JOHN BOGERT: What brave optimists do when they're laid off
By John Bogert, Staff Columnist Daily Breeze News
POSTED: 03/12/10, 9:00 PM PST |
When you think about recession casualties, someone like Remy Haynes might not come immediately to mind. Not unless a wonderfully articulate, highly creative, tall, blond commercial photographer is your idea of an employment lost cause.
Then again, this recession has been boundlessly lethal for everyone, even the well-educated, pretty, talented, everything-going-for- them people who - like so many of us - came to believe that preparation and hard work would somehow smooth that ever-rising road to wherever it was we were heading.
Remy, a San Diego native living in Hermosa Beach, was well on her way. She is expert at snapping those obsidian-sharp photos you see on corporate annual reports, online and in ads for big banks, coffee companies and cell phone outfits.
A graduate of Seattle's Art Institute with 13 years of hard-won experience, she seemed bulletproof until financial drop-offs and cutbacks took away many of her accounts. Being a naturally inquisitive sort, she found herself wondering how other people were coping with bad times that might still be best summed up by that jokey old truism: A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours.
Call the 36-year-old photographer a curious optimist.
"I wanted to seek out the silver lining in all this, I wanted to find the people who were taking a bad situation and benefiting from it. There is not a lot of positive media right now and I think that people need to hear more good stories," she said.
Sitting with us over coffee at Borders on Torrance Boulevard was Emily Baum, the effervescent, thirtysomething Hermosa Beach resident who has for the past decade taught piano and music education (in addition to being a popular substitute teacher) to children out of a Pier Avenue studio that she had to vacate because, as she put it, "Nobody needs an emergency piano lesson in this economy."
That's a crying shame because Baum, or Miss Emily as her students know her, is one of those extremely rare creatures, somebody who loves life, children and music absolutely and it shows. A New Jersey native, Baum seems to glow with some inner light.
And it was a column I did last year on her totally gratuitous sticker project that brought the two women together and put Baum in Haynes' creative answer to hard times, a gallery show of words and pictures (with an exquisite accompanying book) called "The Currency Project."
On her Web site, www.thecurrency project.com, Haynes states, "As a photographer and writer, I chronicled people from diverse walks of life, all who shared one common denominator - facing a fork in the road as a result of the economic downturn. Rather than giving up, these individuals allowed the course of their lives to develop in entirely new directions. What devastated so many became the impetus to create new lives that are rich in currency. "
Haynes, who is one of those rare individuals who still sends colorful paper thank-you cards, was a bit surprised when she stepped out from behind the camera and started asking questions.
"I had some real and honest conversations with people, some of whom had had 25 years in the corporate world before losing their jobs. In the process I don't think that I have ever been more myself," she said of the people whose changed lives she captured on film and in words. This as she was changed and improved by creating the project.
There is Matt Burman, seen with his full-back tattoo turned to the camera, a businessman who opened a barbershop in downtown L.A. And Rusty Allen, a laid-off product designer who designed a single-use water filter bottle. She photographed Allen in full business suit while both were submerged in a swimming pool.
In all, she profiled 18 people for the book and the show that runs from Tuesday to April 18 at the James Gray Gallery in Santa Monica's Bergamot Station.
And all of the twists and turns in those lives seem to say the same thing, that there is life beyond the death of a job. Maybe not the same life exactly, but often a better one with people taking up sports, hobbies and other great passions that had been long lost in the endless shuffle and grind of work.
"A layoff is tragic," said Haynes, who is the product of an English mother and a Swedish father, "but I found from meeting these people that the layoff often comes with new opportunity."
In the long, self-employed Miss Emily's case, there was no actual layoff beyond a drop in business. Feeling down and knowing that she would have to move from her studio near the pier, she fell back on the most rudimentary of childhood pick-me-ups, stickers.
I'm talking little stars and tiny flowers, the kind of things that little kids value like gold. The kind of things that adults value as well. About a year ago she started rewarding people. The woman behind the deli counter, the Starbucks guy, complete strangers would get a sticker from this lovely woman and an unexpected shot in the arm that actually worked.
"People love to be recognized and appreciated," she told me when I wrote about her one-woman campaign a year ago.
That article, hanging in a Hermosa Beach coffee shop, is what led to a wonderful, almost otherworldly photo of Miss Emily seated at a piano being included in the show.
The stickers proved to be self-made medicine for the piano teacher's spirit. For her part, Haynes believes that it is part of our basic makeup to transcend bad times, which is what Miss Emily did, picking herself up and moving her studio to the less expensive but far more accessible Redondo Plaza at 1603 Aviation Blvd., Studio 13 in Redondo Beach. For piano lessons, emergency or not, call 310-937- 0150 or visit www.pianolessonsbyemily.com .
"You never forgot to put some good out there and it came back to you," Haynes told Baum, who has experienced a kind of emotional rebirth with the mobile sticker love-in and her move.
"Change," said the photographer with real conviction, "is good."
I want to hear your comments. Connect with me at [email protected].
By John Bogert, Staff Columnist Daily Breeze News
POSTED: 03/12/10, 9:00 PM PST |
When you think about recession casualties, someone like Remy Haynes might not come immediately to mind. Not unless a wonderfully articulate, highly creative, tall, blond commercial photographer is your idea of an employment lost cause.
Then again, this recession has been boundlessly lethal for everyone, even the well-educated, pretty, talented, everything-going-for- them people who - like so many of us - came to believe that preparation and hard work would somehow smooth that ever-rising road to wherever it was we were heading.
Remy, a San Diego native living in Hermosa Beach, was well on her way. She is expert at snapping those obsidian-sharp photos you see on corporate annual reports, online and in ads for big banks, coffee companies and cell phone outfits.
A graduate of Seattle's Art Institute with 13 years of hard-won experience, she seemed bulletproof until financial drop-offs and cutbacks took away many of her accounts. Being a naturally inquisitive sort, she found herself wondering how other people were coping with bad times that might still be best summed up by that jokey old truism: A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours.
Call the 36-year-old photographer a curious optimist.
"I wanted to seek out the silver lining in all this, I wanted to find the people who were taking a bad situation and benefiting from it. There is not a lot of positive media right now and I think that people need to hear more good stories," she said.
Sitting with us over coffee at Borders on Torrance Boulevard was Emily Baum, the effervescent, thirtysomething Hermosa Beach resident who has for the past decade taught piano and music education (in addition to being a popular substitute teacher) to children out of a Pier Avenue studio that she had to vacate because, as she put it, "Nobody needs an emergency piano lesson in this economy."
That's a crying shame because Baum, or Miss Emily as her students know her, is one of those extremely rare creatures, somebody who loves life, children and music absolutely and it shows. A New Jersey native, Baum seems to glow with some inner light.
And it was a column I did last year on her totally gratuitous sticker project that brought the two women together and put Baum in Haynes' creative answer to hard times, a gallery show of words and pictures (with an exquisite accompanying book) called "The Currency Project."
On her Web site, www.thecurrency project.com, Haynes states, "As a photographer and writer, I chronicled people from diverse walks of life, all who shared one common denominator - facing a fork in the road as a result of the economic downturn. Rather than giving up, these individuals allowed the course of their lives to develop in entirely new directions. What devastated so many became the impetus to create new lives that are rich in currency. "
Haynes, who is one of those rare individuals who still sends colorful paper thank-you cards, was a bit surprised when she stepped out from behind the camera and started asking questions.
"I had some real and honest conversations with people, some of whom had had 25 years in the corporate world before losing their jobs. In the process I don't think that I have ever been more myself," she said of the people whose changed lives she captured on film and in words. This as she was changed and improved by creating the project.
There is Matt Burman, seen with his full-back tattoo turned to the camera, a businessman who opened a barbershop in downtown L.A. And Rusty Allen, a laid-off product designer who designed a single-use water filter bottle. She photographed Allen in full business suit while both were submerged in a swimming pool.
In all, she profiled 18 people for the book and the show that runs from Tuesday to April 18 at the James Gray Gallery in Santa Monica's Bergamot Station.
And all of the twists and turns in those lives seem to say the same thing, that there is life beyond the death of a job. Maybe not the same life exactly, but often a better one with people taking up sports, hobbies and other great passions that had been long lost in the endless shuffle and grind of work.
"A layoff is tragic," said Haynes, who is the product of an English mother and a Swedish father, "but I found from meeting these people that the layoff often comes with new opportunity."
In the long, self-employed Miss Emily's case, there was no actual layoff beyond a drop in business. Feeling down and knowing that she would have to move from her studio near the pier, she fell back on the most rudimentary of childhood pick-me-ups, stickers.
I'm talking little stars and tiny flowers, the kind of things that little kids value like gold. The kind of things that adults value as well. About a year ago she started rewarding people. The woman behind the deli counter, the Starbucks guy, complete strangers would get a sticker from this lovely woman and an unexpected shot in the arm that actually worked.
"People love to be recognized and appreciated," she told me when I wrote about her one-woman campaign a year ago.
That article, hanging in a Hermosa Beach coffee shop, is what led to a wonderful, almost otherworldly photo of Miss Emily seated at a piano being included in the show.
The stickers proved to be self-made medicine for the piano teacher's spirit. For her part, Haynes believes that it is part of our basic makeup to transcend bad times, which is what Miss Emily did, picking herself up and moving her studio to the less expensive but far more accessible Redondo Plaza at 1603 Aviation Blvd., Studio 13 in Redondo Beach. For piano lessons, emergency or not, call 310-937- 0150 or visit www.pianolessonsbyemily.com .
"You never forgot to put some good out there and it came back to you," Haynes told Baum, who has experienced a kind of emotional rebirth with the mobile sticker love-in and her move.
"Change," said the photographer with real conviction, "is good."
I want to hear your comments. Connect with me at [email protected].
