anita līcis-ribak’s blog

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16
Jul 2010

Shedding Light docu film is out

Back in December I went out to photograph an art project of a friend of mine, Erika Zeko's Shedding Light Amherst, a lighted tobacco barn installation.  Catherine Stryker, a local filmmaker has made a quietly beautiful 10-minute long documentary about the project.  My photographs of the barn are featured in the film, along other photographers' work.  You can watch it on-line.     

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25
May 2010

A hat, a salad, and a scandal

I've always looked up to my older women friends for clues as to what to expect later in life.  And here I have it:  I am discovering that women seem to have this uncanny ability to have more fun, as they get older.  I am all for it, especially considering how late the word "fun" entered my vocabulary, since there's no analogue in either the Latvian or the Russian languages.  There are of course words for joy, and for happiness, but nothing quite with such surprising - and healthy - dose of lightness and frivolity that the English "fun" would imply.  

The French say that a woman can make three things out of nothing: a hat, a salad, and a scandal.  Let me add something to this list of miracle products: a party!  A woman can make a party any-where, any-time, from any-thing.  And she only gets better at it.    

Here are a few pictures* I took recently at a friend's house where old friends gather once in a while for a night of girls-only party, to kick back, let their hair down (or wear someone else's), and to teach all those who are new to the concept of "fun" just what it means, to have it.  And they've surely got it!  

*I entered this series of pictures in the inaugural CURRENTS exhibit on Women, Age and Sex, called "At Her Age", curated by Martha Wilson.  The exhibit will take place in A.I.R.'s Gallery I space from December 1, 2010 through January 2, 2011.  I should know sometime in the summer whether my submission has made the cut.   


Out of Her Shoes © 2010 

Foot in the Kitchen © 2010 

The Unbareable Lightness of Being © 2010 

Downward Glance © 2010 

 

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Filed under  //   A.I.R. Gallery   photography   women  
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19
May 2010

Memento Vita, or 30 Days in Spring

For years, Agus, my husband, has insisted that April is the cruelest month. And for years, I disagreed. Until this year came around...

We were in the emergency room, Agus urinating blood and having the worst pain of his life, in his back. A CT scan was performed to confirm kidney stones in action. It also revealed a far more menacing reality: a large mass in his right kidney.

The verdict came brutal and head-on: renal cell carcinoma, or kidney cancer. That day also happened to be the beginning of our infertility treatment cycle, the first day towards a huge hope of having another child. I had just taken my first pill...

I HEAR THE BREAKS SCREECHING.

FULL STOP.

SILENCE.

Agus and I search for each other's eyes... What do you say in those moments? Will he live? How long do we have?........

Minutes, hours, days, weeks of agony, hope, pain, contemplation, procedures, procedures, procedures follow... Some 30 plus days have passed now. The longest days of our lives. Agus has had a successful surgery, and he is on his way to recovery. His tumor, albeit large, mercifully hadn't spread anywhere else, and Agus is now cancer-free! Free to go. Free to live.

I've always remembered to Memento Mori. But these days, all I want to do is, to Memento Vita. Remember Life. Think: LIFE.

So, my dear Agus, yes, April IS the cruelest month. But please allow me to -still- disagree: it has kept you with us.So thank you, April, thank you our dear family, thank you all the compassionate nurses and extraordinary doctors, thank you our many many wonderful friends, and thank you LIFE!

 

***
What follows is a short photo-essay, 30 Days in Spring, which I submitted for the first annual photography portfolio competition organized by the Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

***
In the depths of our hearts we are together,

in the cane field of the heart we cross through

a summer of tigers,

watching over a meter of cold flesh,

watching over a bouquet of inaccessible skin,

with our mouths sniffing sweat and green veins

 we find ourselves in the moist shadow that drops kisses

(From Furies and sorrows by Pablo Neruda)


On April 14th 2010 my husband Agustin was diagnosed with kidney cancer.

This series of photographs follows him for 30 days following that day, from the quiet and profound moments of contemplation, through the various diagnostic procedures, his admission to the hospital and the surgery to remove the affected kidney, and to the beginning of his path to recovery.

I have kept my camera at hand, night and day, as if it could protect me, and him, from the inevitable. Taking photographs of my ill husband became my way of recording - and taming - my own agonies and doubts, and recognizing the signs of hope, and the presence of joy.

There were complications after the surgery, and Agustin needed blood transfusions. One day, while waiting for the donors’ blood too arrive, I wandered outdoors, and into a nearby park. It was bursting in its spring attire, life flowing through the veins of the tree branches, feeding colors and shapes into spectacular bloom. There were shapes that were most fragile in their gestures, and there were textures and volumes that spoke of longevity and of indomitable strength.

I was thinking of my husband, as I was walking through this awe-inspiring life factory, and of the frailty of his struggling body, the resilience of his tired mind, and the fervor of his spirit.

Back in my husband’s hospital room, the time seems to stop. There are no seasons. No colors. No sounds. We are - he and I - hermetically sealed into a time capsule, where the only way of being is waiting. And hoping.

He had chosen to struggle quietly, without the arsenals of bravura and drama. He has inspired me through all these days, and keeps on doing so, with his beauty, doing things his own way, full of life, both like a gentle blossom, and a rigid trunk of a worldly mature tree.

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Filed under  //   'People' series   Agus   kidney cancer   Philadelphia Museum of Art   photography  
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26
Apr 2010

Museums10 get youthful new graphics

Agus and I met with a couple of cool local graphic designers this morning.  Their names are Rob and Damia Stewart, the faces behind Rob & Damia Design.

Their work had caught my eye some months ago, before I knew anything about them, when I noticed catchy new graphics for the 10 local art museums floating around the town, almost literally, plastered over buses and displayed in the windows of some local businesses.  This particular black and white poster appealed to me with its simplicity and clarity, besides being so "architectural".  I stole several of the postcards lying around a local library, and made an assembly from them on one of my studio walls.  This could be a great mural, or even a fabric, or wall covering pattern, I thought!  

I had known, and visited on many occasions most of the 10 museums in our area before, but had never heard of the organization Museums10, apparently established some 7 years ago by Five Colleges Inc.  These brilliant posters remind me of the richness of this place - both with its cultural and art inheritance, and also with creative talent and ideas that this tucked-away place is filled with.  

Kudos to Museum10 for executing this fresh, young and democratic ad campaign, and to its designers, Rob and Damia!  These posters should be everywhere, especially now that the summer is coming, and the Pioneer Valley will be getting more visitors.  

Museums10: Mixed Media Campaign 

More work from Rob & Damia:
Artifacts 20th Century: A poster ad for a modern furniture store in Florence MA

Transit Authority Figures: Subway Posters
A fanciful sendup of traditional subway maps takes locations that will never have a subway and imagines what the map would look like if they did. Visit Transit Authority Figures website to see the Five College area subway map and more!

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Filed under  //   graphic design   Museums10   Pioneer Valley   Rob&Damia Design  
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17
Apr 2010

About hands - 5

Expressions. Sri Meenakshi Temple. Madurai, India.  2010

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16
Apr 2010

About hands - 4

Chennai. 2010

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15
Apr 2010

About hands - 3

Expressions. Chennai. 2010

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14
Apr 2010

About hands - 2

Wedding in Chennai. 2010

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14
Apr 2010

Making men (and women) of our dreams

Remarkable work from a young Russian photographer Alexander Gronsky!  I love his series of photographs of cities and people at dusk from the borderlines of civilization, such as Endless Night and Chukotka Travel, both under Editorial, and his ephemeral Edges series, found under Artwork.  But the collection that struck me most was Town of Brides (Editorial).  

 
"With 1298 women for every 1000 men Novgorod is now officially called "Town of Brides".  For this project women seeking marriage were asked to produce with help of police software portrait (sic) of a man of their dreams" - says Gronsky in his intro to the series.    
 
Photographs of Novgorod women are coupled with the engineered portraits of their dream men.  Women, all of them good looking, are shown in what appears to be their natural surroundings.  There are no theatrics, no drama.  But you sense a quietly felt static of unsatisfied yearning.  What struck me most were the composite physiognomies of their imaginary men.   All of them were nothing short of highly undesirable, to me (since I had to go through this exercise of looking and 'evaluating' them as dream material).  These would be the men I would caution my daughter against (if I had one).  But then, I don't live in Novgorod.  Is it desperation felt by these women, coupled with their low self-esteem, that we see at work here?  Is it our tendency to repeat our history, even if it is a violent and demoralizing one?  I say this because I am well aware of the difficulties these women may be facing, being exposed to domestic violence, alcoholism, harassment, lack of opportunities, apathy, and loneliness, all byproducts of a broken empire, and of a loaded - and very immediate - history.  What a poignant - and timely - portrait of imaginary anti-couples, by Alexander Gronsky!  
 
An old Latvian adage says "Neskaties vīru pēc cepures", which loosely translates as "don't choose a man from his hat (meaning his looks)".  Other cultures encourage women to give a man's shoes an inspecting gaze, to see how well upkept they are, as an indicator of just how good a husband he would make.  In yet other places, you are advised to get drunk with your sweetheart, to have a sneak peak into his true nature, before you commit to nuptials.  None of the men in the drawings has a hat, but they all have a distinctly unsettling look!  I think I would skip the hat, ignore the shoes, and run away from any co-drinking offers altogether! 
Alexander Gronsky.  Town of Brides series.  2010
 
A different kind of couple, living on the opposite side of the globe, is presented in the London-based photographer Zed Nelson's brilliant and disturbingly acute series Love Me.  A man, a modern-day Pygmalion in full control of his fate, proud of his workmanship, with a woman of his dreams - and a fruit of his labor - by his side.  She is his Galatea, his creation, and his sunbathed version of Botticelli's Venus, his Muse -  all in one. 
Zed Nelson.  Ox and Angela, plastic surgeon and wife. 2010
Rio, Brazil.
 
Two couples.  One imaginary.  Another one real.  Both products of fear, imagination, vanity and longing.  Both joined by their surreal premise, and an uncertain future.  
  
File:Botticelli Venus.jpg
Sandro Botticelli.  The Birth of Venus.  1486
Image source: commons/wikimedia.org
Jean Léon Gerôme.  Pygmalion and Galatea.  1865-70. 
Image source: www.victorianweb.org

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13
Apr 2010

About hands - 1

Yesterday I resumed my flamenco dance practice.  It's been a few years without, that started with a broken toe, and extended into a prolonged time off.  I started studying flamenco in '98, with Inés Arrubla, the first dancer to offer flamenco classes in the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts.  I jumped at the opportunity as soon as she opened the door of her studio.  I guess my passion for flamenco comes first from the guitar sounds.  And since I figured I can never learn to play a decent flamenco on the guitar, I can at least try to express it with my body.  It has been a wonderful journey.  It took some years, not months, without exaggeration, just to get to a point where my body started accepting the flamenco form: head raised high up above the shoulders; shoulders down, chest up and forward, like a bull's horns, elbows having a life of their own, almost always away from the body, feet that work as a percussion, and so on... The hands, in all their myriad of expressions, are by far the most difficult to master.  I am still working on it...   

So, I want to talk about hands... 
 
Hands say so much.  And hands never lie.  You can change your face, stretch it fold-less, you can tuck in your belly, your can wear a wig, or a glass eye, you can reduce the size of your toes (no kidding!), but you can't do much with your hands.  See Zed Nelson's Love Me Nr.16 for a proof.  And how ironic that the subtitle says "Age undisclosed" while in fact, Sally's hands tell her age, loud and clear.  I watch my own hands change with age.  And I know they are telling the truth. 
 
In flamenco, the hand becomes like a flower.  It opens and closes, it breathes along with the dance.  You can do an entire dance with your hand alone, without ever getting up from a chair.  One of the most beautiful things about flamenco is that you don't have to be 16, or even 35 to look great when you dance.  In fact, I believe, the flamenco dancer becomes ever more noble, and more expressive with age.  It's the scarsity of movement, its carefully chosen expressions that become loaded with emotion and meaning.  Because you, the onlooker, are hungry for it.  And because you know that the dancer has a lot to say.  She has lived a life.  
 
Like my mother.  No, she doesn't dance flamenco.  For her, dancing flamenco would be an unimaginable luxury.  She has lived all her life, humbly and simply, finding fulfillment in serving others.  She has suffered like no other in her life.  But always, always found joy in the little things around her.  And she has been contagious with that skill.  
 
So, here are my mother's hands.  The hands that cradled me when I was small.  The hands that would cradle me still.  If I asked...     
The hands that cradled me.  2009.  Rīga, Latvia

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Filed under  //   daily series   family   flamenco   Ines Arrubla   photography   Pioneer Valley   Zed Nelson  
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