Everyday Creativity and Little Pep Talks
Sometime last year it occurred to me I could videotape each face just as easily as taking the photo. My camera lets me do that (as does everyone else’s). Since I edit video for a living you would think I might have had this revelation a lot sooner. I didn’t. But I’ve been at it for a while now and here is the first one. Hope you enjoy!
I made the music in garage band with apple loops. Hurray technology. Also, check out my little dogs who are my constant companions. Aren’t they cute?
Since I started my Sidewalk Face Project a year and half ago I have had the opportunity to make faces in a few locations other than Los Angeles.
Mojave Desert (2x)
Hawaii, Big Island
Texas, Matagorda County
San Francisco, California
If you had to guess, which place inspired the most faces? Do you think I should be able to make good faces anywhere I go? I think I should. But off course I don’t. Let’s investigate.
Hawaii
The worst ratio of faces captured to days available to make them goes to….Hawaii! It should have been the winner just based on the amount of free time I had at my disposal. I was there longer than the other two places by double and I was on vacation so I had nothing else to attend to. Oh, except swimming in the prettiest cerulean blue ocean ever. Could I please die and be reincarnated as a dolphin on the Hawaiian coast? That is what I want out of life.
I didn’t make faces at the beach because I had better things to do but also because the beach doesn’t offer the right ingredients. It has lots of one thing (sand) with only a few other things (shells, seaweed maybe). It could be done, and now that I type this, I am sure my next visit to a beach will force my hand just so I can eat my words, but on the whole, something is missing there that is not missing on my daily dog walks. What is it? Let’s examine my best Hawaiian Faces for a clue.
The first thing that jumps out is nothing is man made. The only unnatural item here is pavement. Four of them were taken in a rural area where we were waiting for a tour. Nobody was around and I felt free to poke about in the dirt. The tree face was taken on the side of the road as I walked to the beach and the dead centipede face was made at our airbnb. This has me thinking about access. To make these faces I need access to both materials and environment. Do the faces reflect their habitat? I don’t know.
Hawaii Stats
Texas
Now let’s consider Southeast Texas just above the Gulf and south of Houston. I got quite a few good faces in only 3 days. My mom lives in a lovely neighborhood filled with huge live oaks and people moving about in large vehicles. The streets are very clean and the pavement consistently uniform. Unlike my Los Angeles neighborhood where I don’t mind treading briefly on the edges of a neighbor’s lawn to take a photo of a bush, a paving stone or whatever, in Texas l felt too self conscious and maybe even a bit reprobate at the thought of trespassing on someone else’s property. So while there were interesting things I could imagine doing, it was out of my purview. I did spot a dead snake while riding my bike. It was flat as a pancake and a little bloody from being run over in the street. I picked it up with a stick and rode home one handed to get it back to my mom’s driveway for photographing (first one in grid below). I also found some asphalt chunks discarded after a recent road re-pavement. Otherwise it was just leaves and dirt to work with, which I did.
Things got much more interesting when I crossed the railroad tracks. On the other side of town, there are blocks of houses that form small neighborhoods but they are interspersed with grain silos and other industrial buildings. I found lots of junky stuff in this area that kept me busy for hours such as a pair of rusty faux Chanel sunglasses I paired with a dirty car matt. I also made a face out of some type of grain chaff that was super thick around the edge of a silo. There was absolutely nobody around except for the occasional drive by pickup so I was free to manipulate things without interference.
As I look at the grid above, I see more natural elements than man made ones. Overall it looks wilder than my LA Sidewalk faces but it doesn’t look entirely organic. We aren’t lost in the woods but we aren’t downtown either.
Texas Stats
California Desert
I have shot in the desert twice.
The visual themes I notice are rust, sand and abandoned stuff. Out here the stuff left behind isn’t trash it’s the items of domestic life. For some reason this is a place people leave thinking they will return and they don’t. Going picture by picture I shot a charcoal pit, a bathtub, the head of a stuffed animal on some broken concrete, bedsprings, a swimming pool, metal items, netting, coat hangers and an empty pack of marlboros.
The desert is the ideal place to make faces. Nobody is around, no foot traffic, no vehicle traffic. It’s a giant playground of weird crap I am unlikely to find in the city.
Desert Stats
San Francisco
Nothing. I took not a single face photo. Not even a bad one. But to be fair I was on a job working almost round the clock.
I think I could go to San Francisco and make something but the stains and trash that caught my eye were not so different from what I might see in LA that they didn’t demand I deal with them. I don’t normally make a face unless I am compelled by a feeling that if I don’t do it right then I will regret it forever. A tad dramatic but still true.
Overall Assessment
I can deduce that two ingredients are necessary for face making: time and ….time. I was going to write materials but as I think about it that’s not the main problem, only time. The best captures from Texas and the desert were when I was on a walk specifically to indulge this activity and I had given myself several hours to play. I can still remember the feeling of pleasure, like a kid on a very luxurious easter egg hunt.
It’s been illuminating to look at the faces made in each location in a grid. None of them look like Los Angeles faces. In my next post I will discuss materials, geography and why my Los Angeles neighborhood is an ideal location for this particular activity.
The Winner
So the winner by far is Texas! Did anybody see that coming? I bet the Texans did. I think I was most productive in Texas because I had the least amount of other concerns and responsibilities pulling at my attention.
Today is the one year anniversary of my first Sidewalk Face post on Instagram. I posted 317 faces in my first year. More actually as I posted a bunch from Joshua Tree, CA and Hawaii but I didn’t label them as Sidewalk Faces because they were not near my sidewalk.
When I started I did not have rules. But over the year these are the rules that emerged.
Sidewalk Face Rules
#1 – They must be good.
#2 – They must be made from materials in the immediate proximity.
#3 – They must be made quickly.
GOOD
I would like them to be good. That doesn’t mean they are all good. I only post 1 out of every 3 or 4 that I make. I consider them good if they show personality and emotion, and if they are different or better than what I have already made. If I see something in the environment that I haven’t see before (such as a cracked egg ) I feel like I really must try and make a face out of it. This often supersedes rule #3. The more desperately I need to get back, the more interesting the item I will find on my way home.
MATERIALS
I only use stuff I find around me. I do sometimes see something like a piece of dirty styrofoam or anything that could be an eye, pick it up and carry it with me looking for a good way to use it. If it is shot within walking distance of my Los Angeles home (90%+ are) then the materials came from my neighborhood. I consider it particularly great if everything comes from within a few feet but the first rule is more important than the proximity rule. Everything I shot in Hawaii was from Hawaii. Same for the desert. If I make some in another city I will only use materials from there.
TIME
I usually spend 5 to 10 minutes making each one. I’m not totally sure about that as I don’t wear a watch or keep track. But I only have so much time and the dogs only have so much patience. Occasionally I’ve made one, walked on to find an object that would make the face better and doubled back for a re-do, usually to the intense annoyance of both myself and the dogs but rule #1 is the most important rule.
Here is how it starts, I spot something of interest; a shape, a stain, an abandoned object, a butterfly. I ask myself what I could do with it, could it be a nose, a mustache, a head, a critter? Then I look for what else is needed, additional parts or a background. I usually go with my first instinct, my first choice. If I place the butterfly in the middle of that cracked pavement, I don’t place it anywhere else. I don’t want to over think my decisions because for me personally, thinking and originality are often inversely correlated. My thoughts aren’t that interesting but somehow my actions are. That’s why I do it, to surprise myself.
I am looking forward to another year of this project. Many people have sent me faces they have made and that inspires me to keep going. Hunting for new faces makes every outing an adventure. It’s never a dull day.
You can see all of my Sidewalk Faces on Instagram at:
Sidewalk Face 