O P E N S P A C E 12

At home, in a small bedroom, on a deskhigh 11 footlong wall-to-wall shelf, sit 36 chronologically arranged photograph albums occupying a length of 6 feet. Albums differing in size, shape, color, binding, number of pages, and page types; albums whose black now-smelly-and-crumbly-55-year-old-con­struction-paper pages are filled with black&white photos mounted with what are now called “archival photo corners” —my corners are pink & blue, green & tan, and black; albums with multi- or cream-colored paper pages; newer albums with unsmelly plastic pages whose sheets you peel in order to place the photos on an adhesive surface or on “PVC & acid free” pages with “see-through slip-in pock­ets”. Photo sizes vary from 2x2 to 8x10; black&white isn’t swapped with color until the late 1960s. Albums are knotted or tied with cord, or spiral bound, or loose-leafers; most are intact, but some photos do slip out as soon as their album is taken from the shelf. Documents for intimate circles, these albums are a visual record of my life, from infancy on up to my latest adventure. My parents were avid family-photo-takers and possibly as early as the 5th grade, back in P.S. 95 schooldays, I first put together my own albums. (I also made albums in which I collected picture postcards, stamps, cigarbands, leaves from Van Cortlandt Park South trees, WW II battle headlines—all of which disappeared during a storage bin mis-removal.) Now, while writing these notes, I recall having made a box camera in 7th grade shop class which I took instead of cooking class. (High school shop projects included a hot dog roaster and a glass xylophone.) There’s a magic these treasured photo albums still hold for me, and I’m constantly on the lookout for fire retardant materials in which to enwrap them. Albums into which I can dip to see all prior stages of my family history, my life, alone, or with parents, brother, other relatives, old-new-&-lifelong girl&boyfriends, friends of friends, teachers, colleagues, students, husband, sons, grandchildren, strangers; photos of sites, occasions, locales, times of day, and all kinds of creatures; people with whom I’ve played and worked or met somewhere wayback when or just last week. Some posed, some candid, definitely taken by an amateur (or amateurs) who every so often produces a truly smashing image. Nothing and everything is real in these albums; nothing and everything is fictional; everything is both true and false; experience and history are reinforced; memories linger or are re-invented; frozen in time, past life is recalled; for sure, I recognize myself in those former times, but I cannot say for sure that I knew how I would turn out later on; what was then and isn’t now; although now those gradual ongoing processes of change seem so obvious.

..Likewise, these 3 CD ‘record albums’ document a score of time in my music-life; works chosen from shelves and drawers full of LPs, reel-to-reels, cassettes, DATs, and CDs, here digitized and cleanedup as much as possible (although here&there a few hisses and echoes loiter). You’ll hear performers who give their all, who enliven the connection between conceiver and realizer; you’ll hear interactive, collaborative, partnered work; and works by two younger composers—Tildy Bayar and Renee Coulombe—, women whose histories and expressive sensibilities differ from my own. Our recordings and collages were made during live performances or at home in private ambiances or in studios by professionals and nonprofessionals. Our many different ways of hearing and sounding are gathered here for you to listen to and hear..