Peggy
Levison
Nolan
Untitled, 1992, silver gelatin print
My radar kicks in when good light shines
on inconsequential things….and on those I love.
I don’t plan ahead, nor do I use studio lights or any gear that I would have to lug around. What something looks like in the moment is what makes me pull the trigger. Often I reject the negative, or I print it just in case and it goes in the reject pile. But sometimes I can sense something special even before the fact. This instinct of mine is not to be trusted but always acted upon……just in case. This work is about my family and things happening and spans 30 years.
Untitled, c. 1993, silver gelatin print
Photographs
The walls of my bedroom are covered
With paintings from thrift shops
And swap meets
I recognize them like old friends
And invite them in
Mornings they are the first ones I see
Rubbing sleep out of my eyes
Sun describing poorly drawn faces and
Skies all wrong
No matter
My kitchen has open shelves filled
With colored glass cups and bowls
A rubber toy head of Clark Kent
Two clown cups from Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey
Collectable
Cool
Not so many photographs
Maybe they aren’t so
Still
Silent
Flat
Untitled, c. 1998-90, silver gelatin print
I'm Pretty Sure
(a poem about angst, no, about ennui, oh, whatever)
I’m pretty sure I like
Well I sort of
What do you
Tell me the
Good?
Not so good?
But imagine
Maybe
Squint
Your eyes
Do I (really) really need
I already have something almost
Well not
Exactly
Close
But
Where would I
Honestly
So
So many
Sometimes my dreams are
Full of
Just
And I wake up
Freaked
About
What I can never
(Sometimes, girlfriend
I just don’t know
Why I
Bother to
Get up in the morning)
I mean
I just
Don’t
Know
Do you?
Untitled, 1998, silver gelatin print
Untitled, 2016, c-print
Untitled, c. 2016, c-print
Quarantine
Have you noticed
how sound
Is much much more
(Birds not conceptual)
singing singing
operatic to the
trash collectors
tossing empty bins
Barking
(dogs no longer a problem)
drum beats for a blue jay
So I shuffle cards from
another lost game
and boot up
the urgent world.
Untitled, c. 2004-08, c-print
Poem
Poetry lies
under heavy weights
of incompetence and doubt
awkward words
stutter the tongue
then
breathless, hopeful
(not too preachy)
slips out
the space made
by
a tiny crack
in the ego
Untitled, c. 2008-12, c-print
