Laura Moya Interviews Lisa Law & Taj Forer
Laura Moya, who grew up in northern New Mexico in the 1970’s, interviews Lisa Law, whose images of communal living from that time and place have been in her memory bank for years. Also a fan of Taj Forer’s work from his series Threefold Sun, Laura asks him some questions about his work and his connection to the Waldorf/Steiner community.
Laura Moya: Lisa, you have an incredibly rich history as an activist who has chronicled social changes in the United States for decades – a lot of your work has pinnacled from being part of the 60’s cultural revolution. Being in the center of it has given you a very personal connection that makes for such strong imagery. I would like to focus on images made while you lived in Northern New Mexico in the late 60’s/early 70’s, as part of the communities that experimented with redefining ideas of family and identity away from mainstream society.
First, when you think of the word “culture” in relation to New Mexico, it can mean a lot of things. What was it about the “culture” in New Mexico that you think attracted a pretty strong migration of people to the Santa Fe/Taos area at that time? How did the existence of Hispanic and Indian culture influence these communities – what did they hope to learn from them?
Lisa Law: People were taking a lot of psychedelics during this time and they opened our minds to rediscovery of the basic things in life and led us to start relating more to mother earth and the Native Americans and their simple spiritual way of living. We wanted to examine that and communes were popping up all over the country. There were quite a few in New Mexico and two in Taos: New Buffalo Commune and Morning Star. We were traveling in a VW bus and carried tipi poles and a tipi on the top so we set up our tipi at New Buffalo and helped them build for two weeks.
We were mainly influenced by the Native Americans, by their dances that connected them to Mother Earth and Father Sky. They lived a very humble, spiritual life and we wanted to be like them…to live simply and grow our own food. The young natives were actually very happy to see us because we had long hair and that went along with their upbringing so we validated them in a way and they felt a lot better about themselves when they saw us trying to emulate them. When we moved to Truchas to live and farm and have babies, the Spanish people taught us how to plant and irrigate our fields and harvest our alfalfa and wheat.The older generation loved us because their kids were leaving and going off the mountain to work in either Albuquerque or Los Alamos and here came the Hippies who wanted to work the land – so they were thrilled to see us and helped us a lot.
Image: Building the communal house at the New Buffalo Commune, Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, 1968. © Lisa Law
LM: What were the negatives and positives of the new communities co-existing with the old communities?
LL: The younger people in the Spanish communities wanted to rip us off and take what we had as they thought we were privileged members of society. They were not following in their parent’s footsteps at all and a lot of them were using drugs and alcohol a lot because the future did not look bright for them. On the other hand, we were loving having farm animals, goat’s milk, organic food and home made goods. Only now are the second generation Hispanics in the mountains getting into organic farming but it has taken them some 35 years to grasp what they have in front of them.
LM: What was it that made you document certain things? Obviously, if there was a “happening” (such as a protest), there would be lots of fodder for good imagery, but I like your quiet images very much, too – your image of a man harnessing a horse in a field, or the group of people silently watching a sunset – I think these small moments are powerful and very much representative of the time that it was. Are there any specific images of yours that you feel really embody that era on a very personal level?
LL: I had already been documenting my life since I was 6 so this was nothing new. I was turned on by the imagery of the times: mother’s with children and bathing in hot springs, colorfully dressed hippies. I just kept shooting because I didn’t want to forget what I was seeing and until this day, I can look at a photo and remember that moment. Without the image I would have a hard time remembering. But, most of all, I wanted to share that imagery with others that may have not seen anything like it.
Tommy Masters training my horse Prince to harness was a very special moment for me as he was not trained when Tom and I bought the farm. Prince came with the farm and never had been ridden, so Tommy helped me train him to saddle and then to harness, although I never used one on him after that day. I was so proud that he followed Tommy’s lead and with that backdrop of the Truchas peaks…what a moment in my history.
Tom putting up the first Tipi at Woodstock is one of my favorite shots. It was a misty morning when he set that tipi up before that incredible festival which changed the lives of an entire generation. That was the medical tent (tipi).
Yogi Bhajan teaching yoga at the 1969 Summer Solstice in Aspen Meadows lead to the starting of the Sikh movement in America. That moment was the birth of that movement.
LM: How do you think your images would be different if you were on the “outside” of the scene, rather than on the “inside”? For example – your image of Janis Joplin leaning against the adobe wall of your house in Truches is very different than…a shot taken of her performing on a stage, perhaps. Can you recall any instances of things you were witnessing happening, and the urge to document was there, but you felt perhaps too close to the situation to pull out a camera? Perhaps these images do exist, but have never made it out into the world?
LL: Most of the images I shot were from the inside except for concerts, but those were pretty personal too as I was not afraid to get into the action. For instance, (referring here to images not taken in New Mexico) the image of Gerard Melanga at the Velvet Underground show at the Trip. I was right down there on the stage with him as the strobe light hit his face. The photo of Andy Warhol taken from under his desk through the glass to him sitting on the other side of the glass. That was pure art in imagery. Bob Dylan at the Solarium standing there with his black hair and his corduroy jacket talking to Albert Grossman and Tom Law. That image is my most famous one of all as you see is alabaster cheeks and perfectly combed curly hair and pensive look.
LM: To me, it seems your images are very affectionate portrayals of people and places of that time – what is it about New Mexico that continues to keep you there?
LL: The weather is so fantastic here and it is so peaceful. Rainstorms come and go, the skies are clear and sparkling and at night you can see the stars when you are away from the city. This area has class with its brown adobe buildings and pastel mountains. It is definitely the land of enchantment. The Native American culture is what originally drew us here. They are my kind of people…down to earth.
LM: Finally, socially and politically, things have changed in 40 years, but obviously, Northern New Mexico is still a magnet for people willing to try to see and do things in a different way. How does your work now reflect this?
LL: I shoot the old making way for the new. For example, I shot the railyard and the trains for years, in the snow and on a spring day and now it is all built up with the Farmer’s Market and REI and Flying Star Cafe, W21 and Site Santa Fe. So I have the images that show the change and have been doing this for 40 years so my body of work is immense. The Smithsonian has 208 of my Sixties Images, a really good set. That makes me happy, as I know that at least those images will be there for people to view for at least the next thousand years.
I am working on the Museum of the Sixties for Santa Fe so I can put my images and those of other Sixties photographers in it so people can learn just what it was all about. It will cost some 30 million, but if it was meant to be, it will be. I have done two books and a documentary on the Sixties so this would be the most natural next move…to complete before I move on.
See more at www.flashingonthesixties.com
Laura Moya: Taj, there are some aspects of your work from “Threefold Sun” that run a similar thread to that of Lisa’s, albeit decades later. Most obviously, it focuses on a group of people (communities that follow the ideologies of Rudolf Steiner, including Waldorf schools) that have chosen to live outside mainstream society. As you have noted, Steiner was interested in addressing the fact that society is often, somehow, in opposition to the freedom that we should experience and participate in as human beings. This exploration was primary in the intentional communities that Lisa was photographing as well. Secondly, some of her images and most of yours have a quietness that holds much more meaning that one initially thinks is there – moments that are at the same time ordinary and extraordinary.
To start, can you tell us about your connection to Waldorf education, and why, as an adult, you chose to return to these communities to photograph? Did you start out specifically intending to garner enough work to publish a book, or did you realize this would be a possibility at some further part in the process?
Taj Forer: As a child, I attended a Waldorf School from kindergarten through eighth grade. The experience was incredibly positive for me but I neglected to acknowledge just how profoundly this educational upbringing had affected me until much later in life. As an adult, I returned for a visit to the school that I attended in my youth; a school located on an old farm in the countryside of central New Jersey (yes, New Jersey does have countryside!). I had brought my camera with me and was wandering the fields and paths through the woods where I used to play as a child when I was completely swept up in the act of making photographs. It was as if I was a kid again, completely immersed in play. Days later as I was looking through my proofs from the shoot, I became overwhelmed with the realization that my experience as a Waldorf student had affected my present worldview more so than any other single experience that I could point to.
I came to see Waldorf education, in general, as representative of a counter-cultural approach to education. Namely, an educational methodology based upon the education of the "whole" child (physical, mental and spiritual). Rather than simply preparing the mind for further academic pursuits, Waldorf education tends to emphasize physical, mental (academic) and spiritual education as equally important facets of the "whole" child. By fostering "whole" human beings, Steiner believed that this process might unfold to foster a "whole" society. In contemplating this while looking at my pictures from that first day photographing a Waldorf school, it occurred to me that I was deeply concerned for our society. I was scared at what I saw around me. From public school systems dismantling their arts programs, to numb nine-to-fivers commuting two hours each day for their minimum wage job at the Wal-Mart, to the degrading food system, morbid obesity, political apathy, nauseating consumerism – the list goes on and on. I came to see that a flawed approach to education appeared to be at the heart of this societal malady. At that moment, I decided to dig more deeply into Rudolf Steiner’s actual teaching and began studying Anthroposophy ("Anthropo" meaning Human and "Sophy" meaning Wisdom). It was a wonderful experience to pull apart the framework that had constructed my entire educational upbringing through the study of Steiner’s philosophical (and practical) teachings. As this process unfolded, so did my photographic exploration of Steiner’s influence and impact on contemporary American culture. I found Steiner’s teachings to be extremely refreshing (give or take a few lectures, essays and theories that I found to be quite literally, insane) and beautifully relevant to my thinking at the time.
Before long, I had applied for a fellowship with a proposal to travel the United States on a photographic journey examining representations of Steiner’s work in present-day America. I received the fellowship (my first significant chunk of funding for my photography), which allowed me to quit my day-job and devote all of my time to pursuing this work. For months I studied, planned, contacted, charted. Eventually, I had a plan in place and hit the road driving out to California and back doing nothing the entire time but making pictures – it was bliss. Only during this process, did I begin to see the magnitude of what I had taken on and what it was that I was producing. It was towards the end of my time photographing that I began to contemplate the possibility of turning the work into a book. After spending several (post-travel) weeks combing through my images, I decided to create a manuscript proposal that I shopped around to publishers. Eventually, the book was born but it certainly was not my goal when I embarked upon the project.
LM: In what ways did the fact that you had gone to Waldorf school and were familiar with its ideologies help you in your image-making? How would your imagery be different if you did not have this knowledge base? Did the people/communities you spent time with accommodate your presence with a camera more easily because of this?
TF: Yes, my experience with Waldorf education and the follow up "research" that I did in preparation for the project (reading Steiner’s published works) played a major role in my image-making. Furthermore, I was introduced to Goethean color theory through my reading of Steiner’s work (Rudolf Steiner was a devoted student of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and served as the senior editor to the Goethean Archives for many, many years). Being a color photography addict and having studied the color theory of Joseph Albers, Johannes Itten and Sir Isaac Newton, I was absolutely captivated by Goethe’s approach to interpreting color. These color theories played a significant role in my image-making for Threefold Sun, as well as in my work since that project.
Simply put: I do not believe I could have produced this work without the vast research and personal experience I had with Anthroposophy. In most cases, I was welcomed with warmth and hospitality everywhere I visited while producing this work. There were a few isolated instances wherein folks were less receptive – perhaps skeptical – of my photographic pursuit. Having said this, I felt supported and accepted almost everywhere I went throughout the country.
LM: Many of your images show a strong ghost of the human spirit, even though there are no people in the photograph. Similarly, much of your imagery is about the relationship of Steiner communities with the land, yet few images are of people actually doing things directly with agriculture. How have you illustrated these connections with your content/composition without being obvious?
TF: As a photographer and photography editor, I look at a lot of pictures. When I use the phrase "a lot," I mean thousands upon thousands, every month. This process has made me weary of traditional portraiture. In my own work, I find myself avoiding it more often than engaging it. I believe that in many instances, a traditional portrait is an easy way out – a "cheat sheet" to storytelling – that leaves the viewer with no room for an enhanced, personal, imaginative experience of the photograph. So often, traditional portraits tell the viewer everything we need to know and wrap-up the content of the image in a nice little package with a pretty bow on top. Boring!
As a viewer, I want to be challenged, I want questions to be raised by the image, I want to be permitted space so that my own history, imagination, politics, etc. can collaborate with the image and begin a conversation that leads somewhere that on one knows! As an image-maker, I always attempt to create images that are alive; breathing questions and challenging my audience to think. We "modern men and women" are lazy, apathetic. As a viewer, I like to work a bit and I would hope that the viewers of my pictures would work a little too. I think that these are the reasons, at least some of them, that I tend to steer clear of traditional portraiture.
LM: Finally, is there any way in the world that you can compare some aspects of anthroposophy to the process of photography?
TF: I’ll give it a try: Something profound that I take from Anthroposophy is the reminder that life is a form of creation and we, as living beings, are collaborators in this creation. By living an intentional life devoted to awareness of how our actions affect not only ourselves, but those around us (as well as the broader environment), we can work towards living a more "enlightened" existence and in so doing, contribute to the utopian notion of a pervasive societal awakening.
Similarly, as photographers, we are collaborators in the creation of images. We work with our subjects, the light, color, shadow, etc. every time we make a picture. By recognizing that this process is one that affects far more than ourselves, I believe we work towards a more responsible approach to photographing and that our imagery might be added to the ever-growing historical fabric that portrays (documents) the aforementioned awakening of society. I suppose that, or the documentation of its decline; who knows where we’re headed?
See more at www.tajforer.com