Reflective Saturday

The week ended with a "no" from the Allerton Hood Residency, though also encouraging future projects. As much as I've been focused on the possibility of that residency, I'm pausing in the gap of not knowing what's next. 

I went through my application material and pulled out some key phrases that speak of my art practice regardless of project or proposal. I've been talking with other artists. Here are words I'm reflecting on.

The Magic of Walking with a Camera

A Practice Retreat - A Portal

To Be Held - To Hold a Camera

Desire Lines - Traces in the Land

Inner Queer - Public and Private

Amateur = Love

Raging River

... feel its force

... see where it takes me

Trail of Death 

... traumatic clearing

... survivance 

Dawn & Dusk

... the sun is slant

... the mind is open

Dreaming

The Artist Is Dangerous

Dragons & Demons

Fire - In the Dark of Winter

Crucible - Cauldron - Caldera

Raw Edges - Deep Surprise - Not Knowing

Personal Inner Wild

Generative Spark - Something New Emerges

Creating Meaning

The Sphinx

A pair of sphinx face Allerton House, invoking Oscar Wilde's poem. Those words, too, echo in my mind.

Larry Wolf, View from My Porch (2025)

It All Came Together

New York and San Francisco 1945-1946

Meyer Shapiro and his approach to art history struck home. Ann Armstrong loaned me the Wolfflin Principles of Art History. The Newhalls guided and became fast friends. Stieglitz was met! That lump of creativeness and spirituality broke out of its poured concrete straight jacket.

"Have you ever been in love?"

Yes.

"Then you can photograph."

 ...

The teaching job at California School of Fine Arts became available, the Newhalls recommended me to Ansel and I appeared in SF on my birthday, 1946.

All the background of science, art, teaching, photographing, living with people, writing, traveling was suddenly channeled into teaching at CSFA. I felt that I did not know enough.

The lessons learned from the Boleslavsky went into effect. The principles of art history were converted to use by photographers; the psychological approach learned from Shapiro went into effect, the idea of the equivalent from Stieglitz went into the curriculum; technique was learned from Ansel at a high rate of speed and his Zone System became my staple.

...

I taught five days and three nights a week for the first two years. There was little time to see the city ... I got to know the city from student's pictures. The first shooting of my own was a kind of compulsion to work at Land's End. Illustrations to fit the Amputations verses as equivalents was the first bite into serious photographing since Oregon.

Minor White, Memorable Fancies
edited by Todd Cronnan and Peter Bunnell (2025)

Larry Wolf, On My Birthday - Flight to San Francisco (1974)

Snowy Afternoon at Graceland

Larry Wolf, Allerton Family (2025)
Samuel Allerton, Pamelia Allerton, Agnes Allerton, Kate Johnston, Allerton Johnston

Robert Allerton and John Gregg Allerton are not buried here. Their ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean by their home in Hawaii.

Robert at 25

Larry Wolf, Robert at 25 (2025)

 

Larry Wolf, Robert at 25 (2025)

Larry Wolf, Robert at 25 (2025)

Larry Wolf, Robert at 25 (2025)

While applying to the Hood Artist Residency at the Allerton Park and Retreat Center, I created a fortune teller to further understand how the land might have appeared to Robert when he was twenty-five, his first summer at The Farms (1898), before he built the grand house and started the formal gardens, and how Robert and the land appear to me now (2025).

Flexing the fortune teller, opening and closing the petals. What is seen? What is waiting to be revealed? How are we shaped by our environment? What is universal? What is deeply personal?

See the project page for more about my working with fortune tellers.

With His Dogs

Robert Allerton with Dog (1915)
HALF 26 neg, University of Illinois Archive RS 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives

During Construction of Allerton House - Upper Terrace (1900)
HGMT 2 neg, University of Illinois Archives RS 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives 

Along a Garden Wall - Flower Garden Spring (1925)
HGFA 13 neg, University of Illinois Archive 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives

At a Picnic - Lost Garden (1937)
HGL 54 neg, University of Illinois Archive RS 31/13/5 Box 6 Negatives

Robert wandered the estate early every morning with his dogs, while his guests usually slept in. 

Martha Burgin and Maureen Holtz: Robert Allerton, Private Man and Public Gifts (2009)

Dear Mr President - April 1993

Larry Wolf, Dear Mr President - page 1 (1993)

Larry Wolf, Dear Mr President - page 2 (1993)

Some weeks ago, when I was creating my zines of the 1979 and the 1987 Marches on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, I went looking for my photos from the 1993 MoW, and found virtually nothing. It was a rough time for me, for my friends. If there were photographs, they have been lost.

Today, I found this letter. I have not OCR'd it. It should take some effort to read. It took some effort to write, back then. It speaks of pain and optimism. Pain and optimism which resonates still.

What Would Minor White Do?

Photograph who you really are

Venture into the landscape without expectations. 

Let your subject find you. 

When you approach it, you will feel resonance, a sense of recognition. If, when you move away, the resonance fades, or if it gets stronger as you approach, you'll know you have found your subject. 

Sit with your subject and wait for your presence to be acknowledged. 

Don't try to make a photograph, but let your intuition indicate the right moment to release the shutter. 

If, after you've made an exposure, you feel a sense of completion, bow and let go of the subject and your connection to it. 

Otherwise, continue photographing until you feel the process is complete.

Minor White's instructions to students at the Hotchkiss workshop in 1971
 as described by John Daido Loori in The Zen of Creativity (2004)

Pre-Workshop Reading List

Carlos Castaneda: A Separate Reality (1971)

Eugen Herrigel: Zen and the Art of Archery (1953)

Richard Boleslavsky: Acting: The First Six Lessons (1933)

Minor White's reading list for students at the Hotchkiss workshop in 1971
 as described by John Daido Loori in The Zen of Creativity (2004)

Larry Wolf, Shadow on Stone (2025)