the rising sun's light in the jars room on the second floor

The freshly stained totem foundations on the front porch

San Francisco City Hall

August 17, 2022

6:40am

 

photos on the wall in the record room by Mark Anstendig

To me, beauty appears when one feels deeply, and art is an act of total attention.

Dorothea Lange

Every normal human being (and not merely the 'artist') has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious, it is merely a matter of courage or liberating procedures ... of voyages into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light. 

Max Ernst

 

freshly stained wood for the totem constructions, on the front porch

Photography is not documentary, but intuition, a poetic experience. 

Henri Cartier-Bresson

(the beginning)

detail of the raccoon totem

the tower, late in the day

detail of the clock totem

(the beginning)

 

August 4, 2022

6:51am

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. 

Dorothea Lange

detail of the raccoon totem

(the beginning)

(the beginning) detail of the round totem

San Francisco City Hall

August 10, 2022

9:39pm

 

 

July 17, 2022

8:01pm

Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself. So live the life you imagined. 

Henry David Thoreau

photo of RH (24 years old) by Mark Anstendig in 1977

 

 

 

 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. 

Walt Whitman

San Francisco City Hall

August 17, 2022

6:40am

You know there are moments such as these when time stands still and all you do is hold your breath and hope it will wait for you. 

Dorothea Lange

The artist performs only one part of the creative process.

The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the last word. 

Marcel Duchamp

working on jars in the round room

 

 

You put your camera around your neck along with putting on your shoes, and there it is, an appendage of the body that shares your life with you. The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

Dorothea Lange

San Francisco City Hall

July 28,2022

8:35pm

beginning the round totem

RH

photo by Stephen Crow

beginning of a new headdress

four freshly painted headdresses

The artist is a spectator, indifferent or impassioned, at the birth of his work, and observes the phases of its development. 

Max Ernst

To take photographs is putting one's head, one's eye, and one's heart on the same axis. 

Henri Cartier-Bresson

San Francisco City Hall

August 14, 2022

9:14pm

staining wood on the front porch

sunrise light

 

 

(the beginning) front room salmon totem

Dada is not modern at all, it is rather a return to a quasi-Buddhist religion of indifference. Dada puts an artificial sweetness onto things, a snow of butterflies coming out of a conjurer's skull. Dada is stillness and does not understand the passions. 

Tristan Tzara

August 12, 2022

6:36am

stained wood on the front porch

(the beginning) piano pedals totem

One must picture everything in the world as an enigma, and live in the world as if in a vast museum of strangeness. 

Giorgio de Chirico

 

 

a painting by Tom Phillips, based on Mark Anstendig's photo of me in 1977

San Francisco City Hall

August 14, 2022

8:41pm

 

 

(the beginning) chair totem, front room

(the beginning) tool box totem

Color is the fruit of life. 

Guillaume Apollinaire

 

 

Bring the viewer to your side, include him in your thought. He is not a bystander. You have the power to increase his perceptions and conceptions. 

Dorothea Lange

San Francisco City Hall

July 28, 2022

9:16pm

To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams. 

Giorgio de Chirico

It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

San Francisco City Hall

August 15,2022

11:20am

the beginning of a new headdress

Do anything, but let it produce joy. 

Walt Whitman

 

 

I never knew what I was doing until I was done. 

Man Ray

San Francisco City Hall

August 1, 2022

8:26pm

Tom Phillips painting based on Mark Anstendig's photo of me in 1977

staining wood for the totems on the front porch

Creativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition. 

Max Ernst

 

 

 

San Francisco City Hall

July 31, 2022

8:37pm

 

Photography is a very subtle thing. You must let the camera take you by the hand, as it were, and lead you into your subject. 

Margaret Bourke-White

August 12, 2022

6:36am

 

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. 

Marcel Duchamp

San Francisco City Hall

August 5, 2022

8:32pm

(the beginning) piano pedal totem

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

San Francisco City Hall

August 12, 2022

7:50pm

 

San Francisco City Hall

August 17, 2022

6:48am

Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you. 

Walt Whitman

freshly stained wood for the totems

on the front porch

(the beginning) pyramid room totem

(the beginning) hoop totem

I succeeded in simply attending at the birth of all my works. 

Max Ernst

 

(the beginning) raccoon totem

 

staining wood for the totems on the front porch

Everything has two aspects; the current aspect, which we see nearly always and which ordinary men see, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals may see in moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical abstraction. 

Giorgio de Chirico

a photo on the records room wall by Mark Anstendig

San Francisco City Hall

August 10, 2022

9:39pm

San Francisco City Hall

August 17, 2022

6:48am

satining wood for the totems on the front porch

 

the front room window with a view of the tower