IN THE DREAM I was a baby held by my Mother tightly to her breast. Her long black hair brushed against my face. She smelled like lilac soap. It was summer and the kitchen was hot. She was baking a cake. Her apron was dusted with flour. Her dog, Old Trixie, a spitz, was at […]
OUR FATHER HAIKU Every night, in my room, in the comfort of dark, on my knees I prayed. September 6, 2016 A MONTH OF SATIE Satie in the background, melodious companion, do I need more? September 14, 2016 LEAVING HOME Father […]
THE HANDSHAKE OF A LITTLE GIRL Shaking hands with the left hand is awkward and upside down. I lift my right hand with the left just below the elbow and deploy the handshake of a little girl, the grip of which makes any egg safe. July 14, 2016 STILL SINGING A STORY […]
REFLECTIONS ON THE PURCHASE OF A 37 CENT JAMES BALDWIN STAMP for Raymond Paul Adams Little Jimmy, the boy preacher, eyes bugging out (at the meanness of the world?), preaching his song at the top of his high voice while walking the streets of Harlem. He watched the boys watching the […]
“…you see me disappearing like sugar in water.” —from Rain Trip by Diane Wakoski MY RIGHT HAND My right hand is caving in. The muscles retreat as if on the front line under fire, disappearing. The winter sun a sudden development through thick clouds through this dirty kitchen window lands on my hand as it […]
“…sweating like Judas tired of dying…”—Samuel Beckett (from Enueg II) MY SINS REMEMBERED In the confessional, ramrod straight, mouth cotton dry, lips like crazed china, hands a fidget, I concentrate, rehearse, wait my turn. The window slides open. Father Keller’s ghostly image emerges, dour silhouette, a mystery barely discernable through the thin curtain. I cross […]
INHERITANCE We were taught to be racists in casual and subtle ways. The perfect story to illustrate this statement is the following true story, often told by my Mother in a dramatic way. My Mother was a typical Southern woman of the upper middle classes raised during the first quarter of the last century. Her […]
MOTHER WHISPERED Mother, leaning over me, her palm placed securely to check my temperature whispered with a gentle breath that tickled my ear “You are my little prince, I will always love you.” January 22, 2016
YOUR EYES BETRAY YOUR SECRETS for Ari You are on your side of the bed facing the window your back to me. Your Mac at your hips is unattended, Reno 911 getting no laughs. The sheets are warmed by the electric blanket. The room is usually cold and it is tonight. Are you quietly crying […]
JON BALES DYING Your once handsome face had morphed into a mask of dry leather. You were hard to look at. Yet your eyes were still an improbable blue that could have sucked in the dead. I was lying next to you in your hospital bed your elbow pressed against my […]
INSURING THE ZONG In 1781 during a trip over, the captain ordered 132 sick Africans (a part of the Zong’s cargo) thrown overboard, knowing well that the insurance company would pay in the event of their drowning. February 21, 2008 WHERE VAN GOGH LIVED Brussels October 1880-April 1881 Etten April-December 1881 The Hague December […]
“…Life gives its whole heart And death gives its secret…” —from The Work of the Painter by Paul Eluard (translated by Samuel Beckett) BUDDHA IN THE BACKYARD (COVERED IN 11” OF SNOW. ODDLY A ROBIN CALLS IN THE DISTANCE. WINTER A VIGILANT, CONSISTENT TUNDRA, 20 DAYS TILL SPRING) Some secrets come too late. Some secrets […]
Editor’s Note: 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest of all the concentration camps established by Nazi Germany in World War II. Located in Poland, in its heyday, 10,000 Jews a day were gassed to death there, while others, all of whom arrived in boxcars made for cattle, were forced […]
FEBRUARY Winter crept in like Sandburg’s fog only to arch up its back again. February 6, 2015
DOWN RIVER Early morning commute down river. Golden clouds floating low over my head. Marshland smells in my nose. G.M. Stewart Savannah, GA September 4, 2014 Gregory Michael Stewart is a poet and Country Club Golf Course Greenskeeper living in Savannah, GA
The current display at Lexington’s most venerable of exhibition spaces, Institute 193, is the work of Atlanta native Shara Hughes. Hughes, a driving force of the Atlanta scene when she lived there, decamped to Brooklyn this year, where she currently lives and operates a studio. The show at ‘193’ (as the locals refer to the […]
AARON SKOLNICK’S 20 PAIRS OF SHOES, MAY 5, 2014, The Archive of Louis Zoellar Bickett SAM FOY IN THE ARCHIVE GARDEN, MAY 5, 2014, The Archive of Louis Zoellar Bickett
by Louis Bickett OVERHEARD ON THE CORNER OF BROADWAY & MAIN, LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY Overheard on the street in front of Starbuck’s with a lb. of just ground Sumatra fresh in my nose, a weathered drunk screaming to no one in particular “We don’t need no machine to tell us what to do. We live in […]
from the Louis Bickett Photo Archive What I Read Collection Daddy Collects Collection I IMAGINE THE OLD NIGGER WILL BE CHEAPER’, VINTAGE LETTER, 17 FEBRUARY 2011
The Gratz Park Project, November 6, 2009, The Archive of Louis Zoellar Bickett […]
AARON SKOLNICK IN NYC, JUNE 24-27, The Archive Louis Zoellar Bickett ⦁ AARON SKOLNICK’S PARTY AT THE LAYFAYETTE HOUSE, NYC, JUNE 25, 2013, The Archive Louis Zoellar Bickett ⦁ AARON’S STUDIO IN HIS ABSENCE, JULY 2, 2013, The Archive Louis Zoellar Bickett ⦁ ARRON SKOLNICK’S “WAYWARD BOUND” OPENING AT RARE GALLERY, NYC, JUNE 25, 2013
MOTHER DRINKING HER MORNING COFFEE By Louis Zoeller Bickett It is a hot, late summer, Saturday morning. Mother is sitting at the kitchen table overlooking the back yard. She is wrapped in her pink satin robe as if a chill had enveloped her in winter. She is having her morning coffee. The morning will soon […]
The Archive Louis Zoellar Bickett LEXINGTON CEMETARY, LEXINGTON, KY, MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 27, 2013 TOMMY ED CRAWFORD R.I.P., ROADSIDE MEMORIAL, NEWTOWN PIKE, LEXINGTON, KY, JUNE 18, 2013 KYLE GAFFNEY IN THE ARCHIVE BACKTARD, JULY 31, 2011
AMERICA: WITNESSED BY RAYMOND ADAMS IS A NATIONAL TREASURE a book review by Louis Zoellar Bickett NYC based photographer Raymond Adams’ new (and first book) AMERICA: WITNESSED is a bibliophiles’ dream—a perfectly designed book. Adams’ photographs are lyrical and narrative in nature, all shot in his home base of NYC and vicinity and on a […]
Visually Sound at LOT Louisville Is Virtually Flawless by Louis Zoellar Bickett, Lexington, KY Visually Sound—the group show at LOT Louisville is curated by the artist and independent curator Aaron Michael Skolnick. For his show he chose five artists from the roster of the renowned RARE Gallery, NYC. Skolnick has stated “I wanted a variety […]
Photos: The Archive Louis Zoellar Bickett, Lexington, KY Gratz Park Spring, Thursday Morning, April 18, 2013 Old Georgetown Street House, Lexington, KY Northend Wal-Mart Shopping Center, Lexington, KY, March 28, 2013
THE PAINTINGS OF RICK BENNETT AT EYE ON ART GALLERY: WHEN THE WATER IS JUST WET ENOUGH By Louis Zoellar Bickett The much exhibited and awarded artist Rick Bennett, in his Artist Statement, reveals, “Ultimately my paintings are not complicated.” What Bennett accomplishes with his landscape work is this incredible feeling of light and space, […]
LEXINGTON CEMETERY, April 10, 2013, The Archive Louis Zoellar Bickett Photo essay By Louis Zoellar Bickett
Restaurant Cell-Phone Photography by Louis Zoellar Bickett Restaurant cell-phone photography is so ubiquitous that the act of documenting public dining has become de rigueur. Photography in our lives and public places is everywhere and everyone is a photographer—and seemingly the quality of the photograph is becoming more and more insignificant with the production of […]
A Guest of YADDO a memory by Louis Zoellar Bickett When I arrived by car at YADDO, the artist/writer’s retreat in Saratoga Springs, NY, the 400-acre estate that borders the picturesque and famous Saratoga Racetrack, over a foot of snow had fallen. The estate, which makes up the famed colony, had a quiet that would occasionally […]
My Conceptual Photographic Work by Louis Zoellar Bickett Though I have photographed since 1970, by way of a serious approach, I do not consider myself to be a photographer. I do not have an identity as a photographer, rather, as a conceptual artist, I use photography as a tool to achieve the original idea for […]
