Fiona Gardner

"One of the most important things about childhood is imagination.  All artists, on some level, are adults who still have access to their imagination, who have figured out a way to carry that into being an adult."

Fiona Gardner

American Photographer / Artist

Commentary

Potential creative projects are all around us.  It takes imagination to find them.  Fiona Gardner found hers at Ellen's Stardust Diner in New York in form of Miss Subways.  She spent several years of her life working on the project with Amy Zimmer.  

We all have ideas, but most of us never act upon those ideas, and if we act upon an idea, we often don't finish the project.  I have started two novels that I have never finished.  I began a haiku notecard business using my haiku with artwork that never made a sale.  I still have cards sitting on a shelf in a closet.  I had an idea for a sports newspaper that focused only on local sports like Little League, softball teams, etc.  I never even got to first base.  I struck out before I got started.  I once had the idea for a book about the history of Illinois High School Tournament basketball.  I wrote to the state high school basketball association proposing that they fund my writing of the book but received no answer.  A year later they published their own history using a retired sports writer.  They stole my idea and didn't even acknowledge the theft.

But there are projects that I have finished.  My wife had an idea about writing a book on pet loss and the grieving people experience.  We spend four years on the book and interviewed over 100 people.  We published the hardback version in 1998 and the paperback in 2000.  The paperback, It's Okay To Cry, can still be found on Amazon.  The driving force behind the book was my wife.  She held my feet to the fire until it was finished.

We all have ideas.  The key is acting upon our ideas.  What ideas have you had that are still resting in a file folder somewhere?  What ideas have you started but never finished?  What projects do you need to take off the back burner and finish?

Creative Practice
Review your files for past ideas that you have never brought to completion.  Choose the one that you are most passionate about and set a target date for its completion.  Begin working on the project this week.

Biography

Fiona Gardner is an artist and photographer based in New York.  She received a BFA in painting from Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in photography from Columbia.  Her work focuses on women and performance in constructed environments.  She has photographed mermaids, Southern belles and Miss Subways.  Miss Subways was a beauty contest which ran between 1941 - 1976 in New York and used to promote the subways.

Video:

Here is journalist Amy Zimmer talking about Miss Subways.  Amy and Fiona collaborated to create the book, Meet Miss Subways: New York's Beauty Queens 1941 - 1976.

Reference Links:

Interview: 

http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2012/10/19/interview-artist-fiona-gardner-on-meet-miss-subways

NPR Story: (See some of the Miss Subways, then and now.)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2012/12/20/167659444/miss-subways-a-trip-back-in-time-to-new-yorks-melting-pot

New York Times (Nine Miss Subways)

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/12/29/nyregion/thecity/20071230_MISSSUBWAYS_SLIDESHOW_index.html

Richard Avedon

"My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph."

— Richard Avedon

American Photographer

1923 - 2004

Commentary

As a speaker one of the truths that I have learned is that a speaker often talks about what he himself has to learn.  And I believe the same is true about writers, artists and other creative leaders.  Our stories and poems are more about us than about the people we write about.  The subject matter we choose for our paintings is more about us than others.  We all have lessons that we need to learn in life.  For me, that is the chief reason we are here.  We need to learn and grow as human beings.  The creative process helps us learn those lessons.  Sometimes I run across a person who says he writes to help others and there is some truth in that statement.  But the heart of why he writes is to help himself.  I often say that I teach others what I myself need to learn over and over.  

Creative Practice

This week identify 5 life lessons that you have learned through the creative process and share those lessons with others.  Has the creative process taught you patience?  Have you learned about the importance of attention to detail?  Have you learned to trust your intuition?  How can these lessons learned in the creative process be applied to your life?

Background on Richard Avedon

Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian immigrant family.  His father owned and operated a successful retail dress business.  In high school he worked on the school newspaper with James Baldwin.  He joined the Merchant Marines in 1942 as a photographer.  In 1944 he worked as an advertising photographer for a department store.  In 1946 he set up his own studio and started publishing his photographs in Harper's Bazaar, Vogue and Life magazines.  In 1952 Avedon became the staff editor and photographer for Theater Arts Magazine.  In 1962 he became a staff photographer at Vogue magazine.  In 1992 he became the staff photographer for the New Yorker magazine.

Besides fashion photographer, Avedon turned his attention to studio portraits of civil rights workers, politicians and cultural dissidents.  He was interested in how portraits capture the personality and soul of its subject.  His subjects included Buster Keaton, Marian Anderson, Marilyn Monroe, Ezra Pound, Isak Dinesen, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Hillary Clinton, Toni Morrison, Saul Bellow and Andy Warhol.  He published more than a dozen books of his portraits and photographs.

Video

Here is the first part of a documentary about Richard Avedon from the 1995 American Masters Series.