This won't be a long post since I'm not ready to put up a lot of pictures about Lino Giovacchini yet. However, I had such a funny experience with him this weekend that I wanted to share it while it was fresh in my mind. Many of you know Lino as the "tractor guy." He makes these detailed model tractors out of spruce. (If you know him, then you know that the tractor being made out of spruce is significant. He's crazy about wood and can tell you why spruce is the best wood for his tractors.) Lino's workshop is so organized and has every woodworking tool imaginable. I certainly can't name all the tools: lathe, sanders, drill press, etc. - and everything is expertly arranged. I'll tell you about the expert arrangement in another post. Lino is very gracious and always feeds me and makes sure I have tea when I visit him to take pictures. During my last visit, he gave me some cookies his wife had made. The next day, he called and told me that he got in trouble with Linda because he didn't give me the rest of the cookies to take home. When I came by to pick them up, I called to him in his workshop. He came out, and I asked him what he was working on. He said, "I'm just sewing....I'll show you in a minute." I thought, "Sewing? Is that a woodworking term?"
After he got the cookies, Lino took me in the workshop and showed me this huge industrial sewing machine. I hadn't seen it before because it had been neatly tucked away in it's proper spot, just like everything else in Lino's studio. And, in fact, Lino was sewing. He was making straps with handles out of heavy duty fabric so that he could turn his mattresses more easily. It wasn't art but it still seemed pretty creative to me.
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Yesterday, I had a chance to photo- graph a class for seniors taught by Susan Richardson at the Grand Theatre. While I didn't know some of the people in the class, I was intrigued by the way different people approached their project, which was to create several journal pages using watercolors as a starting point. Some people seemed tentative and slow to start, while others jumped right in and started throwing down paint. I wondered how much of that slowness to start came from being afraid to mess up. "I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do." One of the participants came to the journaling class thinking that it was about writing (which was under- standable). However, she stayed, even when she found out she would be painting and using collage techniques. Brave woman! Being creative and making art is hard enough when you do it in private. Trying to do it in front of other people? Intimidating. (Being a photographer of people means I'm always working in front of others. But, I can't tell you how glad I am that the people around me can't see what's in my camera. Thank goodness for the delete button.) When I wrote the first post for this blog about Susan and the challenges she's faced as an artist, Susan was hesitant to reveal so much personal information in such a public space. However, she changed her mind and told me that part of being an artist is making yourself vulnerable and taking risks. Watching Susan's mother, who is in her nineties, work on her journal and interact with other people in the class was a reminder that so many things in life require taking risks - not just making art. My own grandma is 95. She still lives in her home but is too afraid to go anywhere, even the senior center. She's afraid that she will forget someone's name or get confused or that she will look silly because her balance is off. While I admire my grandma for so much, I am sad for her that she is so cut off, especially from people her own age. Making connections in life - like in art - means overcoming our fear and letting ourselves be vulnerable. Congratulations to the seniors in Susan's class for sharing of themselves and their creativity. I'm sure some of you have been interested in seeing photos of Susan's gracious studio. The studio is in a granny flat with plenty of natural light at the back of her house. It's beautiful and welcoming. (Reminds me of Susan!) While we talked about her work and inspirations, we ended up sitting on the carpeted floor with our legs crossed, her dog supervising from a chair. Susan's work table speaks to Susan's history. The top is from a basic corporate office table, but, as you can see, it has taken on a look that is one-of-a-kind. It's almost a work of art on its own. Susan keeps plenty of resource material in her studio. Her books range from how-to manuals to poetry to her own journals and past works. I wonder how many artists go back and look at their older work for inspiration? Susan hangs her current work from a "clothesline" strung across the side of her studio. It allows her to work on multiple pieces while giving her a different perspective on each piece. I am grateful to Susan for letting me see her studio space. It was the perfect place to start this project.
Several months ago, as I sat watching Mark Knize sculpting at a Tracy Art League meeting, I wanted to jump up and start taking photos of him as he worked. I was amazed to watch a human face being created from a lump of clay. Taking photos wasn't possible, of course, but the impression that event left with me has led to this project...photographing Tracy-area artists as a way of exploring the creative process. Mark works with wood, with clay, with metal...he seems to be willing to try anything. When he finds that he needs a tool to accomplish something specific, he makes it himself. After retiring from his work as a scientist at Lawrence Livermore Lab, Mark turned to art and has made a name for himself with his wooden designs and his sculptures of well-known Tracyites. As I got to know Mark and his wife, Gayle, whose current paintings focus on intimate scenes from her family life, I commented that Mark's work seems to be more about the public while Gayle's was more about the personal. Mark corrected me, pointing out that the process involved in sculpting a live person was very personal. He takes a number of precise photos of the person he's sculpting and spends hours with the model. Mark talked about the process of shaping someone's face. While his goal is to create a good likeness of the person and he works from photos, he has to make decisions about the final look. How much is the person smiling, how old does the person appear? It is still within his hands to convey a tone, establish a mood, create a feeling by the way he shapes the sculpture. All of this creates an intimate connection with his work. It's a weighty task and reminds me of my power and responsibility as a photographer. I took several photos of Mark with the bust of Sam Matthews, but I chose one to display in black and white. The viewer may make assumptions about Mark based on his expression or the tone of the photo, but that is only one view of him. Certainly makes me nervous at times to present portraits of people - am I conveying them accurately? As they want to be seen? Does it matter? As a side note, this project, if nothing else, has given me a chance to get to know people in such a wonderful way. I'm there to hear what the artists want to tell me and see what I can learn about them and their thoughts about art. It's such a gift to me! The only downside is that I'm moving pretty quickly while I'm photographing, which doesn't give me time to sit and appreciate their work. Last week I met with Gayle Knize and photographed her studio along with the studio of her husband, Mark. I'll go back soon to take pictures of her working. This visit was supposed to be a chance to take photos of her set-up and interesting things in her studio. While I did that, Gayle shared stories about her mother, who is also a painter. I'll write more about the Knizes' studios in another post, I want to focus on my thoughts about what I learned today. One of the first things Gayle told me about was her mother and how she was a painter. The first time I saw her studio, she pointed out a painting by her mother and a portrait she had done of her mother. Today, Gayle showed me a piece depicting her aunt as a child that Gayle had painted as a class assignment. Then, she pulled out two paintings of the same aunt done by her mother. It was interesting to see the same subject painted by two different artists in two different styles. As she pulled out and arranged some of her stored work for me to see, I was struck by the combination of portraits that she and her mom have done of each other. It's such a beautiful history. In particular, I loved the painting of Gayle as a girl playing her flute and the painting of Gayle's mother after she had surgery that made it impossible for her to eat normally for a year. Since I don't know Gayle's mother, I can only imagine the feelings of the mother as she watched her daughter practice her instrument. However, it was clear how moved Gayle was by her mother's illness - as she had difficulty talking about that time.
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April 2022
AuthorTiffanie Heben is a photographer who has been inspired by the artists in her community |