ST22 ... I find it strange at times

to write to who knows whom

Dec 22, 2022

I find it strange at times to sit here and write to who knows whom. It has at times entrapped my mind somewhat into some sort of soft machine. Attempt as best i may to be as i am and not to be influenced by any thought projected towards an audience; i can't totally, be free, from the chains of my own doing. It is a challenge to scrape any motive off these walls within my brain and escape onto any train heading anywhere down some new line thru the hidden interiors of my mind.

The trees were cold and the air was still as the day saddled me up and sent me out. A bald eagle circled high above and a few sparrows were bickering across branches of a pear tree. My dog swam thru the air up the hill for a toy. I had some wood to chop. The world outside all around was struggling, i could feel it. Maybe i needed to feel it, add some importance to my day, my life. At any rate it swung in and out of existence along the day playing four four, sixteen bar time slow and true.

In the image below i remember the time it was shuttered into existence. It was in Boston, maybe the seventies. I have thousands of images of people walking somewhere, beyond the frame, a mystery, captured for no good reason, a movement in the street, the world. I travelled when ever i could. I loved the quick shift into something different, some foreign air upon my cheeks, some new unused action about. I don't remember the reasons for most shots, just the feel of its presence. From a dog in the streets looking for adventure, food, shelter, to a couple huddled in love fluttering thru the perfumes of the city haze. I was ready to click my shutter to any new dance across the tar. When i walked, my cameras loaded, my mind alert, i was ready for anything, any obscure happening, any unusual scene waiting to expose itself into some reality. I was in the streets, my camera raw and ready. That was my job.

My life. Writing thoughts in dingy bars and working out words in cool cafes. So many like to say they don't regret anything….i think they're lying and they don't even know it and that's worse. I definitely regret things, things i could have done to save a few lives of close humans i knew and certainly a few animals. There is so many things i could regret if i wanted to spend the time to add them all up and end up in a cage made of bitter steel. That is not my thing, not my life, not my freedom. More so to, an attempt to be better than i was in those circumstances. Feel the pain of what i've done when it was being done, move on and trust the mind to sort it out. Pay for the mistakes, don't let karma fill up the shelves where love was. You can camouflage your ego with acting as if you have no regrets….. but that's bullshit.

I documented everything and everywhere i went for years having some illusion that these images would be worth the time and effort for some unknown wanting future. I suppose that is still to be seen. At this point i often have the feeling that I'm sure many a poor artist did have and still do. That is the game.

I followed a dream that i can hardly remember, hardly imagine anymore. It was about the image. I would study the light from every direction, situate my self in some optimum position and let chance beget itself. There were many tricks i developed over the years, most are left back there hidden in the silver nitrate of negatives and prints somewhere amongst my collection in some basement of a friends home back in Ontario. I should work harder and try to sell the whole collection, buy a little piece of land in Mexico and let me bones wear themselves down and my blood to run slow and free in some sunny atmosphere.

BREAKING NEWS: Must read, yell it out, this could be the last dance upon these wings….

While everyone is tired and desperately wanting their 'normal life' back, especially around the Holiday Season, they, the big they are pushing through the paper work to take all of our human-rights away everywhere on this planet. The WHO is documenting right before our eyes in plain view to eliminate respect for your dignity, human rights, fundamental freedoms and force you to comply to anything they desire. If we don't set aside our pride and wake up, there will be no waking up left to wake up too. You will be forced to take whatever shots they deem necessary to fulfil their haunting agenda. They are not friends…..i am, really, remember me.

Why won't more listen…wtfrick, this might be the only lonely last peace train left. This is not something that is going to go away, unless, we the people stop it and it can't be stopped unless more people wake up. I don't like having to be a messenger as such…..i hate it. I have lost credibility with so many labeling me, throwing names across my face, looses around my neck, exactly as they would have us do, divide us up in to useless segments condemned to their desires.

What do you think i am trying to do? What agenda do you think i have tattooed into my skin. Though, you may think what you will but i do this because i need to, it's our world, our earth, it's time for us to make our move along this evolutionary ride. Thank god there are enough of us to stand tough, rough and sure for whatever shit comes down the line. There are those that have gone insane, lonely as hell, deprived, died and desperate. That is the price for freedom, dignity and fundamental rights. It has been going on as long as man has been man. The only way out of this mess, is in…..come in.

Back to my endeavours of a past career of producing images and writings from the halls of worried ramblers and vagabond trails thru streets and avenues around and from the gut of the world. I trudged thru dingy alleyways, broken streets, terrified railway yards and glamorous minds to get the shot, to get some reality stranded to this celluloid. I was obsessed with form and light and emotion and strife, from rockers, beggars and thieves, any reality i could paint, i was there to get a piece of their soul or the texture of the terrain just because i had to. Was it worth it. Well hell yes. Well hell no. It was my life, i loved it, demanded it for my spirit. I had too, but now things have changed. I no longer carry my bag of three cameras, 5 lenses, bla bla, films, tripod, bla. I have my iPhone and occasionally my slr when i feel the need to carry the weight. Puddles mostly, that hidden terrain of water and scum with a billion angles and images waiting for my eyes to smother themselves amidst infinite possibilities.

I love pretty, as any one else, but is this really appropriate to cover the walls of our minds with so much pretty when it should be clear this world is falling apart, burning hot. All of our dreams are scattered along the shores of the bay of turmoil. So what! I want to live. I am tired of the fight, the abuse. What can one do? Where can one hide? Does it really matter to care for a future i'll never see? Isn't it enough to love the air surrounding, the texture of the dreams floating by, the thoughts to words that cry with love. Isn't it enough to see the pain and feel the way within. To walk with dignity and be silent thru out the noice. Isn't it enough to live free without truth tormenting the very cell walls of the brain.

I walk with the dream. I talk in the light of angels that hold my weariness to the wind and my love high. Love is such a crippled word, a misused concept, a fake-ness, but there is love, no doubt, we all feel it, want it, live for it, die within it.

I’m going for my break now, down along the graveyards of time, let the pictures capture me for a change …. just might not come back. I remember something i used to say along the way and that was that in the end, Ultimately Nothing Really Matters. I wonder about that?

a coffee. a like, a whisper.

WeyWord Times / Writing and Images by Patrick Wey

My Work …. Images - sales