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

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.