About a year ago, I signed up for a one-week online book-making workshop hosted by the Center for Book Arts and taught by Ben Denzer. Ben had been scheduled to speak at RIT before his talk was canceled due to the pandemic, and I figured taking the workshop would make up for the canceled lecture. What I didn’t think about was the fact that the workshop overlapped with my move out of Rochester, a short stay at home in New Jersey, and packing for my move to Phoenix. It was an interesting week.
The workshop itself was great – Ben is an extremely kind and attentive instructor, and was genuinely invested in helping every student make something worthwhile. The real challenging parts of the experience were pretty much self-inflicted. Sitting on the floor in the empty living room of my Rochester apartment, I told Ben in a one-on-one meeting that my self-assigned project would be a book cataloging every stop sign in my hometown of Berlin, NJ. Taking inspiration from Ben’s amazing collection-based books, I figured it would be an interesting way to document the place where I grew up before moving across the country. Ben asked if it would be possible to complete the project in the short time I had at home, and I confidently said yes. That confidence was somewhat misplaced.
After leaving my apartment in Rochester for the last time, I set aside a whole day in Berlin to take my stop sign pictures. I decided to get around to all of the signs on a bike, thinking the small-town roads would be quicker and easier to traverse than when driving. I planned out my route on a cycling app that would also track my mileage and average speed. I was set.
Let me tell you, I am not a cyclist. Before this adventure, the last time I rode a bike for more than a couple of miles was in middle school. During that hot September day, I biked 31 miles in a little over 8 hours. My average speed was 3.8 mph, due to all the stopping and starting to take pictures. I photographed the front and back of every stop sign in Berlin, and I couldn’t feel my ass (I would sure feel it the next day, though). I took 856 pictures in total, and after importing them onto my computer that night, I went right to sleep.
The last meeting of the workshop was a few days after my arduous journey, and I realized quickly that I would not have time to process and print all of the images. So I made a mockup 0f what I hoped the finished book would look like and presented that during our virtual critique. I was grateful that Ben and the other students understood why I didn’t have a finished book, and I promised everyone that the real, complete book would be done in the next few weeks. That was a year ago, and I haven’t touched those stop sign pictures since.
Why haven’t I finished this project? The easiest answer is that it requires a lot of tedious computer work that I do not particularly enjoy doing, and I have been putting off processing and formatting the images because I simply don’t want to do it. This is, I’ll admit, pretty true, but there are other (more interesting) reasons that don’t have to do with my artistic laziness. I know I can force myself through most any computer drudgery if I really need to, and so there are some deeper feelings preventing me from coming back to this project for so long.
When I really think about it, one un-motivating factor behind not finishing this project is the lack of a real audience. I don’t mean to be self-deprecating – I know some people would like to see or own a comprehensive catalog of Berlin stop signs, but probably not many. This project was for me from the start, a project only its artist could love. And because of this, knowing there isn’t a line around the corner to see Every Stop Sign in Berlin, NJ, it hasn’t been a top priority. I know those pictures are safe on my hard drive, waiting for me to have the time and motivation to see the book to completion.
But there is another, harder to get at reason for this indefinite pause – in some way I feel that the project is done. I set myself the goal of photographing every stop sign in my hometown, and I met that goal. That experience was amazing, even considering the physical discomfort. I rode a bike down every street in the town where I learned how to ride a bike, rode by the houses of some of my best friends and houses of friends I have lost touch with, saw parts of this small town that I had maybe only seen once before, and realized there were roads and stop signs I never even knew existed. It was a complete experience, and I couldn’t think of a better way to remember the place where I spent the first 18 years of my life.
So, do I need to put the pictures I took that day into a book to call it truly done? I don’t know. Part of me sees it as a performance or a stunt, something I did to see if I could do it and be able to tell the story later. I think some projects, especially photographic projects, can just be excuses to go out and do something, to experience the world in a way that you don’t normally think of. The camera or notebook or paintbrush becomes less of a tool for creating and more for motivating oneself to see things a little different. Sometimes those things are worth the effort of sharing through a book or piece of art. But sometimes those experiences are just experiences, worthy of a good story but existing most importantly as fond memories.
I will eventually put all those stop sign pictures into some sort of book, but I’m in no rush. I think Ben would understand.
Links to Things I’ve Enjoyed Recently:
Staples colored copy paper. It is pretty affordable (more expensive than normal copy paper but it is of a somewhat higher quality) and the colors are great for adding a tone behind photos printed on a laser printer. The grey tone also makes an amazing stand-in for newsprint without the hassle of trying to print on actual newsprint.
This shirt made by David Horvitz. I have not bought one (a little too pricey for me) but the idea of it existing makes me pretty happy.
Shameless Self Promotion:
My book Ulysses, NY is now for sale on my website. Each copy is signed and will come with a 5x7 print on fine art paper. If you want to support my future work and also look at quiet pictures of small Central New York towns, consider picking one up.