Thursday, June 11, 2009

cat on a hot tin roof

this is my daughter's favourite photo of me. it has sat in her room for years amongst tot to tween to teen junk in a photo frame gathering dust until recently when i surreptitiously 'borrowed' the frame for a film shoot & reacquainted myself with this lost visage.

i must have scanned the image at the time knowing my terrible record for losing precious items because it's turned up in my photopile media archive as i was trawling through looking for something else.

my GF sonja took this pic on a day when i really did not want to be filmed. only an hour prior i had been gripped in angst & immobilized by tears, the slave of depression & agoraphobia not wanting to leave the safety nest of my little inner city warehouse up high beyond the reach of the fray, to face the pressure, plasticity & responsibilities of the world below.

eventually i'd faced my need to disappear & used all my strength to pick up the phone desperately trying to stall & reschedule a photography project with her. she flagrantly disobeyed, turned up on cue, banged down the door & pulled me from my turtle-like invisibility & despair. as do the best of friends.

taken from the kitchen window ledge between cigarettes & tissues looking out onto the patchwork of urban alley roofs, this is an accurate reflection of the day i acknowledged that i live with mental illness. an artist/thinker's lot. there are worse days.

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