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Madoff's New Home

Tucker Milligan, 7, Central Auto Sales & Service, Butner, N.C., 2009.

This past Friday I traveled to Butner, NC, with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal. Ponzi scheme king Bernie Madoff is serving out his sentance at the federal prison North of town. The story focused on the Butner's origins as a POW camp for german soldiers and its current hard economic times - detailing a lack of sympathy for Madoff. Read the full article.

Pyrotechnical Institute

Years of careful research in the pyrotechnical arts resulted in a stunning display for the fine folks of Olney, Illinois this past weekend. My esteemed colleagues, Prof. Haglund, and Mayor Lambird, set the night sky aglow and managed to walk away without injury, say for our deteariating eardrums. We would like to thank the fine folks at St. Pepper's across the Indiania state line for providing our artilery for the evening and to the Lambird family for hosting and funding our efforts to further the enjoyment of anyone within a five mile radius of the farm.

Boom Town

Rocket City, South Of The Border, Dillon, S.C.

I've always lived in a state where the purchase of high-grade fireworks is illegal. This has made for some phenomenal road trips and big receipts, "because you never know when we'll make it back again."

Mt. Moriah

A film negative really does posses magic. It can fill you with all sorts of doubt. Then it rewards your diligence and renews your faith in the original form. For a moment, this shoot with the righteous Mt. Moriah was unusually tense as the wayward leaning church pictured in the background sounded like it was going to collapse with all of us inside of it. I thought of photographer Richard Nickle and the moment before the Chicago Stock Exchange came crashing down upon him.

I found the stacks of simple river stones used to support the church fascinating. Surely they would not forsake us; though I did refrain from any outward expressions of blasphemy just to be sure.

Summer Fashion

Summer in Durham means droves of modern dancers can be found skipping across intersections and riding around in brightly colored buses. A few donated their time to try on some interesting fashions for a recent shoot.


ADF | Summer Fashion 2009 - Images by Independent Weekly

TRKfest Music Festival

TRKfest 2009

The fine folks at Trekky Records put on a delightful music festival with a line-up comprised of all local music. There was also free haircuts, musical chairs and a pants-off dance-off. Looking forward to next year's show.

Fishscenta

The Queen of Durham's one and only Beaver Lodge #1504

Learn all about it.

Bones Are Beautiful

Published in the Independent Weekly | 13 MAY 2009

This possum is perfect. This possum is also dead.

A succession of cars speeds by a stiff possum as Mary Mangum bends down for a closer look. "Just look at his teeth," Mangum says. "They're perfect."

This possum looks to have received a glancing blow and wound up on the side of this busy stretch of U.S. 15-501, halfway between Durham and Chapel Hill.

For Mangum's purposes, this possum is perfect: She will harvest its bones for her art.

But first Mangum believes she must free the possum's spirit. She pulls half a seashell from a purple Crown Royal bag slung around her shoulder, along with matches, a bird feather and some dried sage. The winds of passing cars extinguish each match's flame until Mangum finally ignites the sage. Its scent masks the smell of death as Mangum says a few silent prayers. Then she wraps its remains in three grocery bags, takes it home and buries it in her backyard.

To make room for this perfect possum, Mangum must dig up Jake, her old pet cat. several months dead. This is her least favorite part of the process. Insects and decay have stripped some flesh from his bones, but a bath of hydrogen peroxide will be necessary to clean the rest.

Jake will be crafted into an artifact, a memory more real than a photograph or a simple headstone.

"I think it's the same way for people who want to keep some of the ashes," says Mangum, 62, as she touches the skull of another cat, Whiskers. Whiskers was her first attempt at bone art; she tied his skull between the forks of a stick with red leather and colorful beads. It looks similar to a maraca.

"It was curiosity too. I wanted to see what he looked like without his clothes on," Mangum jokes.

In Mangum's cluttered studio, there are a few Ziploc bags with bones that have been loosely cataloged. Wire is wound around a small femur on the table. Nearby, there is a pair of cardinal wings, plus various coffee mugs filled with buttons, beads, teeth and acorn tops.

There are a few finished pieces, but most of Mangum's bone creations—many lost and scattered around her home—represent her impulse to honor what she believes is perfect. For her, the real purpose in collecting is the process of discovery and communing with nature.

Sitting on her back porch, Mangum rattles off the names of each bird singing outside, from Rhett the Finch to The Descending Dove. This is where she goes to find solace and friendship. Her spirituality, she says, is a blend of Native American teachings and Sufism—though mostly, it's a peace she has found on her own terms.

"Well, I didn't feel that important, no one had time for me," says Mangum, who grew up an only child in rural Durham County and now lives by herself. "I went outside and it was like Nature had time, it was just there. Anytime I wanted to go, there it was. Isn't that cool?"

Most people don't understand why she collects roadkill to make art of their bones. Mangum says she doesn't understand why trees are cut down for strip malls and subdivisions, flushing animals from their homes to be killed on busy roads. She considers the animals to be unique offerings from a natural world that still enchants her.

"If I talk to the trees and the birds enough and they know I care about them," Mangum says, pausing to gaze outside, "then I don't have to be worried about being alone or anything 'cause my friends are there. I kind of like that."

--

J.P. + Ruth

Poncho & Lefty, partners for life . . .

Top of Sombrero Tower, South Of The Border, Dillon, S.C., Jan. 25, 2007

Looking out over the Interstate, was is possible to know then what I know now? In the time since we last ascended that great sombrero in the sky, my heart has said yes, you've always known. After all, there were signs, clear as her laugh moments later when she spun around and looked at me; a flash of light in my universe, rapidly expanding to infinity. Anything is possible.

So I knelt down and asked Kavanah to be my partner for life, atop that same towering sombrero we had visited long ago when we were unsure how this love would grow. My voice trembled with joy. She asked me if I was serious, then "Yes, of course." High above the CB chatter of truckers traversing the coast, we held one another and wondered, what now?

We've got a lifetime to find out. Anything is possible.

Kavanah & The Kiwi, Four Leaf Farm, Rougemont, N.C., May 19, 2009

Old In The Way

Megafaun, Hillsborough, N.C., 2009

My dear amigos and marvelous beardos , Megafaun, will be releasing their second album, Gather, Form & Fly, on July 21st of 2009. You can download a track and learn more at their label Home Tapes. One of the photographs from our shoot in Hillsborough will be apearing in some form with the record - which you should buy. I hear it's going to be a double LP.

Hope Floats

Former ad executive turned social activist Nancy Murray runs Builders of Hope, Raleigh, NC.

This row of homes was salvaged and relocated to Barrington Village, where Raevon Smith now lives.

View the full story on Builders for Hope

Spring Sheer

As you can see, this is not his first buzz cut.

So long sweet locks.

The folks at The Royal Crown Pomade Co. won't be happy about this.
(photo by Shane O'Neil)

Killer No Filler

Crispy Bess in his practice barn, Hillsborough, NC, April 2009

The Tribe Celebrates

Ms. Kavanah's birthday proved to be a joyous celebration around the fire pit in our backyard.

Location Scouting

Looks like Bill & Ted made it to the big time.

Best Summer Ever . . .

If you enjoy stomp n' smile music created in close quarters, then give a listen to the latest installment of the Owl Sessions - featuring Midtown Dickens (above) and Embarrassing Fruits. Listen closely and you can hear a commotion halfway during the Dickens set when one of the plastic owls on the mantle caught fire. Accomplished entertainers that they are, they play right on through the potential disaster.

A Poem to Consider . . .

Keep America Beautiful
by Kenneth Hart

Somebody hung out his red, white and blue
laundry on the highway overpass outside Providence,

a short distance from the prison crew picking up
our Cheetos bags and burger wrappers

and monster drink cups. We're stalled in traffic;
bumper stickers announce the price of freedom,

claim liberty is our right.
The guard in mirror sunglasses leans against

the correctional facility van, props a shotgun on his knee
like he's auditioning for a movie. He's protecting

our freedom to litter from the inmates' desire
to be free to litter. We inch along;

past the Budweiser billboards and the ad haiku,
brakes wheeze — some like an espresso machine,

some like an aging soprano with emphysema.
It looks like this is going to take awhile, here

beneath the soiled laundry of the republic
which clings to a chain link fence.

Maybe the seagull floating above us
sees a few things that we can't.

He's probably scavenging for something
we've left behind.

Coney Island Bird, NYC, March 2009

Moving Along . . .

This short film was created for an video editing class at the Center For Documentary Studies, where I've been learning the language of Final Cut Pro for the past month. The assignment called for a meditation on the idea of home using "found sound" and still photographs.

In considering the idea of home, I headed off to a huge abandon tobacco factory in Durham that has been like a haunted home for me over the course of the the past three years as I worked on a photography project there. At the height of Big Tobacco, this factory complex was flush with thousands of toiling souls and it's impossible not to image their lives that playing out while walking through the corridors and wide open floors by yourself. Every sound carries an eerie echo, especially when you're navigating by flashlight in cowboy boots. There are lockers on every floor in the factory, some of them contain traces of their past occupants.

This film imagines a former employee returning for a lost memento.

Related Links
photographs from last days of operation inside the tobacco factory

Weird Science

Megafaun, Research Laboratory, Durham, NC

Mermaid Avenue

F Train to Coney Island, NYC, March 2009

Mainframe

Mr. Robinson on Autoharp, Durham, NC, March 2009

Livin' for the Cit-tay

Fast Money, NYC, March 2009

Street Whores, NYC, March 2009

So it's been said that 30% of the money that circulates throughout NYC originates from Wall Street bonuses, or at least it did before the hammer came down. It seemed like the public backlash related to the A.I.G. bonuses reached a fevered pitch while I was in the city visiting editors with a new portfolio book last week. I passed by a tabloid stand with headlines such as, "Not So Fast You Greedy Bastards!" and "A.I.G. - Awash In Greed."

This morning I read a letter of resignation written by a former A.I.G. executive and published in the NY Times that added some much needed nuance to my understanding of the situation. In New York, out on the street, signs of the crunch seemed to be everywhere. A chalkboard sign in a novelty shop window read, "You are my economic stimulus." My good friend Liz laughed when I asked her if there were any shoe sales that she knew about. "The whole city is 70% off these days." She might be right, I found some sweet Adidas kicks for a little more than the price of a marvelous creme brulee doughnut.

Creekside

Mr. Robinson, Durham, NC, 3.20.2009

Big Men on Horses

Megafaun, Hillsborough, NC, March, 2009

Tending to the Flame

Will Hackney, Durham, 2009

Buck's Trucks

Buck, Galva, Ill., 2007

Parade Halt

Mardi Gras Parade, Durham, NC 2009

Blitzed

Snowstorm, Durham, March, 2009

Monday was the first full day off from Independent Weekly work since January. Inspired by a late-season snowstorm, I spent several hours tromping around the old factory roof thinking linearly, experimenting with audio and wiggling my frozen toes. Much of my creative focus this month is for a course in video editing at the Center For Documentary Studies. The results will be posted on this here blog periodically. Stay tuned.

fire escapes = teeter-totters

James Hawley, Poet, Durham, Feb. 2009

Laissez les bon temps roulez

Mardi Gras with the Harts, Durham, 2008

Searching for a signal . . .

It's always a challenge to conceptualize a photo to illustrate stories lacking in visual realities. This week at the Independent, it was the lack of internet access in a growing rural county. At one point I was set on using colored gels and having the county commissioner smashing computers out of frustration. Fortunately he happened to have a rather large antenna and a spacious pasture. We also made a couple of frames involving the computer equipment, but decided implied violence would be more effective; that and old computer monitors contain some mercury which might result in some apologies for a publicly elected environmentalist.

Link to the story

Staying Sharp

Progress, Rancho Cucamonga, Durham, NC, 2009

So I needed to go analog for bit. What better medium than an Oak and an Axe?

The Elder Sisters of St. Joseph's

The Elder Sisters of St. Joseph's, Jonestown, Miss., 2007

Boom Boom

Earlier this afternoon I heard crazy bouts of screaming and explosions emanating from behind the pseudo frat house across the street. After a closer inspection, I decided that they were initiating young, impressionable boys into their little club. They were launching bottle rockets to mark the occasion, so naturally I wanted to fire some as well, right back at them. Bigger ones of course, the kind of boomers you can only find at Rocket City inside the marvelous world of South of The Border in Dillon, South Carolina.

Two Unlikely Things

SnOBAMA, Durham, NC, Jan. 21st, 2009

Two unlikely and marvelous events occurred yesterday. Snow covered the ground up to six inches deep in Durham, North Carolina and Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of The United States.

Hecho En Mexico

Mexico is madly in love with the Volkswagen Beetle. They seem to be on every street in any city.

Here's some interesting information about the last Beetle made in Mexico via Wikipedia:

By 2003 Beetle annual production had fallen to 30,000 from a peak of 1.3 million in 1971. On 30 July 2003, the final original VW Beetle (No. 21,529,464) was produced at Puebla, Mexico, some 65 years after its original launch, and an unprecedented 58-year production run since 1945, the year VW recognizes as the first year of non-Nazi funded production. VW announced this step in June, citing decreasing demand. The last car was immediately shipped off to the company's museum in Wolfsburg, Germany. In true Mexican fashion, a mariachi band serenaded the last car. There was also in Mexico an advertising campaign as a goodbye for the Beetle. For example, in one of the ads was a very small parking space on the street, and many big cars tried to park in it, but could not. After a while, a sign appears in that parking space saying: "Es increíble que un auto tan pequeño deje un vacío tan grande" (It is incredible that a car so small can leave such a large void). Another depicted the rear end of a 1954 Beetle (year in which Volkswagen first established in Mexico) in the left side of the ad, reading "Había una vez..." (Once upon a time...) and the last 2003 Beetle in the right side, reading "Fin" (The end).

Foreign Dogs

"If dogs run free, then why not we?" - Bob Dylan

In 2008 I had the good fortune of visiting Mexico and Peru. In both places there was an abundance of dogs running free. They ran through the streets and crowded markets, even on the roofs. The smart ones, the ones still alive, knew enough to wait with everyone else on the sidewalk until the light changed before crossing the street. Some looked to be suffering from terrible mange. Others seemed ready to be taken home and spoiled. At the stunning summit of Monte Albán, there was dog that followed us around patiently (first photo). We considered the feasibility of taking it (we named it Monty) back home to the States. The thought of long quarantine hassles led us to believe it would be a bad idea, but by that time Monty had already slipped away to follow another group of tourists.

Sifting Through the Pile

Hal Clark, Clark Tire Repair, Siler City, NC, 2008

Colors & Numbers

Colors and numbers can speak a universal language. Consider this a study of the idea.
Clockwise from top-left, Pino Suarez, Oaxaca City, MX. A scene from the Friday market in Ocotlan, MX. Reconstructing the Zapotec ruins at Yagul, Oaxaca. MX, Mexico City street near the Zocalo.