Something I May Have Forgotten to Mention

My roommate, Cherie Saulter, and I have been very curious about the recycling culture that thrives in our neighborhood. A few months ago we decided to interview and photograph some of the people bringing their bottles and cans to Alliance Metals, one of the recycling centers nearby. In December we were chosen to have our "photo-documentary" project shown at Rock Paper Scissors, the small community arts space that I work at as a bookkeeper. It was a small show, and sort of put on by our friends, but it was still pretty cool to see our work up in a public space.

Our display was pretty awesome. We hung the series of photos up, and underneath we had a shopping cart full of cans and bottles. Several of the cans contained the interviews I had gathered, and so people had to sort through the recycling to find the stories. Below are a few of the photos that were shown (taken by Cherie), and the artists' statement that I wrote.

Rita

Danny

What Would Freud Say?

Last night I dreamed that a certain male friend of mine, let us call him Ax, was in my kitchen cooking, without the aid of clothing. Only it took me an excruciatingly long time to find out whether he was fully naked, or just topless, because kitchen islands, hundreds of them, kept blocking my view of him below the waist. It was like being trapped inside of a horror movie where you are running through corridor after corridor trying to escape a killer, but instead, I was trapped in the set of a Playboy spread from the '60's, where furniture, or bowls of fruit are always blocking the "naughty bits" of the models. I kept turning the corner of one kitchen island, hoping to find the truth of the situation, only to find more wooden islands! Finally I turned the last island; I was horrified: Ax was standing there, scrambling eggs, fully in the nude. "But Ax," I said (feebly trying to frame the direness of the situation), "I live with 15 other people, and they aren't that kind of hippie!" He smiled and put on an apron.

Later, in the same dream, another friend, let us call her Egg, appeared in my kitchen sporting a top-hawk with pink pigtails at the bottom. She also had a septum piercing and some rather monstrous biceps. "Why Egg," I said, "your muscles are looking very large," and walked off feeling confused about whether I had been properly mapping the development her character.

What are my possible analyzes of these dream scenes?


A. I find kitchens to be extremely frightening places

B. I am afraid that my friends are nudists and bikers (the motorized kind) and have been shielding me from this knowledge for years

C. That I will someday be trapped by efficient storage spaces and doppelgangers of my friends

I was glad when it was morning.