previously Adlai Stevenson, Life magazine 1965

I’ve been thinking about the lyrics to the B-52s song, The Detour Thru Your Mind: I need to leave my past behind. I need to leave my behind in the past. Whenever I work on my historical self-portrait project, I think, “I have to stop this. It’s disturbing and points to insanity. I need to leave the past and move into the 21^st century.” Then, I find a new technique to simulate photo grain in 1916 and start again. Some of you may be saying, “This is the most vain thing I have ever seen. How could someone be so self-absorbed?” Others might say, “Sad. Very sad when I mind is lost.”

You know how trans-gendered people feel like they are in the wrong body? I feel like I’m in the wrong time. Working on these images is a small attempt to place myself back in the right temporal place. Of course, I only use family photos. Otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense. I don’t want a different family. And, frankly, it looks fun to spend life summering in Newport and doing the European tour for four months each year, or running for president, or starting an artist colony in Big Sur during the depression. So, for your enjoyment, like watching a reality show when someone slowly goes mad, here is the latest batch.

previously President Benjamin Harrison, 1896

previously Nicholas Meriwether Lewis, 1840

previously Paul Owen Flint 1915

previously Walter Taliaferro, 1913

previously Nicholas Longworth II with Alice Roosevelt, 1926

Harvard swimming, 1916

previously Chester Gavin Arthur III, by Brett Weston, 1935

South Pacific, 1943

previously Hal Taliaferro, 1943

previously Wilbur Walker, 1954

previously Admiral E.R. Zumwalt, 1969

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Gibson greeting card, 1970s

I often worry that I live a small life. When I read about a great, great uncle who was a United States Majority leader and Speaker of the House, or distant grandfather who was a US President, or even the odd balls who went mad in Paris in the Gilded Age, I think, “Should I be doing more?” This goes to the heart of the neurosis currently affecting designers. “How can I worry about kerning when there is climate change?” My answer is, “The people equipped to deal with complex climatological issues are far better dealing with this than you. But they probably have atrocious word spacing.” Every grain of rice tips the scale a little more.

This morning, I managed to assuage my insecurity about the smallness of my contribution. Then, I was faced head-on with that issue in force. I needed a varnish sample to show a client. We have a bin of “Favorite Things” that is a storage space for anything someone likes. As I dug through the bin, I continued to find wonderful items. “Oh, look at this. It’s a potato gun package,” I said as the designers politely nodded and tried to ignore me. This begs the question, is my little collection of odd items as important as serving as the United States Ambassador to France at the beginning of World War II? I say yes.

Ginza Dai-Ichi Hotel luggage tag, 1968

Potato Gun packaging

Wonder Body Exerciser manual, 1974

Gibson greeting card, 1970s

New York World's Fair Guide, 1964

New York World's Fair card, 1964

Technicolor negative envelope, 1970s

Restaurant Punjab, Paris, card, 1994

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