Diggin’ through it
These are photographs that have been sitting in a remote corner of my hard drive for years. I had doubts about them, they sat waiting there for years. My intention here is to go through my work, the good, the bad, and the horrifying, to see the progression of my work; where I was then and where I am now. As I’ve been going through my work, I’m understanding our past is part of our present.
On Dogs and Photos
I lived on East 14th Street in Manhattan for a little over 30 years, and had several dogs during that time. For 7 of those years, with my significant other, boyfriend, partner, Randy, who passed away from AIDS in 1988; he’ll be back later in this journey. But anyway, if you have a dog, you know how social dog ownership makes you. Neither snow nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night keeps these dogs from the swift completion of their appointed walks. These were my pups over the years, Sally, Emma and Amaya, RIP girls! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Thats how these photographs came about. There was a group of us who met daily in Stuyvesant Park, (affectionately known to the locals as “Stuy Park”) many of us would see each other in the mornings, coffee in hand and in the evenings for the last dog walk. These years are some of the best times I’ve ever had, the friendships went further than walking the dogs. It truly was a great time for me and I still see the friends I made there often. Thinking of these times I gets really emotional for me, thinking of the people, dogs and friends, here and not so here. Reflecting back and reminiscing about great times in our lives can, for me anyway, bring up a sense of loss. (Not sure where that fits in, but there ya go!)
Cleaning it up
In the 1980’s the park was run down, drugs, needles strewn throughout, and after dark it became, well let’s just say, risqué.
We began a volunteer group amongst ourselves to cleanup the park and assist the Parks department with plantings and maintenance. As the park grew cleaner and safer, it was used a lot more by the community. I would photograph some of the events in the park, I guess I thought they needed to be recorded for posterity or something. Two of those events appear in this series, one was a night of Christmas Caroling and the other was a fashion show. The third series are photographs of the results of our efforts to beautify Stuy Park.
These images are more than ten years old, but seeing them again reminds me of seeing an old friend. It’s great to be catching up with them again.
-bill