Big Stick and Chelle’s Kickstarter
When we are on our walks in the woods, Olive is in the habit of picking up a stick and dragging it back to the house. She dug this one out of the snow the other day. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t manage it, but to my amazement she succeeded. Without any exaggeration, I would have to say it was at least 12 feet long and quite heavy.
One of my suitcase backers from Australia, Chelle Destefano, has just put up a kickstarter appeal, and it looks interesting. I would encourage any of you who are interested in abandoned spaces to check it out here.
Willard Suitcases / Joseph A / Peggy Ross
I was back in Rotterdam at the storage facility shooting suitcases this past Friday. The last time I was there, Peggy and I were only able to get part way through Joseph A’s possessions, and I was really eager to finish up. I posted about that day here. Most of what was in his two large trunks was clothing, and as I have said before, setting up this sort of shot is difficult for me.
Thank goodness for Peg. I have mentioned before just how important she is to the project. I probably would have never done the second Kickstarter without her, or for that matter, even thought about shooting all 400 of the suitcases. Friday was a good case in point. Every single article of clothing in Joseph’s collection had been assigned a catalogue number by the museum. This meant taking the objects out of their archival boxes, keeping track of the small pieces of paper on which those numbers were written, hiding the numbers in the folds of the clothes so they weren’t visible in the photographs, setting up the shot, taking the photographs, rematching all the numbers with the articles, and finally putting them back into their designated storage boxes. We worked for about four hours on this one trunk; had I been alone it would have taken days.
And in addition to all of this detail work, she helps to organize the shots, and sees things that I would otherwise miss. When we were putting Joseph’s clothes away, she pointed out that his initials had been embroidered onto the collar of his pajamas, and it makes for a lovely picture.
So a huge thank you to Peg for her organizational skills, hard work, and dedication to the project. I couldn’t do this without her.
Flowers
I was addressing Kickstarter reward envelopes at Amherst Coffee this afternoon. When I came out to ride home, some sweet soul had put these flowers on the Vespa. They are now in a vase next to me as I write this.
It has been a hectic few weeks and I haven’t posted much. I’ll try to get something up in the next day or two.
Again
In the late afternoon of 28 October, 2011 I picked up Peter at Union and he and I were heading home for the weekend. Cristine was working in the Middle East, and the weather forecast was calling for a major storm. I was partway through the first suitcases Kickstarter campaign, and feeling unsure as to how it would all work out. We stopped at the first rest area on the MASS PIKE to get gas (and I think a packet of Hostess Cup Cakes). I looked at my phone and something like 80 emails that had just come in. I really thought there was a problem with my account and that the server was just resending old mail that I had already viewed. When I looked closely I realized that all the email had come from Kickstarter. They had just featured me as a “project we love”, and I immediately met my goal. That early winter storm rolled in big time and we were without electricity for the next 2 days. Wild./ Yesterday, I was shooting the suitcases in Rotterdam and was aware that the current Kickstarter appeal was ending in the evening. As I was driving east on the pike towards home, I stopped for gas at that same rest area, looked at my phone and saw this ($20,879 pledged with 341 backers, funding successful). It seemed just right that I discovered that both projects had gone over the top at the same location.
This is one of yesterday’s cases. It belonged to Joseph K.
Thank you all for your support and interest in the project. And a huge thanks to the folks at Kickstarter for running a great organization, and providing a venue that enables independent projects like this one to be successful.
Willard Cemetery / Thanks
Last February, Craig Williams and I were at Willard shooting the attic where the suitcases were “rediscovered. (Here’s a link to an earlier post) There aren’t many of these upright metal markers left.
After we were done, we walked across the road to the cemetery. It is always very moving to see the field where many of the Willard patients are buried in numbered graves. And interesting to note that starting in the late 1930s, and ending just before he died 1968, a patient named Lawrence M was the primary gravedigger. Amazing.
I have posted before about the cemetery and the people who are working diligently to honor the dead by attaching names to the numbers. Click here and here to read those previous posts.
Thanks for all the tremendous response to my “appeal” post the other night. We are at $14,000 on the Kickstarter appeal, and I am feeling very positive.
Appeal
The Kickstarter campaign ends next Wednesday. I want to thank all of you who have supported the project so far.
It is now time for me to put out a direct appeal to those of you who have thought about backing the project but have been waiting to decide if it was something you would care to do. I could really use your help.
The way Kickstarter works is that I set a goal, and if that goal is not reached, none of the funds will come through. I felt strongly that I did not want to undervalue the project, and that if I achieved my goal, I would be able to finish shooting all the cases. The money raised helps me cover my costs of travel, pays me for my time, and enables me to pay Peggy Ross for her invaluable help. The funds also allow me to make and distribute prints to show to potential venues for exhibits, and begin to reach out to organizations that might want me to talk about the suitcases to a wider audience. I can’t begin to tell you how weird it feels to me to directly ask for financial support, but I am convinced that this is the most important project I have worked on in my life as a photographer, and I think Kickstarter is a great venue for people to become involved in the creation of something so compelling. So, here’s the link. And thanks so much.
William H was admitted to Willard on 28 June, 1926.
Willard Suitcases Kickstarter II is Launched
I have just launched the second Kickstarter appeal to fund my work on the suitcases and I am very excited. Thanks to everyone who helped me put this together, and to all of you who are such strong supporters. Here is the link. Cheers, Jon
Willard Suitcases / November update
It has been quite a while since I have posted a suitcases update. There is a lot going on, and I finally have a bit of a breather. I have been shooting at least one day a week in Rotterdam, and some weeks I have managed two full days.
On Tuesday, Peter Carroll came out from Ithaca and we shot video for the upcoming Kickstarter 2 appeal. It will be several weeks before it is even close to be up and running (pending Kickstarter approval), but I have been thinking a great deal about how to go about the whole thing.
I have a natural aversion to asking for financial support for my independent projects, and it is a bit of a struggle for me to think about how to begin this process all over again. After the shoot, I was talking to my son Peter, and he had some great words of encouragement, especially the idea that I would never be asking for a second round of support if the first one wasn’t so successful in getting folks interested in the suitcases.
And what really keeps me going is that in doing this work, I have helped to create and incredible community of people who are invested in the completion of the project.
Peg Ross and I have been so productive in the last two months. We have a system set up that allows us to be super efficient. In one two day period alone we managed to shoot almost 30 cases. Most of these were partially to completely empty, but I have come to feel that it is just as important to document these suitcase as the ones that are full.
These license plates are a good example. Along with the paper tag, these were the only objects in Robert Y’s case. Amazing.
Stuert B’s case was filled with these bathroom products. This is the second container of Dr. Lyon’s Tooth Powder we have come across.
I love the Mennen logo on the top of the talcum container. Beautiful.
I have also been able to upload a few more suitcases to “The Cases” section of willardsuitcases.com. Check it out if you get the chance and please stay in touch. It means so much to me to get feedback.
Suitcases
On Monday I shot the last of the Willard suitcases for a while. I hope to use the rest of this month to begin editing the images for the Exploratorium exhibit, and knowing how my brain works I knew I couldn’t attempt to edit while I was still shooting. I was surprisingly emotional about the whole thing; an important part of the project ended and I am not sure when it might resume. It is also significant to me that it marks the end of the Kickstarter phase of this work. So some thank you’s are in order. I could NEVER have gotten this far without Kickstarter and the incredible support of the almost 700 people who backed me. Thanks to Alex Ross for the long term “loan” of his lights and soft boxes. He is a true friend. Craig Williams and the New York State Museum gave me access to the cases and Craig’s support was instrumental in keeping it all moving along. And Peggy Ross kept me organized. Without her help in unwrapping, setting up the shots, helping me see things I would have missed, and putting the objects back where they belong I would never have made it through as many of the cases as I did.
I will work on a post later today showing the last case in the queue, as it were. It was a great one to end on.
Rewards
I am pretty close to mailing the first of the Kickstarter rewards. So for those of you who backed the project at the $10.00 level, watch your mailbox. These are the first prints I have made of this work, and I am thrilled to finally see them on paper. Each print is signed and so the process is a bit slow; tonight I will start addressing the envelopes. You might notice the beautiful Yard-O-Led pencil in the bottom of the photo. It was a gift from my great friend John Wilson and it is the perfect writing instrument for signing the prints. It makes me so happy to be using it.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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