Art

Item Description

27 3/8 x 32 3/8 x 2 in.

Polaroid, Aluminum, Cork Board, Tempered Glass and Thumbtacks

www.thegalleryb.com/gettings.htm

Statement

In the summer of 1974 I was nine years old and having a pretty typical childhood in the suburbs.  School was out.  Bored, my brother, sister and I were down in the unfinished basement of our house looking for something to do.  Back in the corner by the workbench was a stack of chests -- Three old steamer trunks and one olive drab, army-issue footlocker.  We’d been down there a million times raiding the work-bench for tools. (Only to use them incorrectly and to never put them back where they belonged). But on this day we noticed something different about the stack of chests: for some reason my dad’s footlocker had a lock on it.  

I know, you’re probably thinking the same thing that we did.  Whatever was inside the footlocker had to be pretty valuable or important -- Otherwise dad wouldn’t have locked it and then put it on the bottom of the stack.  (Side-bar:  At this point I need to clarify the fact that my brother was a couple of years older, so my sister and I were really just the innocent bystanders in this whole situation.  And my sister was a couple of years younger than I was, so she was really, really an innocent bystander).

My brother was pretty good at taking things apart -- He had a lot of old electronic stuff and mechanical stuff sitting around in different states of disassembly.  There were usually a few pieces left over when it was eventually put back together if it ever was.  But he was good at taking it apart.  So it was his job to work on the lock while my sister and I stood guard at the foot of the stairs, in case mom was to get curious about why we were being so quiet.

Using a flat-head screw driver, an ice-pick and, of course, the claw-end of a hammer, he didn’t so much pick the lock, as he did destroy the latch and the wood around it.  There wasn’t a lot of delicate lock picking like Robert Culp or Bill Cosby might do in I Spy, just a lot of force and prying.  Not pretty, but he got the job done. 

Then it was my sister’s job to stand guard alone at the foot of the stairs, while I helped my brother with the trunks.  More than a little excited as we lifted, but a lot more afraid we’d get caught, we pulled down each trunk…  We knew that we were on to something really good and also knew that if mom came down, we were in ‘really big trouble.’

The three trunks were on the floor and we were too far along to get it all back in place if she did come down.  So we opened the locked footlocker up.  Of course we expected something really cool and off limits to kids…  But the reality was initially a huge let-down.  It was just a bunch of old Esquire magazines from the 30’s and some newspapers with big headlines:  WAR; DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN; KENNEDY SHOT; that sort of thing.  By then, my sister had gotten bored standing guard by the stairs, and came over to see that it was just more of my dad’s old magazines and newspapers.  So, she went upstairs after we imposed our oath of secrecy.

(Another side-bar:  My dad was a lover of history, literature and baseball.  And as a hobby, after his first love of collecting baseball memorabilia, he collected first editions.  He also collected certain issues of magazines that had published an author for the first time – usually a short story when they were just getting started.  And he was pretty serious about his collecting, too.  We literally had tons and tons of magazines, stacked in boxes all over the basement).  The Esquires in the footlocker were just more of the same… Or so we thought at first glance.  

I’m not sure how military footlockers are made today.  But in the 50’s when my dad was in the army, they constructed them so that when the lid was opened, there was a removable tray-like compartment about four or five inches deep in the top portion of the box. The tray took up the top of the footlocker area and below the tray was a larger space to hold the soldier’s gear.  After the disappointment of pulling out the newspapers and a few of the Esquires from the tray, we noticed it was constructed this way and lifted it up…

Revealing what was arguably the greatest discovery that my adolescent brain could ever imagine.  There in the bottom of my dad’s beat-up, 1957 army-issue footlocker, were three stacks of Playboy magazines!  At the time I’d have been pretty happy to find one or two issues of Playboy:  a goldmine for sure!   But before us were thirty or forty of them. The mother load!

For a few seconds we just stood there in silence, staring at them.  Then with furtive glances and the biggest smiles on our faces, we simultaneously reached in to help ourselves to the bounty.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t an uncontrolled frenzy as you might expect. We were actually very calm (probably a little in shock) when we picked up the first magazine.  It was really a moment that no words can describe. 

The situation could have easily deteriorated into a free-for-all once we started to thumb through the pages.  Quickly though my brother took charge.  He explained that we had to be cool about this.  We couldn’t take them all or we’d get caught for sure. (Because without any discussion on the matter, it was understood that we were definitely taking some of them).  The plan was to just take a few at a time, though.  Then return the ones we took and take a few more – A foolproof plan.

So we took four or five of them -- That didn’t really seem to make a noticeable dent in the stacks.  We put them into a garbage bag and set them outside in the basement stair-well.  We then put everything back together as we had found it – Except the lock of course -- It was history.  So we put a bucket and some other junk in front of the broken latch on the footlocker and it looked as though nobody had ever been there.

We went upstairs and with the most casual faces we could muster, told my mom we were going outside to play.  As soon as we got outside of the house, we ran around to the back, down the basement stairs and picked up our treasure.  Up at the corner, we met up with a few of the other neighborhood boys and then headed to the tree-fort with the contraband tucked under our shirts.

(Another side-bar:  Playboy magazine in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s had a lot of substantial writers contributing to the magazine.  So the magazines we found must have had a story or an article by a particular author that he thought worthy of collecting.  And the age old justification to wives and girlfriends everywhere:  “I buy Playboy for the great articles,” applied here.  My dad really was buying the magazine for the articles.  Though I imagine he probably appreciated the photos for their artistic merit, too).

My brother was twelve years old.  He and his friends had seen Playboys before.  So I was definitely a little more excited by all of that wonderful naked-ness than they were.  Yes, they thought it was a great find.  But to a nine-year-old suburban boy in the 1970’s, it was a total revelation -- It was my first real exposure in life to anything of an overtly sexual nature.  Remember, at the time there was no internet, no cable, only a few channels to watch on TV anyway…  And the sexiest thing I had seen, was Ginger on Gilligan’s Island.  

For about a month we were able to cycle through all of the magazines -- A few in and a few out at a time.  Of course some of them never made it back to the footlocker, as a number of their pages found their way to the walls of our tree-house.  But we did look through them all – From the first issue with Marilyn Monroe on the cover, up to the most recent issue my dad had picked up that year.  Suffice to say, I had a very large sampling of imagery from the mid-50’s through the mid-70’s to begin my education on the female anatomy.  It made a very big impression and was to have a lasting effect on me.

I don’t remember exactly how we were caught.  I thought we were pretty careful and my sister didn’t know about the Playboy part of the caper.  (She knew about the break-in, but we were as nice to her as any brother could be to a little sister after that, so I don’t think she gave us up).  I think mom probably noticed the lock on the footlocker had been tampered with…  Because one day when we had come back to the house with a couple of magazines hidden under our shirts to make an exchange, my mom knew to surprise us down in the basement.   That was the end – we were in really big-trouble.

Over the years, while the bigness of that Playboy goldmine faded, I didn’t forget it entirely.  It just became one of those warm childhood memories that put a smile on my face whenever I would recollect that summer.  I ended up following my mother’s lead and pursuing a career in the arts.  I tried my hand at a few different things, but settled on photography as a medium when I was twenty-five. 

About six years ago, the subtle but lasting impression that those Playboys made up on me finally became apparent.  I was in Las Venus furniture shop on Ludlow Street looking for a couch one afternoon.  I came across a stack of vintage Playboys and it was then that it all came back to me… in faded, vintage-color.  This was the reason I was always coming back to imagery from that era.  The reason I’ve been drawn to it and that my pictures often have that sort of feel when it comes to the color and light.  And the reason that from the time I first picked up a camera, my primary focus has been photographing women.  Best shot without clothing and with a Polaroid camera.

So, after my epiphany at the furniture shop, I thought that anything that had had such a strong unconscious influence over my work for all those years, was worth some investigation, and maybe some reinterpretation.  I wasn’t really sure how I’d re-examine that imagery from my youth. But I knew it had to be with Polaroid film. 

I had fallen in love with Polaroid my first year as a photographer in Italy.  Aside from the instant gratification that a Polaroid provides, the technology of the film, (forty years old at the time) created a feeling, that even today can’t be reproduced any other way… A feeling that brings me back to my youth. 

I didn’t figure out the project right away. It started to come to me after a light-test one day.  I had been working on a pitch for a fashion story to W Magazine -- an homage to Carlo Mollino.  From an old job I had a leftover bolt of fabric designed by Verner Panton – It was very indicative of the 60’s and I had built a simple little set using that fabric as a backdrop for the test.  And since it was just a light test, I didn’t ask the model to do anything in particular except sit there while I cycled though different filters and gels to see how they looked on her skin. 

After the test, I sat down on the floor with a pile of about fifty Polaroids scattered around me.  I started to organize them, arranging them in rows and then rearranging them into a grid.  I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing.  I was just sort of playing around with them.  I liked the way they looked though -- All perfectly lined up in rows, working off one another… With some more rearranging, they were really starting to turn into something.  So after a while, I moved the Polaroids over to my kitchen table. 

They sat on the kitchen table and over the next couple of weeks I’d come by and work on them throughout the day -- Moving around the oval table, seeing the group from every angle, leaving them, coming back...  They really had a hold on me.  There were thousands of different options for a sequence.  And after I finally decided that I was happy with it, found the perfect balance and composition, I labeled each Polaroid with a letter and a number on the back, wrapped them up in tissue paper and put them away in a file cabinet. 

I liked them, but wasn’t really sure what to do with them.  So they just sat there in the file cabinet while I started another one.  I built another set, but this time I had a direction: I went back to my childhood, back to those images in Playboy magazine… I found another model for the new set… And once again after the shoot, with a pile of Polaroids on the floor, I went through the process of laying them out, arranging and rearranging until I liked what I saw.

A few months later, after having shot a few more of them, I thought maybe I’d show them at a gallery.  (In the past, for the most part, I haven’t really been a photographer that has shown a lot of my work.  I showed in a few galleries during the first few years as a photographer, but it’s mostly been a process thing for me.  Making prints and showing them around was never really the point of photography for me.  The satisfying part of photography is just making the pictures.  I like starting with an idea or a concept, going out and buying the building materials for a set, building the set, casting the model, even doing the hair and make-up myself sometimes.  And I like the whole process of shooting: lighting it, working with the model to find just the right pose, composing the image through the viewfinder -- then ‘click.’  A minute later and I’m peeling a Polaroid – it’s like opening a little present each time.  After you’ve opened all the presents though, it’s somewhat anti-climactic.  So I’ve never really put a lot of effort into showing photos.

But these Polaroids were different.  The arrangement became a completely new element of the process.  They became this thing that sort of moved.  (It didn’t really move).  But when the arrangement was just right, it made my eyes move – I wouldn’t settle on one single Polaroid.  That’s when I knew a piece had worked, or that I was done with my rearranging – Almost involuntarily my eyes would jump from Polaroid to Polaroid.  I really liked the idea of showing them because there was an added dimension to them as a whole.  Not really a third dimension, but an element of movement.  The Polaroids seemed to do more than just sit there.

Something that I always thought didn’t really apply to me was the idea of the decisive moment while making a photograph.  A lot of photography is judged on whether the photographer clicked the shutter at just the right instant, to capture the moment.  I think I’ve probably done some of that over the years:  captured the moment.  But for me it’s a different thing entirely – It’s not just one moment.  It’s many, many moments throughout the day that make up the work… And it’s the many, many Polaroids in these pieces that represent that idea.

One afternoon I showed one of the arrangements to a friend and asked if he could make some frames for them.  (He’s a furniture designer and has done a lot of cool frames for Steven Klein).  I hoped he could construct some kind of case-like frame for each of them, more interesting than a standard frame.  He thought he might design something for me, but the first thing he suggested I do was to tack them up on a bulletin board to do my arranging and get a better view of them.  He thought my method of laying them out on the kitchen table wasn’t very efficient.  (I liked my kitchen table method.  Especially since the kitchen table was the one from my childhood home.  It was sort of appropriate). 

But it was when he suggested a ‘bulletin board’ I made the big connection.  I recalled my elementary school when I was a kid.  I remembered in the lobby of the school there were bulletin boards.  They had all sorts of children’s art displayed on them; HAPPY HALLOWEEN spelled out in orange construction paper; the lunch menu for that month, tacked up; general bulletin board stuff…  But there was one bulletin board that was enclosed.  It was aluminum, with a hinged door and a glass front.  And it had a lock. There was always something important in there;  something that needed to be kept under lock and key; kept safe from little children’s curious hands. 

That was it.  That pulled it all together for me.  Like my father locking up the Playboys, I’d lock up my Polaroids.

I think over the years Playboy magazine probably provided thousands of boys around the world, with a similar sort of experience to mine – Maybe not quite to that extent, but generally my experience is probably pretty common.  Common at least with many boys that grew up in the pre-cable and pre-internet era.  Recently with the birth of my two sons, I worry a little that they won’t have the opportunity to have that sort of childhood. Not the opportunity to discover an issue of Playboy, but to have that sort of simple, carefree and innocent childhood that I had growing up in the 60’s & 70’s. 

A little bit about the technical aspect:  For this project I have worked with a Polaroid 180 or a Konica Press camera. Both are +/- 30 year old manual cameras.  Both are designed to only use instant print film manufactured by Polaroid or Fuji.  (Like most photographers, I use the word Polaroid as a generic term for both Fuji & Polaroid instant print film and I use both for this project). There are no negatives, so none of the prints can be reproduced -- Each of the Polaroids is unique.  They are produced in real-time during the shoot and in a very old-school sort of way:  Focus, click, peel Polaroid, next one… Making each complete arrangement, one-of-a-kind.

About the Artist:

John Gettings has been a photographer for twenty-three years. His fine-art work has been shown in galleries and is held in many private collections throughout Europe and the United States.  His portrait and fashion work has been published in numerous magazines around the world.

He is the author and photographer of Couples: A Photographic Documentary of Gay and Lesbian Relationships.  He is currently working on two more portrait/book projects entitled:  Slate Portraits  and  It’s Personal.

He is also the curator & director of FOTORELIEF, a not-for-profit fund-raising organization, partnering with and raising funds for 501(c)(3) charities dedicated to improving the lives of vulnerable and at risk children.

He lives with his wife and their two children in New York City.

Item Special Note

Must be picked up at The Manhattan Childrens Center 124 West 95th Street, New York, NY.