Liskotography

he other, would, in the end, mean nearly nothing. That moment has colored everything since. It has meant the end of doing what I was supposed to do; the end of being responsible first; the end of trying to synthesize the practical and the lucrative into a life plan my guidance counselor would recommend. Somewhere along the line, I picked up my camera. And I used it as a sort of dowsing rod which I hoped would point itself toward something that would turn out to be important to me. That something turned out to be a sense of balance, of simplicity, of stillness. For one small moment, I wall myself into a world of my own creation; a world where things may not make immediate narrative or logical sense, but where everything is in balance. Thin, almost pencil-drawn lines offset wide, flat spaces. The smooth hardness of glass acts as counterweight to the fine hairs of a polyester wig. I don’t have any pretensions of long-term escape. I know when I put the camera down, when I step back from the print, there will be something like an avalanche of smells and voices, car alarms and newspaper headlines, legal obligations and biological concerns. I will be a part of things again over which I have no control. But for a moment, I have hidden long enough to take a breath.