Perfection is a Fiction: NYC and The Andy Warhol Exhibit
NYC Museums | Andy Warhol, The Whitney | Apollo Fields Wedding Photography
Most of my trips to modern art museums are filled with artful dances around statuesque ponderers and remembering to check the arch of my eyebrows as my eyes learn what’s in in fashion right now. With each brightly colored cube, broken television set, or inflatable animal made of metal, my mind is thrown into a metaphysical whirlwind at the hands and mercy of Dadaism and all of its absurdist descendants. Trying to make sense of art when conventional aesthetics is thrown out the window is like walking through a busy foreign marketplace – you know something is being said, you just have no idea what it is. It’s an uncomfortable feeling until you stumble across a piece that makes you stop and tilt your head at different angles as you try to understand a language you do not yet know.
The piece in the background at the top of this post was from my most recent trip to the Andy Warhol exhibit at The Whitney in New York titled Before and After. It’s been said that it’s Warhol’s self-criticism of his own plastic surgery, while others remark that the original magazine advertisement that Warhol borrowed from was inherently anti-Semitic and that that was his intent. It makes me think that perhaps the most beautiful (or tragic) thing about modern art is that we don’t have to understand the intent of the artist and that we can create an entirely new meaning of our own. As I wandered through Warhol’s life of work, I began to learn more and more about the man behind the Campbells can – and to my surprise, something about the lens through which I view the world as well.
When I saw Warhol’s Before and After it made me think of the world of appearances of social media. It made me think, “this is the way we all want to look” (the person on the right), but in reality most of us look like the person on the left. It made me think that perfection is a fiction we want so badly to be true that we curate our lives into Snaps and Instas. That with every filter and post we draw further from reality and the sanity that comes with embracing the hooked-nose image staring back at us in the mirror. Who knows what Warhol actually meant but that’s how it made me feel.
I realized that good art gives you a license to create. It makes you think, but above all it validates all of the crazy ideas that run through your head. If before the Campbells print became famous, Warhol were try to explain that idea to someone else, it would’ve sounded asinine. And perhaps it is. But because Warhol bypassed the potentially paralyzing explain-the-craziness-inside-your-head-to-someone-else-stage of creation, we have a piece of art that makes us, or at least me, sit and think for a second. It eventually spurred me to organize my thoughts and put them onto this paper.
I guess the lesson is that perfection is a fiction and I prefer to live in reality. When I stood like any of the other entitled museum-goers at Warhol’s Before and After I immediately liked the image on the right more. You can’t help the urge to like what is aesthetically more pleasing, but learning to accept and appreciate our imperfections confronts the real rather than filtering it out.
Jamaica Honeymoon - Day 5
Apollo Fields Photojournalism | Wedding Writer | Destination Wedding Photographer | Jamaica Honeymoon | Farm Wedding Photographer
Jamaica Honeymoon – Day 5 ~9:40 am, local time
Day five of the honeymoon felt like the first step back towards the Montego Bay airport and our beloved animals that wait for us back in New Jersey. As the trip comes to a close, I sink just a little deeper into my lounge chair, holding onto the sunshine and the view of the sea for just a little longer. Six days is a healthy length for a trip where lounging is the default, any longer and you might get a little too used to it.
We’ve taken a dip off the cliffs every morning we’ve been here, partly because it’s available, but mostly because it takes the edge off the heat. You kind of form this relationship with the water in tropical climates, using it as a sort of reset button for your body to reach a more comfortable operating temperature for the next few hours. The residual salt in your hair clings to your follicles like a natural hair product, maintaining its shape while the wind blows through it bringing salt crystals back to the sea from whence it came.
One of our hosts, Tom, recommended a local lobster joint, Sips n Dips, for the freshest catch in town for lunch. We strolled up around opening time and were greeted by an elderly man who’d informed us it’d be about 40 minutes. He spoke with the familiar island intonation, carrying a nonchalance as relaxed as the wind and waves. In Jamaica, you either embrace the speed or hurriedly wait, because the beach doesn’t differentiate between footprints in the sand. Heather and I welcomed the idle time, knowing the service industry well and the importance of proper food preparation. When our cook/server came by with our tray of fresh lobster, we started by prying the tails out with our forks, eventually resorting to our fingertips to finish the job. At one point I looked down at my hands and wondered how people keep this operation clean in white tablecloth restaurants and thought that beneath the shade of a tree is the better place to be.
Climbing back onto the Vespa and pulling out onto the main road, we coincidentally caught Pam, Rick, and Steve cruising by. We decided to take a ride up the coast a bit to see some more of the island but it didn’t last long as every hundred feet past the last Americanized resort the road turned into a minefield of potholes. Driving a Vespa with Heather on the back was like having a computer update you with every potential danger in the area: “You’re going too fast, but don’t hit that pothole, wait, watch out for that sand patch!” All the while the wind moves past us keeping us cool and comfortable.
We stopped at Rick’s Café on the way back, the tourist trap of tourist traps in Negril. Large, fake stone patios, a big stage, one of those rectangular picture frames that you can stand in and more overweight white people than a Red Lobster in Texas. Institutions like these undermine the culture in which they operate when people travel hundreds of miles to have a chicken club on the cliffs of Negril.
Of course it’s a choice and risking your hunger on unfamiliar cuisine creates a risk for a rumbling stomach, but I can’t help but think when I visit these places that this is what’s wrong with our culture. Heather and I have already made the mistake twice: once in the Dominican Republic shooting a wedding and the other time in Cancun, where you experience such an Americanized version of a country that it’s offensive to even say that you visited it. I guess places like Rick’s are inevitable in highly trafficked vacation spots, but it does both of our cultures a disservice with their sheer existence.
Everyday of my life I want to make a connection. Whether its person-to-person or person-to-culture, connections are bridges of understanding that can conquer ignorance one experience at a time. A relationship with the water and the wind will sweep us into a more united future much quicker than any resort or tourist trap ever could.
This One's For You, Colorado
September is here…
For someone who’s moving across the country and getting married in the next few weeks, I’m surprisingly calm. The opposite of having cold feet, Heather and I are inching towards our departure from Colorado with equal parts celebration and anticipation. Of course, leaving will be hard, but our two years in Arvada has only shown us that our ambition cannot be contained in our cozy cottage on Cody Street.
The friends we’ve made here caught us at a pivotal developmental phase of our relationship, and because of that they mean that much more to us. From the dinner parties to dancing like idiots at Red Rocks, Heather and I have never quite had the community that we’ve fallen into here. I’ve never felt more like myself than when Heather’s sampling sauce from her wooden spoon and I’m welcoming friends in through the front door. To know that our Colorado friends have helped us realize that – these core parts of who we are – is to understand an achievement of friendship that we will never feel worthy for.
It would be scarier to leave if we didn’t have such a solid plan in place. When we land in New York on October 1st, 2018, we are emptying Joey (our car) into our interim home in East Northport, NY, on Long Island, and scooting over to Ramsey, NJ, to prepare Honeymoon Acres for our wedding. It will be a week of tedious logistics where we will transform inevitable accidents and miscues into laughter and memories. After that, we get married, cry, and party. It’s that easy.
From there, we will take our wedding brand, Apollo Fields, into its next iteration: a wedding venue. We dream of a lush green piece of land with a barn and a farmhouse with a long, wrap-around porch, complete with a swinging bench that creaks as you reminisce in those long moments before dinner is ready. We see hard work and love coexisting in a space where relationships are honored as partnerships, and where friendship is built into the bones. The best part about this dream is that we cannot only see it, but that it is fully within our grasp.
I’m not going to pretend to say that I won’t cry when we leave (mainly because I already have), but I will say that the hit won’t be as hard because we have so much to look forward to. When we left New York for Colorado two years ago, we packed everything we cared about into Sacajawea (our now deceased Subaru), and now as we return we will be doing the same with Joey. With Riddle, Rumor, (and Limbo living the luxury life in a commercial trailer) in tow, Heather and I are turning the music up and making our way back home. Who knows when it will hit us, as the tears began to pour as we drove over the George Washington Bridge last time, but I know that I’m ready for them. This one’s for you Colorado.
Your Immeasurably Grateful Friends,
Terrence & Heather
(The Apollo Fields Family )
Cookbook Sale!
We’re also having a dope sale on our books to lighten our moving load! Click HERE.
Some of Our Favorite Memories in Colorado:
Photos Credited to our wonderful and talented friends:
Sam Hines
Kim Klein
Sarah Valencia
Wedding Photographers in NYC
3.2.18 - 5004 Cody Street ~ 1:05 AM MT
Heather told me tonight that she really appreciated my partnership today. She told me that she could count on me to tidy up the house, to research SEO stuff for Apollo Fields, and that trusting someone else to handle things isn’t easy for her. Since the beginning of our relationship we’ve always trusted each other because we haven’t given each other a reason not to. It’s wonderful that that reality is also seeping into the business partnership that we’re creating.
I know that few people are lucky enough to find a significant other whom they can communicate with, work with, and even enjoy being with for a long period of time. Often times it’s hard enough to even get along with yourself for awhile. Yet here we are as a couple in pursuit of a creative endeavor that incorporates and celebrates the things that we are both best at individually. There are even fewer people who can be part of something like that.
As I explained it to several people at Oasis tonight, Heather and I’s partnership and eventual marriage was borne out of the recognition of a pattern of mutually beneficial decisions and actions. To us, concepts like eternal love are irrational fantasies seated in the rationality of the human mind; pursuing them is akin to letting your conscience be commanded by a belief in heaven and hell—it allows imaginary ideas to take precedence over the human faculty of rationality.
In the past three years Heather and I have taken countless trips, published a cookbook, moved across the country, adopted a Doberman from a sandwich shop, had our Jack Russell become paraplegic, acquired a horse, and fought and laughed in between. Many things have stood in our way but none of them have stopped us. Our relationship withstands the things that come our way because we know we control our actions and that we will be there for our partner when they get in their own way.
To say that, “we don’t fight” is a misnomer and an oversimplification—we hold different opinions all the time, but it’s a matter of choosing when and where to dig our feet into the mud. It takes emotional will power to cede your pride in the name of the greater good of the relationship, but learning to govern your feelings in order to foster an atmosphere of trust, support, and honesty will always be worth it. There are times when I or Heather knows that the arena we have chosen to fight in is a waste of time or that we were not meant to share this same battlefield and we’ve learned that that’s OK. Our altercations are a matter of recognizing what works and what doesn’t, or what’s harmful and what’s helpful. It’s less of a fight and more of a concerted effort at honest communication aimed at understanding.
Through all of the fun and tears we strive to create love and act out of rationality and reason. It’s less exciting than the love stories we’ve been told and sounds less sexy than the hyperbole of unoriginal wedding vows, but it’s the closest thing to being human that I can imagine. If Heather and I love each other enough we will bring another human into a world where creativity, rationality, and reason are the concepts dangling above the crib, slowly spinning on a hand-stitched mobile as stubby, wrinkly fingers reach for the sky. Instead of pursuing imaginary fantasies we are writing our story one thoughtful camera click and pen stroke at a time.
"We Are What We Repeatedly Do"
2.25.18 - Brittany’s House off Independence ~ 9:46 AM MT
Coming back from an Internet black hole, 30 minutes later, I’m finally putting some work in. Its really hard for me to focus when there is so much content to consume, making it really easy to divert my attention to passive activities. I’m grateful to have Brittany and Mike’s house to take refuge, although I wish their fireplace worked.
The thought that’s been bumping around my head is to unify all that I’ve been thinking about since studying philosophy in a non-fiction work about living a meaningful life in the 21st century. My immediate response to my own thought is: who are you to say how to live a meaningful life? To which I respond, I studied philosophy, Aristotle intensively, and have meaningful interactions day-in-and-day-out. If you are what you consistently do, then what does that make the average American? A consumer: products, food, entertainment--that is what our culture is known for.
I used to think about dismantling the ideology of businesses, how ethics should be enforced onto ad agencies and mega-corporations because it’s not “right” to manipulate the psyches of the masses to make a quick buck. A realization on that idea is that the inertia behind the consumerist exploitation of the American population is so great and monolithic that it’d be like an ant standing in front of a tank rather than a person in Tiannamen square. A disruption of the system through bureaucratic means not only sounds like an unconquerable uphill battle, but an exercise in futility.
Instead, focusing on the tenet of Aristotle, you are what you constantly do, in order to have a meaningful life you need to make meaningful decisions. You need to exercise discipline in your consummatory choices, recognizing the need for pain, for silence, for the higher cost of quality products to live a more meaningful life. Unless you’re willing to live a meaningless, surface-level life, in which case that’s fine for you to Snapchat your days away, Facebooking until the screen on your phone burns your retinas.
Aristotle’s tenet, then, is a phrase meaning that life is a pattern of decision-making. It doesn’t need to be framed in good or bad decisions, but rather healthy or unhealthy ones. We do not need to invoke a 21st century code of morality to live better lives, all we need is some science.
Unplugged Times
When I opened up my eyes in the fort (yes, it’s still up) this morning, the sun scorched my retinas like a prolonged flash from a disposable camera. It made me think of how far I’ve come from my hatred for the stream of sunlight that would find its way through the drawn curtains of my teenage years. In those days, the only things that were worthwhile before noon were McDonalds’s breakfast and The Price is Right with Bob Barker (remember to spay and neuter your pets).
After some reading in bed I took a stroll through the melting snow with Rumor, our Doberman pinscher who we rescued from a sandwich shop. It always amuses me how other dog walkers switch to the other side of the road to pass because of her breed’s reputation—little do they know that Rumor is scared of cardboard boxes, paper towels, washing machines and anything that’s loud; not to mention that she lets our paraplegic Jack Russell, Riddle, maintain the alpha role in our house (I must admit that I do enjoy this misplaced, stereotype-induced appearance of intimidation because my tendency to smile at strangers doesn’t exactly strike fear into people’s hearts). Taking walks like these, unplugged from the constant chatter of the Internet allows me to hone in on the trickle of the stream of mountain runoff, the honks of the distant geese, and the massive puddles that turn every sidewalk’s corner into mini ballets of pedestrian pirouettes.
Yet it’s still a struggle for me to leave the comfort of my couch, where I could be scrolling through the sea of infinite information and entertainment that lives in my phone, waiting, beckoning me to fall into yet another black hole of YouTube where after starting with one silly video I suddenly find myself, hours later, watching a clip of a cat putting on a bunny hat, leaving me wondering, “how the fuck did I get here?” It’s nuts how easy it is to be captured by these cheap, goldfish-attention-span videos that sate our lazy, passive curiosities, but that’s a real 21st century, first-world problem—anything I want, including all day McDonalds breakfast and all of the old episodes of The Price is Right are just a couple of convenient clicks away.
It’s unplugged times like walking through the snow with my dopey, intimidating Dobie that make me grateful for remembering the sound of a dialup modem coming through the receiver of our rotary phone as I try to hang up immediately, hoping not to inconvenience one of my older brothers by kicking them off one of their “super important” sessions on AIM in the basement. Perhaps it’s just my version of “back in my day,” but I can’t help but think that this evolution of technology invading our psyches is a bit more intrusive and worrisome than watching Elvis thrust his hips on a television set or the 60’s movement being reduced to a brand of countercultural consumerism. Perhaps we all want to be strong and intimidating but beneath it all we’re all just scared of paper towels and cardboard boxes like Rumor—either way, I’m just happy and grateful I can still muster the strength to shirk the comforts of convenience and enjoy the trickle of a creek once in awhile.
It is Human to Feel
2.23.18 - Bookbar ~ 3:21 PM
Lately I’ve been having a conversation with myself about my own potential. Perhaps its listening to Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art, perhaps its serendipitous timing given my current “occupational struggles.” Why don’t I just say “I can’t get a fucking job,” rather than dress it up like some piece of watered down reality? I guess using phrases like these is a way for our brains to navigate the pain we feel when we have to accept a harsh truth of our reality.
My current reality is that I am afraid of my own potential. I’m afraid of putting myself out there, of putting a price tag on my work. By remaining judgment free of others, I have carved out a place for myself to be safe from judgment as well, because I guess I’d rather live in comfortable anonymity than recognized splendor—or worse—recognized failure. I’ve rationalized to myself for years that the reason I haven’t committed to a certain work is that I have always found a reason not to do it, a caveat that renders the effort futile. But I’m just coming to grips with the fact that if I want to be a successful writer I need to:
a) write (duh) and;
b) Not be afraid to approach my own potential.
Even as I sit at Bookbar on Tennyson, surrounded by the clinks and clanks of glassware, I question my happiness with getting the job at Oasis Brewery. It's another job that doesn’t push my limits, it's an atmosphere where I'm already comfortable-- it's safe. By my failure to dedicate myself to my work, my tendency to take what's safe, and my contentedness with what I have: I have paved myself a history of mediocrity. Growing pains are part of the deal when you enter a new industry or part of your life and I have spent my entire adulthood avoiding difficulty. The only time I really reached for something was bartending at Henry’s Restaurant in NYC and I achieved it and quickly became complacent. Even there, I wasn’t really pushing myself to master a craft.
The only thing I’ve exercised a great deal of self-control and awareness is in understanding social interactions. As a friendly face, I have honed the ability to make people feel comfortable and welcome to say that which makes them vulnerable. I’ve done this with a combination of eye contact and knowledge that we’re all insecure and unsure of ourselves, and I’m just willing to be the first one to admit it in a group. When someone is overly sure of themselves it strikes me as arrogant, and I’d rather be vulnerable than overconfident. That’s why I’m excited to open Apollo Fields with Heather. I know I have the ability to make all of our guests comfortable and I know Heather will execute the production side of things or die trying. I am so lucky to have found a partner so rational and understanding.
Back to the conversation on my potential -- I have learned that my biggest asset in writing is my power of description. That I can transport the reader to a place of my creation and I can have fun doing it.
All around me BookBar is buzzing with the comfortable speed of a café on a Saturday afternoon. The patrons around me pluck away at their computers, while people seated on leather couches laugh in the background. Money is exchanged over the counter and “have-a-nice-days” are cheerily spoke through the barista's lips. There’s a comfort to cafés that I wish could plop in my living room, where people talk and jest in casual business. I didn’t think about it, but you rarely find tie-wearing businessmen conducting conversations in cafés, probably because they mean business and its too important to be said over a coffee table. Keep an eye out for them - they tend to seem out of place.
But here I sit, happily plucking away, a letter at a time from my worried consciousness, conjuring up sentences from seemingly nowhere. They say that energy is neither created nor destroyed but where does creative energy come from? Logic says that if it isn’t created, then it must live dormant in each of us until we call it forth to our mouths or fingertips. A reassuring thought except for the creative individual during writer’s block-- “I have it in me somewhere, it has to be here!” like they're looking for a pair of lost keys stuck between couch cushions. What am I writing anyway? Or more accurately, why?
I like to investigate the human condition, getting at why we behave the way we do in social settings and how we can better understand one another. I like (not always) to be honest with myself, engaging in these wacky conversations because running away from them makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel like the way I used to when I would lie to avoid my harsh truths of reality. The way of life that really came to a head in my first semester at SUNY Cortland where I avoided my problems altogether. Everyday I woke in dread of the problems I’ve swept under the carpet the night before; and every night I went to sleep in a cannabis-induced shame. It takes courage to have these conversations but the alternative is a tepid reality laced with indifference, envy, and personal stagnation.
It is human to feel—to ignore this is to ignore human life itself.