Artist Statement
As with several other “series” there are different phases of the Detroit Negatives. In 1991, Cary Loren gave me seventy pin-up 4 x 5 inch negatives that a Detroit amateur photographer had made in the 1950s. I wanted to get to an inner life of the ideas that I saw in the pictures, so I cut in to them as with the cut paper series. They became little stained glass windows, printed with the brilliance of Cibachrome. With Cibachrome the viewer becomes a Narcissus looking into the print, seduced and looking for more while always seeing their reflection. The second phase began with photographing hipsters in motel rooms. The idea was to make pictures of ordinary desires, relationships, celebrations, that never made it into the family photo album.

The Businessman’s Luncheon grew directly out of the motel work in the Detroit Negatives. How does a businessman find nourishment? The photograph as a document of reality, as a memory and memento, to be saved and savored is part of what people do, it is a testimony to being alive and, “who I am”.