Mare Island

Jim Shepard

Jerry Bauer

Although his dust jacket photo might indicate otherwise, I’ve been assured by someone who knows him that Jim Shepard is not actually thinking of harming himself, at least not anytime soon. Which is a good thing, because his latest book of stories, Like You’d Understand, Anyway, is excellent. Even though the stories are all depressing and at least half of them involve extremely twisted relations between fathers and sons and the best is a recounting of the Chernobyl disaster by the engineer in charge. But you can see most of that in Shepard’s face.

The Terror Dream

The terror dream is a dream America has been dreaming for 300 years. It’s a dream about vulnerability, and violation by dusky heathens. And each time we have that dream, we wake up in the morning with a burning desire to hurt and shame someone. Who? Women, of course.

Why? Because only by reducing women to frightened and suppliant dependents can we be, in contrast, the manly men our country needs to protect and avenge it. As Susan Faludi sums it up in The Terror Dream, her appalling recent book: “The virginal child-woman was the caryatid supporting the edifice of male effectiveness and thus of national psychological security; without her vulnerability, the structure collapsed.” Thus, Job Number One of the American man is to make damn sure his women don’t even think they could exist without him.

Same as it ever was, from the Indian wars of the 17th century through the Cold War. Three centuries of psychic damage virtually guaranteed that what bubbled up from the national unconscious in the days and months after September 11 would be dark and atavistic indeed. And so it was. Not just the irrational lashing out at supposed enemies, but the reflexive and intolerant assertion of machismo at home. And throughout, in aid of more perfect manhood, the clamor for women barefoot and pregnant.

This is one seriously disturbed country.

Mare Island

Project Notes

Aerial photo of Mare Island from Wikipedia

I've been taking pictures in a place called Mare Island. For some reason it reminds me of what John Szarkowski said about the purpose of photography being “the precise and lucid description of significant fact." That’s always seemed right to me, although I’ve never been quite sure what he meant by “significant fact.”

As for Mare Island, in 1844 in the Mexican state of Alta California a horse belonging to General Mariano Vallejo fell from a raft into the waters of the Carquinez Straits. When the horse saved herself by swimming to a nearby island, the General named the island Isla de la Yegua, or Mare Island, in her honor. Soon afterward, the United States declared war on Mexico, and Alta California became the State of California. Isla de la Yegua, in turn, became the Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

Over the next 140 years, more than 500 naval vessels, from nuclear submarines to Swift boats, were launched from Mare Island. At its peak, its 996 buildings sprawled over 4,351 acres with four dry docks, 20 ship berths, two shipbuilding ways, three finger piers, 21 large industrial sites, a school, two day care centers, a medical clinic, three fire stations, a golf course, two athletic fields, three swimming pools, nine tennis courts, riding stables, and 416 housing units.

The shipyard closed in 1996, and Mare Island is a strange and desolate place today. Although toxic waste is widespread, new homes have been constructed and sold in the open space on the west side of the island. To the east, in some of the old shipyard buildings, there is commercial activity, the exact nature of which is unclear. A few of the former administration buildings are occupied by, for example, Touro University, the United States Forest Service, and the Veterans Administration. Most are vacant.

Usually when people speak of a significant fact, they mean, simply, something important. I don't think that's what Szarkowski meant. Instead, I think his reference was to facts with emotional content, facts that signify some aspect of what life feels like. It may be that not every fact, or every thing, has that capacity. But Mare Island is a place the facts of which are significant to me in the sense I think Szarkowski meant.

On the other hand, I know that sometimes the hardest thing is just to show honestly how a thing looks. So I'm not saying I think I'll succeed in photographing these facts lucidly, or with precision. But I'm trying.

Mare Island

What Was I Thinking?

Reasons To Be Cheerful

#103 For those of you wondering what's going on with Liz Kuball, it seems she took one of Joerg's portfolio reviews a little too seriously. You might remember it, the one in which he advised her to photograph the contents of those storage lockers, rather than their exteriors. So there she was, crowbar in one hand, cable release in the other, when the Homeland Security guys rolled up. Fortunately, while they were debating whether to charge her with breaking and entering or the far more serious offense of photography, she was able to slip away. And now she's back.

#104 This month’s Graphic Design Challenge(d) award goes to Jim Johnson, last week’s Spell Check (Please) winner and Quote of the Month runner-up, for his imaginative use of small green (or sometimes red) type to signify that the words you are reading are those of someone else.

#105 And speaking of quotation marks, this week's Quote of the Month is from Will Steacy: “America is on a slippery slope quickly approaching a cross roads that will surely be marked by change as many issues which have been brewing on the back burner and swept under the carpet can no longer be ignored.” He may be right, of course, but it's all just water under the bridge to us.

#106 Last but not least, Mrs. Deane reports the acquisition of an extensive archive of 19th century Swabian place mats embossed with photographs depicting the theory and practice of animal husbandry in the region. For those who fear that Swabian animal husbandry doesn’t bear imagining, the good news is that it will not be left to our imaginations. On the contrary, Mrs. Deane intends to post all 934 of the place mats on a daily basis over the next three years. Check ‘em out!

Chris Conn Askew

Chris Conn Askew, M96 2007

In His Dark Materials, the Philip Pullman trilogy of which The Golden Compass is a part, every person has a daemon, an animal companion that is his or her reflection and soul. When you’re a child, your daemon is changeable; it can be whatever it wants to be at the moment, a snake, an otter, a cat, a seagull, a monkey or a moth. When you’re older, your daemon permanently “settles” into the form most suited to you. People converse with their daemons, and daemons interact with each other, but a person may not address the daemon of another.

This probably has nothing to do with the art of Chris Conn Askew, but some of his pictures bring it to mind.


(There’s a nice piece on Askew in Juxtapoz No. 82, if you can find a copy.)