On Time
Campfires, Key Cards and Carousels
All Kinds Of Commas is a weekly newsletter about the pursuit of a creative life and all the commas that get us there. My name is Eric Ryan Anderson and I’ve spent the last twenty years exploring the world with a camera and all kinds of good people. This is a space to share some of those stories and look to the future together.
CURRENTLY,
I’m back in the Delta Sky Club waiting for another flight to LaGuardia. A quick shoot in the city and another in South Carolina, with a pit stop back home for a very important middle school violin recital in between.
The last ten days have been a fever dream of gratitude and good food, quality time around campfires and a few long dinners with friends. Went to the movie theatre twice, watched tons of football (Go Cowboys) and enjoyed a bunch of lazy mornings with the girls. It’s been great.
Despite the week of long walks and good stories and kids playing at the farmhouse, the big meals and turkey-shaped ice cream cakes, I didn’t make any pictures. And it felt nice.
It wasn’t some bold stand about living in the moment or being present… I just didn’t think about it, which always tells me I’ve been going a bit too hard. And that seems to be how creative cycles work, at least for me. We have time dedicated to exploring and producing and dreaming, of paying attention and taking detours and chasing curiosities… But it inevitably has to balance with down time… Slow mornings at home, reading actual books, focusing on family duties and putting the camera away.
In order to be productive and creatively fresh, you have to guard and savor those down times, and embrace the pendulum from work to rest… Over and over.
SPEAKING OF SAVING,
For a few years now, after returning from these trips, I empty my pockets and suitcases and usually one or two hotel key cards fall out. Instinctively, I throw them in a bedside drawer or in a box at the studio… And over the course of a few years, have built a stack of over two hundred of them.
Earlier in my career, I’d come home with all kinds of interesting pieces of paper. Hand written receipts, notepads from hotel rooms, business cards, etc. I have boxes of old papers to prove it.
But slowly, the paper trail has gone digital. We rarely keep paper receipts. I don’t usually have cash or coins anymore. Nobody hands out business cards. Generally these keycards are one of the only physical evidences of my being somewhere.
There’s an inherent sadness to this stack… All the nights I’ve missed tucking the girls into bed, watching mindless tv on the couch with Amy or mornings waking up in my own bedroom.
But, like above, it’s a balance… I’m seeing cities and meeting people and making pictures and living, and that feels right. The constant ebb and flow of this traveling creative life we choose to pursue.
One day we won’t use these anymore. We’ll scan our eyes or use our phones or something, and these will feel like relics from another era, just like those handwritten receipts do now.
Speaking of relics from another era…
TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO,
There was a carousel in downtown Nashville.
Not just your run-of-the-mill carousel… This was a piece of art fashioned from the mind and hands of New York City-based Red Grooms. The carousel featured bespoke portraits of all sorts of Tennessee historical figures, from Lulu Naff to Chet Atkins, Wilma Rudolph to Andrew Jackson. It stood across the river from Broadway, near the newly built home of the Tennessee Titans.
In 2003, the carousel was disassembled without warning. The pieces were taken by the state and put into a warehouse for safe-keeping. And twenty years went by.
A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a new exhibition at David Lusk Gallery in Nashville… I recognized Red Grooms’ name as I wandered in and started admiring the drawings and what looked like plaster sculptures.
Then it hit me… I’ve seen these things! I know this story!
Over a year ago, I’d received a cryptic assignment from the New York Times about meeting a journalist at a State-run warehouse to photograph some old artwork. Not really knowing what I was getting into, I packed my on camera flash and waited for one Walker Mimms to roll up and explain the situation. Some government curators led us through a series of doors to what felt like a forgotten corner of a forgotten warehouse, and sure enough, we were soon surrounded by dozens of historic figures, sculpted into what appeared to be carousel seats.
Walker’s story about the lost carousel, a booming city and an artist reflecting on another era finally ran last week and I highly recommend giving it a read! And the exhibition from Red Grooms is still up at David Lusk for a couple more weeks (closes December 20). If you’re in Nashville… Go check it out! And hopefully these pieces will be available for public admiration again soon!
Oh… And if anyone has a copy of Monday’s print edition, snag the Arts section for me!
INTERESTINGLY,
I relaxed too much last week to curate the internet, and now I have a flight to board…Next time!
UP NEXT,
In an effort to fully enjoy the holidays and rebuild those creative reservoirs, I’m planning to take a breather from this newsletter for a few weeks.
Thank you for being here. I’m excited to keep building this space in the new year. More detours, more conversations and more glimpses into this strange life with a camera.
I’d really love to hear from you if you enjoyed reading this thing over the past few months! Until then, put the screens away, pay attention to the magic all around you, and get some rest!