Bytes from the Bean by Joe Manning 4-1-0012:00AM / Saturday, April 01, 2000
A few weeks ago, I went to an interesting event at MASS MoCA. There was a presentation by Michael Govan, who is director of the DIA Center for the Arts, a contemporary art museum that will open next year in a former factory building in Beacon, New York. Michael showed slides and talked about art that is made with industrial materials or is inspired by industrial spaces. MASS MoCA visitors have already encountered this style of art. There was something personally reassuring about this presentation. You see, back in 1963, I had an experience that opened my eyes to the beauty of industrial objects and materials, which were hardly regarded as beautiful then.
I was a medical corpsman stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. About once a month, I would make the three-hour drive to my home in Maryland, when I got a long weekend. I would always start back to Dover after dinner with my parents on Sunday. On one of the quiet two-lane roads on Maryland's Eastern Shore, I would drive by a small sand and gravel company near the Delaware line. There was a flood light that illuminated the big metal equipment, including what looked like some sort of conveyor.
I found it interesting to look at, so I would usually stop and stare at it for a few minutes. The light and shadows seemed to accentuate the geometric patterns of the equipment. I thought it was quite beautiful, but my friends greeted me with blank stares when I told them about it. To this day, I love to look at sand and gravel pits and rock quarries. Some of the big ones, like Specialty Minerals in Adams, have all kinds of neat stuff that looks like some kind of weird amusement park (Six Flags over Sand and Gravel).
How does this relate to North Adams? When I discovered the city and started writing "Steeples," I took a lot of pictures and became interested in photography. I saw beauty in the factory buildings, the railroad bridges, even the multi-colored walls of buildings in the alleys behind them. I have taken at least two thousand photos of the city, and they seem to have a personal style about them.
Looking through my albums, I see many photos of factory windows and doors, some with contrasting red fire boxes or yellow hydrants nearby, rows of angled rooftops, old tenements and storefronts, smokestacks, even a half-demolished building. The mountains, the steeples, and the fall foliage are in there, too; but I enjoy looking for and photographing things that I find beautiful in a different way, things that are too commonplace to be noticed. Michael Govan's presentation at MASS MoCA showed me that there are many contemporary artists who look at these commonplace things the way I do. Maybe my tastes aren't that weird after all.
The recent warm weather has once again allowed me to walk around aimlessly with my camera and find new subjects to photograph. With the trees still bare, it's a perfect time of the year. Everything is visible up in the hills, and I can lug my equipment around without getting cold. Taking all these pictures can get me into trouble sometimes. Last May, on a gorgeous day, I walked around for five or six hours and shot perhaps ten rolls of film. I was so busy with my discoveries, that I got lazy and failed to write down where each photo was taken. "I'll do it later," I thought. "I have a good memory."
Several weeks ago, I spent some time organizing and labeling all my photos in preparation for choosing the ones for my new book. Well, I may have a good memory, but not quite good enough, I guess. There were two "mystery photos." I just could not figure out where these pictures were taken. On Thursday, March 23rd, I took these photos with me on my weekly visit to North Adams, and I scouted around the area looking for their origins. It was a quirky and amusing adventure.
One photo showed a row of large houses going up a very steep road. On my way into town, I guessed that the street was off State Street, up in the Little Italy area. Sure enough, one of the houses appeared on the horizon near Haskins School, and it turned out to be Walnut Street. When I got to the Kmart lot, I parked and jotted down "Walnut Street" on the back of the photo. The sun was just rising over the eastern hills, and I remembered that I wanted to take some pictures of the renovated Flatiron Block on the sunny North Church Street side. I grabbed my camera and scooted over there, snapped a few shots, rounded the turn to Eagle Street, and headed for The Bean. A car pulled up and stopped next to me, and a passenger rolled down the window and asked, "Could you give us directions to Walnut Street?" I wish I had been carrying the photo. I would have shown it to them and explained, "Just drive around until you see these big houses, and that's Walnut Street."
The second photo gave me more problems. It shows fifteen or twenty houses of various colors and in several ascending rows. It was taken with a zoom lens, and it appears that I must have been standing on a high spot, because the tops of the roofs of the houses in the foreground are below eye level.
My first guess was that it was located near Tyler Street, and that I might have been looking down at the scene from Hillside Cemetery. I walked up West Main and climbed the hill to the summit of the cemetery off Brown Street, which is enough exercise for one day. Of course, once I got up there, I discovered right away that this was not where the photo had been taken. On the way down, I noticed a woman standing on Brown Street, and she was aiming a camera my way. As I walked by, I commented, "It's a beautiful cemetery." She nodded and said, "I've never seen it before, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to take some pictures." I told her a little about the cemetery and pointed out several of my favorite spots. I asked, "You live around here?" She answered, "Williamstown." I replied, "How long?" "About 20 years," she said. "It's my first time over here."
My next guess was that the photo was taken in the Meadow Street area. That's off East Quincy, which is more than a mile and at least four long steep roads away from Hillside. That didn't discourage me though, because I enjoy walking. A half-hour later, I was standing at the corner of Meadow and Winter Streets and scanning the landscape in search of my picture. A lady sitting on her porch called out, "Are you looking for something?" "Yes," I said, as I walked over to her and sheepishly showed her the picture. "You have any idea where this is?" She was very friendly and took an interest right away. Pointing to the photo, she said, "I think that house is on Church Street, but it can't be, because the houses are on a hill. You ought to try around Tyler Street." I told her that's where I started looking, and she smiled and said, "It's got me stumped. But don't give up. If you find out, let me know."
I headed down Winter Street, and a man in a pickup stopped in front of the porch and yelled out to the lady, "Who was that man?" He seemed angry. The lady answered, "He showed me a picture and wanted to know where it was. I was trying to help him out." I was about fifty yards down the hill when he sped off and pulled up along side of me. I was nervous, imagining that I was about to become the victim of a jealous boyfriend. But he smiled and said, "Let me see the picture." He looked it over and offered his opinion. "I think it's off River Street, maybe around Tyler Street." "Thanks," I said, "I'll have to check it out." He offered to drive me over there, but I politely declined.
Down on Windom Terrace, my friend Robin Martin from the library came by with her husband. "What are you doing in our neighborhood?" I showed them the photo, but they had no suggestions. When I got to Church Street, I ran into my friends Kaare and Patrice Bolgen, and they examined the photo. Again, no luck. Back downtown, my friend Pete Cronin waved, and I shouted, "Got a minute?" I pulled out the photo. "Looks like that's around Tyler Street," he said. When I told him I had already checked that out, he remarked, "Are you sure it's North Adams? What if it's not? Then you'll keep looking and never find it." That was not reassuring. He said goodbye and told me he was going to look around for it.
When I went home after dinner, I was no closer to solving the mystery. I woke up next morning with a bright idea. The photos are numbered, so if I find the photos that were taken just before and after, I should be able to figure out where I was at the time. It turns out that the preceding photo was taken from the top of the sand bank behind River Street, and the subsequent photo was taken on Eagle Street. This "narrows it down" to a rather wide area, so I still have a lot of work to do.
I need your help. Here's the picture. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking. And if you see any interesting sand and gravel pits, I want to know.
Visit Joe's website at: www.sevensteeples.com.
Email Joe at: manningfamily@rcn.com |
