Artist: Andre Masson: Paris, France
Fictional Truths
The cadence that belongs to the march of time- -the cadence of possibilities: Possibilities not mine but imagined in a city called Paris.
Every city has had a chronicler of sway: great cities big and small have had many strollers with eyes. Paris’s history is like a voluminous waltz within moments of centrality and focus: Imagine if you try a chimpanzee atop a Parisian Metro sign. Imagine if you try, the nature of Paris that is real and elusive. There, forgotten and remembered memories pose for here and now. There is a unique cadence in every city on every planet- -Its rhythm is laced to the one or one hundred billion who have been or will be hurtled through our universe or another’s.
The history of maps, are a map of men and women- -Today’s yesterdays have many maps. My day began at the former home of the dramatist’s Molière’s for lunch. The day partially ended at another moment- -The Surrealist André Masson hosted me for coffee, cake and a portrait session- -With links to Miro, Dali and Picasso my day became “…merrily, merrily, merrily merrily, Life is but a dream.” Another map to my future’s past.
From one arrondisement to another the stroll along Rue de Rivoli followed the sounds that paths made: I heard a collective of cadences: Maybe only Paris can mimic itself each day: Theirs is history I have listened to like an imaginary clock transporting through histories I have known histories I have dreamed about.
The way the streets look, as I stride, seemed to suspend time like a bridge over a real true to life folklore: The city streets feel and look like they are filled with armies of fashionable shapeshifters: In every direction, my lens follows, bending for my needs to capture what will be remembered as my Paris in that moment.
Once I left Molière’s on Rue de Richelieu, Rue de Rivoli and all of the built history ahead and behind looked like massive tiered towers tossed in and around my mind like globular clusters: Dazzled at least, every mason’s stone and design was distinguishable from another. I could not allow my pace to slow, my camera was in a hurry.
I cannot be quite sure if my eyes or my camera co-opted Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of opticks. I was visually engaged to one of my favorite cities: My mind was in a brawl with my eyes: I wanted to stop and pose with everything that belongs to Paris. My eyes were happily blinded by the lights of colors refracted: If I toted Newton close to my ears he might have contended I was trying to draw the eyes into a single tunnel vision: He would be wrong. I needed to see the entire globe in a single frame.
I was flirting with exhaustion…happily so. It is the way I have always engaged the opportunity to make pictures: To imagine colors passing through prisms. My lens was glowing: Was I being too exuberant:
There are thousands of people in my archives. My early days as a photographer were most rewarded for what the camera had to achieve.
Not an exposure has been made without Newtons’ Opticks in my subconscious: Imagine if you try what every capture may mean if wide angled prismatic distinctive points of view lived in your camera’s reality. Imagine my camera transferring all of man’s science and man’s discoveries of spectral light into a single frame. Blame Newton if you must. The prismatic ride through a scope of time has been steroidal.
Alone in Paris. The corner of Rue de Rivoli arrives at Rue de Sévigné. I began at Rue de Richelieu. I have been lost in heaven wandering for nearly three hours. The massive tiered towers imagined have mostly vanished, faded from my imagination. A canopy of trees above waved some mist and sunshine in my direction: A coolness had arrived. The famous surrealist painter was just ahead.
My decades sometimes imagined in mirrors of a carnival funhouse might invoke an illuminating story: Paris is home to many of my stories. My days and years adventuring in Paris have often seemed surreal at bedtime and in the morning rise.
I arrived at the home of Andre Masson: He welcomed me into his home. My camera and the ghost of Newton accompanied my moment. I prayed to successfully focus on a single frame.