Panel discussion
topics, section 2:
MR.
HOCKENBERRY: Now, we want as much involvement of the audience as
we possibly can get. We encourage you to pick up pictures and look at
them, and if they can stimulate questions and discussion points, we
don't want this to be purely experience free. You know art is made to
be looked at we'll talk about it from the context of all experiencing
it together. But I'll begin today posing this question to the panel.And I think I'll begin with Traci, and I'll ask everybody. How
do you think photography has helped you to understand your own experience
of disability, if at all?
MS. PARKS:
Let me think about that. How it has helped me to understand my disability
in my own experience?
MR. HOCKENBERRY:
I mean artists often describe their art as some sort of inward journey
to discover things about themselves.Clearly people would be mistaken
to think that the most important thing about you is your disability,
yet unquestionably as you go on your own artistic journey you perhaps
have had some sort of insights as to what's going on in there. And I'm
wondering if photography has helped you to understand visual impairment
in any way.
MS. PARKS:
I think my visual impairment makes me a better photographer because
I am legally blind, which means what most of you can see 20 feet away
I can see from only 1 foot away. I can barely read my name here, but
I know what it looks like. I know the shape of it. I started photography
in a very unusual way. Ten years ago I was suicidal and I made the
hardest decision I've ever made in my life and that was to commit myself
to a psychiatric ward. When I was released, I was afraid to go back
to work and I was afraid to stay home by myself.I bought a camera,
and photography saved my life. Photography, the miracle image, the picture
of the tulips that you saw, is what brought me out of my depression
and I loved it so much that I had to quit my job and go back to school
and make a life of it. So it definitely saved my life, so that was part
of a beginning of quite a journey.
MR. HOCKENBERRY:
Well certainly on the surface one might rank the degree of difficulty
of going back into the world after having dealt with severe depression,
and buying a camera with a significant visual impairment.
MS. PARKS:
I...
MR. HOCKENBERRY:
What?
MS. PARKS:
I have...I cannot explain to this day why I did it. I had no conscious
interest in or knowledge of photography at the time.
MR. HOCKENBERRY:But it's interesting that the coping with depression component seemed
much easier to you, or seemed much harder to you than the idea of going
out and buying a camera.
MS. PARKS: It did. It was...
MR. HOCKENBERRY:
Why do you think that is?
MS. PARKS:I had nothing to lose. I guess I had...looking back, I have
always been fascinated by images and things, probably because I have
to work so much harder to interpret what I'm seeing. And buying the
camera crystallized that in my mind and I think it makes me a better
photographer because I don't take for granted what I am seeing.
Part of what I do is to take ordinary things, things that you find in
your house, people around you, andI photograph them in a way that
makes you say, oh my gosh, what is that? Or who is that? And people
are often surprised that it's something in my own backyard or, you know,
something that... a building that you walk by every day but you're seeing
it from a totally unique perspective.And I think that's what photography
does for me. It makes me... it allows me to help you see things differently,
like I do.
MR. HOCKENBERRY: Does it in some way state emphatically that you, despite what sort of images people might have of you, you have a visual life?
MS. PARKS:
I do.My imagination is 20/20. (laughter) That's the only thing I
have that's 20/20 (laughter).
MR. HOCKENBERRY:
Tom Lee, were you a photographer prior to your automobile accident?
MR. LEE:
No, I wasn't. I didn't become interested in photography until about
10 years after my accident.
MR.
HOCKENBERRY: What motivated you to find photography as an
outlet? And I'll pose the same question to you and you can ignore
it at your leisure. If photographer in any way informed you about your
own disability experience.
MR. LEE:
I got interested in photography when I was in college. I took it as
an elective and just became fascinated with it.
MR. HOCKENBERRY:
That was pre-accident?
MR. LEE:
No that was after.
MR. H:
That was post-accident.
MR. LEE:
That was post-accident. And became fascinated with it and switched my
major from history to photography.As far as how it relates to my
disability, I think the disability has slowed me down to the point where
I'm much more reflective and I'm much more observant than if I'd just
be rushing around. And it also provided me with a creative outlet that
I needed. And everybody has to have some kind of form of self-expression.
And photography was what I was looking for. Before my injury I was a
musician, played the guitar, and wasn't able to do that. But photography... photography and music have some links and it's a good form of self-expression.
MR. H:
You know, it's interesting, the photographs that you've taken here would
not be called candid. The one that we looked at here, standard, classic,
portraiture, brilliantly done. I was a photographer before my accident,
but what I liked to specialize in was candid shots of instantaneous,
almost the news photography style thing. What I discovered after my
accident was that I could never get a picture whereas people weren't
staring at me, which informed me about how I was the center of attention.
And it was so important for me to be not the center of attention as
a photographer that I stopped doing it and looked for other outlets.
But it's interesting the kind of mirror image that you're describing,
because I still play the guitar although our finger abilities are different
and spinal cord injury's a little bit different so that certainly would
explain that.That's a great notion that photography helps you to
value the qualities of the world that are only available to you if they
sort of come to you because of your lack of mobility.
MR. LEE:
Yes, I work in a very slow and deliberate manner. And in doing so I'll
visualize an image or I'll see something, and it... the process of visualizing
the image, and working in black in white... or I'll see the image while
I take it, and I've got a pretty good idea of what it's going to look
like on paper. And that creative outlet is very satisfying.
MR. H:
Angelo, is photography something that related to your notion of expression
throughout your life? Or does it come from a motivation that perhaps
came after you were diagnosed with ALS in some way? Describe your
motivation to be a photographer, if you could.
MR. SCIULLI:
I had retired from my day job in 1997 to begin a career as a nature
and wildlife photographer. Trying to say "photographer" when you cant
speak clearly, well it's a hard word. In 1998 I was diagnosed with Lou
Gehrig's disease andI have to tell you that having the doctor sit
there and tell you that you're going to die in 3 years is not fun.
Later that year I went to the Charlotte ALS/MDA Clinic where I had a
second diagnosis of primary lateral sclerosis, a rarer related disease,
which has the same prognosis. After moping around for a bit, I decided
to keep living as if I didn't have any limitations. I don't think of
my illness as a disability as I just do things slower.I decided
to continue my photography as best that I could and got out my camera
and continued. I still do wildlife photography but I have changed my
focus to that of using my work to raise awareness for ALS and disabilities.
That's another tough word. I must say that God has allowed a miracle
since my 3 years were up in March and I am still here.
MR. H: Congratulations, and we're all fortunate that that is the case.
You say that you want to use your photographs to raise awareness in
some way. I think in general all of us can understand the idea of awareness,
but maybe in a more deeply artistic way, what do you want people
to see in your images that might trigger an insight into who you are
and what you're going through, if at all?
MR. SCIULLI:
Well when people see my work, they cannot tell that I'm six-foot, overweight,
and have a disability (chuckle).
MR H:
I could, I could tell, actually (laughter).
MS. PARKS:
I didn't know that. GROUP LAUGHTER!
MR. SCIULLI:
When people see my work, they don't know anything about me.But I
am putting together an exhibit myself with images and each image will
have a description of what I went through to take the image. And they'll
not only see the image that I see but they will understand the motivation,
the effort, and what I went through to capture that. That way they will
perhaps look at the person with a disability as an individual with talents
and value rather than just a disposable person.
MR. H:
You know it's interesting, I can certainly understand the role model
concept, and I think all of us here take some responsibility for young
people and young people with disabilities who are perplexed by any notion
of what their role in society will be. And certainly it's the responsibility
of any of us who are successful to show the way, that there are options,
that young people can think much more broadly about their future. And
art is certainly a tremendous way for people to broaden their notion
of what it is they're going to do in life. But you raise a very interesting
question, notion, that, Angelo, when you look at say, Mr. Bug up there,you're seeing in a picture that you get, it makes it kind of a liberation
statement that we're seeing the exact same thing. And that that is
as powerful a motivation as anything in your work. Together, we're seeing
the same image, together, regardless of any sort of physical characteristics.
MR. SCIULLI:
I agree. I often teach folks that we can all take an image of the same
subject but each of us will interpret the subject in our own way. The
split second capture of time in a photograph shows the vision of the
photographer. However it is a level playing field for all. Who can tell
anything about the photographer except whether or not we like the image?
MR. H:
Indeed, artistic insight does not depend on physical characteristics,
and passion is something that does not require a particular physical
container to thrive in. Joan, I loved your work with Lotti and what's
his name... Lotti and Harry. And I'm wondering if the kinds of pictures
that you take, the images of social gatherings, are in some sense motivated
out of this journey to discover where your own disability sits in your
identity as an artist.
MS. WEXLER:
My photographing family parties is only a small part of the body of
work that I do. Andmy disability does not play a part or role in
my photography. When I was in graduate school, I had a major breakdown
and I lost my ability to photograph. And I couldn't photograph for 5
years. In the past 20 years or so, the slow recovery from my breakdown
and re-establishing my ability to photograph again, now it doesn't play
any role whatsoever.
MR. H:
When you find an image that is meaningful to you, and snap the picture
and get the image back and realize it was what you wanted, is there
a way of saying, for Joan, what is a great picture?
MS. WEXLER:Well, I like to photograph something that I find very beautiful.
And it has to say something about my inner self. In a lot of ways, all
the portraits that I do, or the still lives, or the landscapes and interiors,
are in a sense self-portraits. So they speak about my inner self.
MR. H:
So in the case of Lotti and Harry, there's a kind of beauty between
those 2 people that reflects a sense of beauty within you.
MS. WEXLER:
You can say that.
MR. H: Does it have to do with the age of those people, the spontaneity of
the moment? What do you celebrate?
MS. WEXLER:
Well, I think Lotti and her husband are very... they just look very good
for their age. They don't look their age. Lotti has a certain kind of
elegance about her. I'm not sure what to add.
MR. H:
And she's 102?
MS. WEXLER:
She's 100 now.
MR. H: She's 100. Yes, she's doing great. Suzanne, I notice that you have a degree in visual anthropology. And you're described as having
information processing disabilities that are not visually apparent.
Do those go together in some way?
MS. LEVINE:
My degree in visual anthropology isn't really connected to my disability.It really is a quest to learn more about diverse cultures from around
the world and have the context to put it in.And I have a visual
interest. But the visual aspect of visualizing is very much, I think,
an easier way for me to communicate instead of writing. And I feel like
my literacy and reading on images is higher than sometimes the textual
reading. I have to work harder at textual reading.I have dyslexia
and I call it dyslexia and other information processing disabilities
rather than the correct title which is specific learning disabilities
because of the logic leap of a disability in learning, which I really
don't believe I have. In fact, I have a masters degree and I probably
in my 50s will go back for a Ph.D., so...
MR. H: In your 50s. I see.
MS. LEVINE:
Yes.
MR. H:
But not before.
MS. LEVINE:
No.
MR. H:
I see, okay, fine.
MS. LEVINE:
There's too many things to do between now and the next 10 years.
MR.
H: I see, there's a story there. Anthropology is of interest because
in a sense, and I think the world of reportage (phonetic) about people
with disabilities and some of the story telling that's taking place
about people with disabilities is that there has come an understanding
that disability in some loose form constitutes a kind of cultural identity.
And I'm wondering if there's a notion of ethnography here in
attempting to chronicle the experience of people with disabilities in
their own terms, which makes any sense, and doesn't end up describing
people as specimens.
MS.
LEVINE: In a way, yes.There's actually now a disability section
within the American Anthropological Association. There is a strong debate
within anthropological terms as to whether it constitutes a culture
or a subculture. However, I went into... I didn't get diagnosed with
my disability until I was 28. And so I didn't really understand what
was going on. And so for me the visual aspect of it kind of helped to
articulate what was going on inside internally in my... and neurologically
it was able to visualize what was going on on that level. But there's
a lot... I just feel like there's a lot of things happening in the last,
well really last 20 years, but I've only been doing it since 93.There's
been a lot of changes, and I think it's important to document that process
as communities grow and develop within the different disability communities.
MR.
H: Traci, do you think galleries are interested in the artistic
production of people with disabilities? Or ought they be interested?
MS. PARKS:
I think that it is becoming... I think galleries and those kinds of places
are becoming more interested, and I think that's because we're probably
doing a better job of marketing ourselves. And I think artists in general
are not good at marketing ourselves. It's interesting.
MR. H:
Some are really great. Picasso was really great, yes.
MS. PARKS:It's nice to have, especially in my case, people say oh my gosh,
she can't see, what will her work look like. So for me it intrigues
them and gives me a chance to actually show my work. And then when they
see it, it's proof that yes, I can do it. And the disability no longer
matters, but it provides them an interesting marketing opportunity
to get media coverage and that kind of thing.
MR. H:Although do you run the risk of that limiting you as a chronicle
of someone overcoming their own obstacle? As opposed to a more broader
sense of image as art?
MS. PARKS:
No, I think I started out that way, using the disability as a way to
market myself. But as I gained a positive reputation, I think it's changed
from Traci Parks, the blind photographer, to just Traci Parks, the artist
and the photographer.It was a starting point, but I don't think
it was the ending point.
