in a similar line after a brief ride down the mountain.

As if bringing a comma splice to my attention on page four, Clint chimed, "I don't think you're going to graduate from college." Pausing to look up from my paper long enough to capture the look of disbelief on my face, he added, "You are too used to getting by on talent alone and haven't figured out how to put in the work."

Before he could continue his would-be monologue, I fired back "Why do you say that?" buying time to formulate my pithy defense.

"As I said, you have figured out how to get by by relying on talent and perception more so than genuine hard work," he asserted, removing his wire brim glasses from the tip of his nose and letting them hang loosely from between his index finger and thumb.

"Excelling in the limited range of ability of academia is barely a test of one's hard work and resolve," I said, rocking forward and dropping the two front legs of my chair back on the floor with a thud.

Four years later I sat in my last class of college at 9:15 on a sunny Friday morning. Oscillating between hungover and my default school-time daydreams (perfected after 17 years of practice), and rambunctious at the prospect of leaving lecture for the last time, I felt the minutes drag on like a seven year old boy's sleepless Christmas Eve.

Viewing college as a much needed four years of excused unemployment necessary to explore passions more than the time needed to find a significant other from a painfully similar background and hopefully make inroads on a lucrative, consistent career, I set off from the onset to experiment. Not in the 1960s, Fear-and-Loathing-at-College way but in the what-keeps-me up-at-night-scheming way.

I tried trading stocks. I tried surfing in 36° weather. I dated blond girls from prep schools. I tried running a student laundry business. I tried selling shoes through Flight Club. I even tried to be a student. I tried taking pictures. I tried rowing. I tried to get better at telling stories.

Despite getting a handful of C-'s on both my academic and extracurricular endeavors, I kept going with the stubbornness of a poorly trained Jack Russell terrier. Slowly but surely refining my area of search, I continue to explore.

These photos were taken on Friday, May 7th with my iPhone 3Gs and Canon 5D Mark II.

Mark Twain once said, "Never let your schooling interfere with your education." I like this quote not because it takes a shot at academia but because it suggests that education is a long-term endeavor, limited by curiosity, not by time spent studying at a respected institution.

Stay curious.

Here are some more links,
Out of Reception: I'm So Excited (Picasa),
My Last Day of College (Picasa).

Out of Reception: My Last Month of College

I sat in my kindergarten classroom distracted by the other ruffians, the possibilities of the cloudless sky outside, and my teacher's shoulder pads. Idly playing with my hands, I picked at a patch of road rash from a bike accident a week earlier. Quietly ticking over Mrs. Basham's shoulder, the big hand crept towards 9 and the promise of wall ball and the creaking swing sets. The moment the bell rang, I knocked over my chair as I scrambled to the door.

Seventeen years and 3,300 miles away from the linoleum floors of my cold war era elementary school, I pass time in the final classes of my conventional education, checking my watch with the same eagerness as an ADD five-year old. Excited by the prospect of new experiences and a faster pace of life, I kick back in my chair. Instead of staring into the depths of my small hands, I flick and tap on the screen of my iPhone taking pictures of my last month of college.

Colby's woodshop in Sidney, Maine.

My last field trip, Belgrade, Maine.

Spending an afternoon in Sheep's Meadow, Central Park.

Subway maintenance, New York.

Riding my De Bernardi, Waterville Maine.

Master's weekend, Middlebury, Vermont.

Apartment searching, West Village.

Sitting by the Johnson Pond, Colby College.

Enjoying New England's oysters.

A Frito Bandito in Vermont.

Hopefully this time, I won't knock over the chair.

All of these photos were taken with my iPhone 3Gs and filtered with Colorcross from Camerbag.

Here are some more links,
Out of Reception: My Last Month of College (Picasa),
Out of Reception (ART).

Telling Stories Through Barn Windows

New England's barns inspire me. Despite having similar basic designs, each one tells a story about what happens inside of it, the animals and people it houses and the seasons it endures. Some are the pride of yuppie families from big cities, others are functional parts of a farm passed down through generations of rugged farmers. Regardless of their condition or creed, old barns capture the story of their surroundings.

Like a young boy unable to take the entire beach with him, settling only on a lone sand dollar, I collect barn windows. Better than a picture, these windows act as a tangible homage to the buildings they once belonged to. Rummaging at flea markets, hunting at dusty antique malls and asking retired farmers if I could pick apart their collapsed barns, I am on the lookout for unique windows that remind me of New England.

A barn tells a story about the land it rests on. A photo depicts a similar narrative about a unique setting.

Feeling like Samuel W. Francis, the genius that combined the spoon and the fork into the spork, I sat on my bed taping pictures to an old window. Organizing the photos as I would a blog post, the window framed a story, more coherent and insightful than a standard print.

Scrapers and sandpaper remove flakes and loose paint from the windows.

Coats of water-based lacquer protect the old paint and keep it in place, ensuring that the window will keep its story intact.

Tucker working on a window.

The glass is scraped to remove years of paint, lacquer and dirt.

Epoxy anchors the glass panes to the frame.

No two windows are alike and each narrative of photos is printed once. The windows add context to the collection of photos, conveying a coherent story. I envision a window filled with images of food overlooking the kitchen and another window hung in the den acting as a portal to the Maine coast. I will share these windows on my blog and they will be available for purchase.

Here are some more links,
Telling Stories with Barn Windows (Picasa),
Windows (ART).

Feels like Summer

Twilight transitioned to a cool, starlit night as a group of microbrew-lubricated men gathered around a ten foot high pile of miscellaneous wood like a group of soccer moms waiting to run through the doors of a Saks semi-annual sale. Adhering to an unspoken rule, they waited, smoking cigarettes and taking swigs from solo cups, until the architect of the soon to be engulfed tepee slowly and deliberately made his way towards the pile. Clutching a solo cup and lighter in one hand and an old New York Times in the the other, he marched over to the pile with a grin known to many trick-or-treaters.

Thirty foot flames quickly illuminated the apple orchard and thirty or so people headed towards its heat like like Midwest bugs towards a light. Laughing and chatting, small groups of friends subconsciously experimented with their appetite for heat, eventually creating a twenty foot radius around the fire.

Intrigued by the promise of friends, Weber Grills, kegs of local beers and the beauty of the Maine countryside, people from around the Northeast descended on a small orchard in Limerick, Maine to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday, or as the title of the invite called it, turning 14 for the 27th time. Bringing camping gear and their meat of choice, the partakers eagerly set up shop in the rows of trees early in the afternoon and embraced the late April day with the same gusto as rednecks at a NASCAR race.

Red toes and leather sandals.

The sun lingered in the sky overlooking the farm like a parent picking their kids up from a party, nursing the proposed five minutes into an actual fifteen just to see the laughs and smiles.

The orchard and barn serves a sculpture workspace for Sandy Macleod during the day.

Comforted by the sun and the smell of budding fruit trees, people hooted and explored the rows of apple trees, marked by the occasional kinetic sculpture. Cheeks and noses turned pink as the season's first sun caught overzealous minglers off guard.

The kabob assembly line, accelerated by beverages and a sinking sun.

The last glimmers of sunlight.

A well loved apple grinder.

A one log fireplace in a bedroom above Sandy's studio.

Joe the birthday boy and Sandy, the host of the party.

I love the color red.

As the fire's heat subsided and the solo cups emptied, people meandered back towards the house and the comfort of leftover potato salad, more beer and cold shrimp kabobs. I yawned and stretched, shivering in my shorts and LL Bean mocs. It felt like summer.

Here are some more links,
Feels Like Summer to Me (Picasa).