Boots and raincoats, San Diego, California

To live with you alone, Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee

Hot and sunny Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! I am grateful to Sara for filling in for me as of late, but I must confess that I am especially jealous that she got to write about our own Ms. Mount and her delightful Ideal Bookshelf. As I said to Jane yesterday: it's like she read my mind! I love every single one of those books, and it seems I'm not alone. Their utter ideal-ness seemed to roust many of you from your lazy summer slumber... the $20 prints were gone in a flash!

Today's photography editions from the talented and sweet-as-pie Taj Forer are also quite fetching. After a lovely chat with the photographer himself about To live with you alone, Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee and Boots and raincoats, San Diego, California, I am that much more enchanted.

We had quite a lot to talk about, it turns out! We started with Taj's Threefold Sun series, inspired by Waldorf school founder and biodynamic farmer, Rudolf Steiner and went on (and on!) from there. I'm only including a snippet below, so if you just can't get enough, look for the full transcript on the 20x200 blog.

Jen: Hi there. Love your editions so! I am excited!
Taj: Oh, shucks. Thanks for doing this. I'm very psyched myself.
Jen: Sure thing, I am sorry that we didn't connect sooner. But what's funny is that this weekend I was at the Hawthorne Valley Farm store. So I've had Steiner on my mind.
Taj: No way! That place is amazing.
Jen: And I also got to drink raw milk. For the first time ever. And it is delicioso. Buttery.
Taj: So tasty. Amazing! Amazing that that's the ONLY way milk used to be consumed and now it's the rare exception...
...
Jen: It's super regulated although I can't tell if it's because of real danger or powerful Dairy Industry lobbyists. So, can you tell me how you connected with Steiner?
Taj: oh, I would imagine it's all lobbyist pressure.
But, to answer your question re: how I connected with Steiner—I attended a Waldorf school when I was a child, K-8 grade... It was a school located in an old farmhouse and surrounded by fields, forests and streams. Just gorgeous. As I got older and began the process of exploring my own life (rather than the lives of others) through photography, I turned my attention to the landscape of the Waldorf school that I attended as a child.
...
It's interesting, Steiner's biodynamic agricultural method came out of many of his followers begging him to address the negative effects that farmers in Europe were beginning to notice as a direct result of the beginning of industrialized farming. Something affecting everyone... Steiner was a devout Christian and often times I felt that his religious beliefs got in the way of more tangible forms of communicating his ideas. Having said this, he was a very open-minded person who borrowed from all of the major faith traditions when formulating various aspects of his philosophy.
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Jen: I said connectedness and community is what I get from [your images], and you know, I've been looking at the work since the book came out.
Taj: I like that that's what you get from the pictures. ...
Jen: I love Boots and raincoats so much because on a surface level it's just delicious eye-candy.
Taj: It's an old public school that the city of San Diego no longer wanted to use so it rents to the Waldorf school for a good price.
Jen: but also it has such a wonderful cozy warmth about it, and a nostalgia.
Taj: I find that so lovely and metaphorical...
Jen: I mean it has a soundtrack in my mind, when I look at it.
Taj: Thanks. That image seems to resonate with many.
Jen: That is actually super interesting/great to know. And then of course the chalkboard poem—which is ever more charming b/c of its small errors.
Taj: Yes, the flaws MAKE that image for me. Tell me about the soundtrack!
Jen: Well, the soundtrack is that distinctive din of kids in a school yard, and oddly the ocean, for some reason, in the background.
Taj: So representative of the whole movement: beautiful, well-intentioned but, like anything worth a damn, also flawed. Like people!
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Jen: It's comfortable and nostalgic, even though it's not something I ever experienced. I mean I think my teacher was kind like that, in pre-school, but I grew up in Queens NYC! heh. OK. This is super fun, I actually love talking to the artist about an image and finding out that the little stories I make up make sense. Sometimes they make no sense at all, which is fine too. But I can't lie, I enjoy being right. ;)
Taj: Nice. I always enjoy talking about the work as it often leads to new discoveries/ways of thinking about my own images and process.
Jen: Well, we can always talk more, right now I am going to write an intro... Yea we're a little late, so I gotta hustle like mad.