After a battle, Mexico, June 2011

Clarifications

I am always appreciative of the hard work and effort that independent promoters and art lovers put into pushing my events. And I'm thankful for every person who cares about my art. That said, there are a couple of points I'd like to clarify.

1) You are welcome to use photographs from my blog for promotional materials. But PLEASE make sure they are in fact photographs by me. Several times now, photographs by guest contributors to my blog have appeared in promotional materials credited to me. This is particularly awkward because I have to go around explaining to artists, who were kind enough to allow me to post their work, that I am not in fact trying to take credit for what they do. Help me out on this one, ok? Read the texts that accompany the photographs. Don't just assume everything on my blog is by me, because it's not.

2) I have exhibited in the United States, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, but also in Portugal and Holland. If there's space, it would be nice to have a complete listing rather than an incomplete one.

3) Much has been made of the secrecy around the project I'm currently working on. Now, I am probably one of the most open and accessible photographers working today but I can't possibly develop a project, with all of its inevitable twists and turns, and at the same time, discuss it with the world. It will be finished when it's finished, nobody will be disappointed, and everyone who wants to see it will see it. Nor am I trying to build up a mystique around the work. It will be everything people have come to expect from my work: sincerity, grittiness, and reality. But it will be completely different than anything I've done before.

Again, thanks to all of you for your many years of support, and a loyalty few other artists enjoy. I am eternally surprised and thankful that you're still here! See you out there on the road.

js

Upcoming workshop on composition

After today's talk and portfolio review in Guatemala City I'll be taking a few weeks off to work on my new project. Up next, March 3, is this one-day workshop in Antigua, Guatemala. Again, I'd like to emphasize that the photograph on the lower left side of this flyer is NOT by me, but rather, by talented Saltillo, Mexico photojournalist Daniel Becerril. And again, I apologize for the confusion.

Today in Guatemala City, 10 am

A talk about my work followed by a portfolio review for those who attend. Thanks to Sandra Monterroso, Morena Perez Joachin and DAC. See ya!

Weeks of Wild Wonder

Normally the past comes back to me in fractured visions. But when you move so fast, so long, on a crooked highway like this one, back and forth across the isthmus of America, it's the present that's shattered into a million shards of mirror glass as light shoots off in a billion directions. There are no single stories to tell. No plots or sub-plots. No morals, lessons or justifications. Just visions, like snapshots from dreams caught in the butterfly net of waking.

Nights-without-end spent telling stories and making worldly declarations with friends in San Salvador, a ceiling fan circling slow above the carnival colored light bulbs; a warm breeze entering the smoky room at dawn; John Coltrane squealing from a pair of speakers connected to a laptop computer; my soul stripped to the bone by weariness and so much listening, so much talking, so much learning, so much desire. It was all about Juan Rulfo, the physical body in contemporary space, Nicanor Parra, Son House, and what the hell any of it meant, anyway. 

A week and a half later and I was talking to a Garifuna woman who worked as a prostitute. Raped by the father of her children, smashed in the head with a frying pan by the father of her children, she fled, leaving behind her children, to work the bars and backstreets of Xela, Guatemala. There is no redemption for some of us out here on the wild highway. And if you think about that for a minute, you'll realize that it's a toxic, terrifying, soul-killing revelation, even for those of us who seek redemption in every breath, every act. 

Still later, on the same Salvadoran streets where I was pick-pocketed and shaken down by the police, I sat on a curb next to a drunkard to take a picture of an 8-ball painted on the outside of a brothel. He asked to see my pictures. Scrolling through a few on the screen of my little digital camera, he paused, looked up at me, and said, "In my opinion, you have potential." 

I thanked him and moved on down the road until a young woman, addicted to crack, asked me to walk a few blocks with her. In front of what was once a store, but what was now the empty shell of a building in which shadows walked with tattooed faces, she said, "I'm going in here to buy a rock. Come with me." I said no. They'd kill me. She said, "No they won't. Because you look crazy like Ozzy Ozbourne. Nobody will mess with you." 

She went inside and I snuck away into the night, back to my hotel room, one of a million where the remote control for the television never fucking works, the towels are always as small and thin as bandanas, and where armed guards knock on the door to harass you for smoking in the room. 

There is never any peace and I'm fine with that. A little bit of quiet, though, a sterile, air conditioned truck stop somewhere along the endless freeway, would do me a world of good. 

Zaculeu, Huehuetenango, Guatemala

Huehuetenango, Guatemala

Talleres - Workshops in Guatemala

Starting tomorrow, I'll be giving a two-day workshop on photographic composition in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. If you need further information, get in touch at jmmsevigny@gmail.com.

Due to the kind of unforeseen and unavoidable scheduling craziness that has traditionally marked my Central American photographic adventures, the date for the Guatemala City workshop has been changed. The flyer below reflects the final and correct information.

Space for both workshops is limited so if you haven't registered already, I advise doing so as soon as possible.

In the meantime, there is also this event scheduled for DAC in Guatemala City, along with another one-day workshop set for Antigua. By the time I am finished I expect to have met every single person in Guatemala. More information to come.

Guatemala, Jazz City

I hope nobody will think that because I've posted so few pictures recently, that I'm not working. To the contrary, I'm doing more photography than at probably any other point in my life, but I'm selfish and secretive and am keeping the new work to myself until that great day comes when whatever happens happens and the pictures get seen. But because it's been so long since I posted anything new, here's a picture of a street musician in Guatemala City. Juan Coltren?

A number of small things that are important to me

1) Ladies' Bar is no longer up at socialdocumentary.net, which is fine. I've gotten tired of talking about that 2007 project, haven't exhibited it in years, and have no plans to do so. If you want to see it, it's here at Luminous Lint.

2) Teresa Parker, printmaker, curator, and friend, reminds me that one of the advantages of being an artist is that you can choose how much public exposure you want to allow of yourself as a person. Recently, and for reasons that I can't quite put a finger on, I've become annoyed with doing interviews. Given that I'm now working on a completely new project and not exhibiting as often as I have before, I'm looking forward to doing fewer interviews as well. Yes, I've already agreed to do a few here in Central America and I have to honor my commitments. But in truth, I would far rather speak to any non-journalist, even for grassroots style video, audio or print, than to unimaginative reporters, who generally ask me the same five questions. I have never created work to attract media attention, but rather to please myself and share my photographs with others. The media allows me to do that, but only according to their terms.

3) The last ever exhibition of Nomads will take place in 2013 in San Salvador at a very special venue. Final details are still being worked out, but it's going to happen, and then those photographs, like the ones from Ladies' Bar, will be shelved for a very, very long time.

From the road. Respect.

JS