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07/22/2022͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Hello Sweet Reader,
Summer is BLAZING by. I thought I might check in at the top of this download and let you know some juicy details about me, for fun.
Yesterday I had a great conversation with Brian Kaiser for my podcast, "The Culdesac". My podcasting practice is in the "rambling conversation category"; my favorite type. I record conversations with artists I admire and then make an ambient score and a drawing. It has been a long time since I made a new one, I plan to regularly release them once again.
Brian is one of my favorite photographers working in the Midwest. We had a really great conversation about his work documenting Juggalos, Motorcycle Riders, and Muscle Men. All the things that make the Midwest shine!
Brian was also super honest about his trajectory as a photographer, he worked a day job working on clean energy initiatives, got burnt out, and plunged into photography. He reminded me how important it is for us artists, who often share only the highlights of our "vast bodies" of work, to occasionally speak about how they put together their lives.
For me, I work during the day as a Multimedia Designer at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Obviously I would rather be photographing all day, but I have great co-workers, a kick-ass-boss, a lot of support and I don't have to worry about paying rent. Thanks Team!
Over the summer I had also been working nights serving at a restaurant, but I quit yesterday. I didn't really make any money, but got some great character studies out of it. For example, the owner is a petite Turkish lady who seems to have developed a dialect of english that entirely includes cutting put-downs and the kind of questions that insinuate you are a smooth brained ape. Bless her and good-bye.
My life is a real gray area right now. A lot of change is occurring, I am going through a some difficult times but with a lot of optimism. My friends, my compulsion to photograph, meditation, praying out loud and occasionally mushrooms are getting me through it. You know I love you!
A grey/gray area... I guess that is my way of transitioning to the main event of this download…GREY WAVE
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A few weeks ago I was on assignment for U-M making images of participants and social workers at Huron Valley PACE (Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) in Ypsilanti, Michigan. PACE is essentially a day time care facility for elderly folks, filling their days with activities, socializing, helping them get to doctors appointments, making meal plans; they provide all sorts of support.
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After that work, they asked if I would come back as a volunteer to make portraits of the participants. I said yes (which is my favorite word) and showed up one evening to hang out with some cool people.
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We were in a time crunch, these people are busy! So I did not get to chat a whole lot. Afterwards the experience made me think about aging in the USA.
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The U.S. Census Bureau projects that older adults will edge out children by 2035 in population size, for the first time in American History. This phenomenon has been dubbed "The Graying of America" or my favorite, "The Grey Wave" or “Silver Tsunami”.
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By 2060 if US population growth stays at its current levels, driven by a variety of factors ranging from rising infertility rates in males to people simply choosing to not have children, 1 in 4 Americans will be older than 65.
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Major questions loom as to who will take care of our aging population. Care workers are routinely understaffed and underpaid. The average salary in Michigan is $39,548.
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I was surprised to learn that being a care worker is also one of the most dangerous jobs one can take, with a higher rate of workplace injuries than coal miners or truck drivers.
Injuries are mostly sustained lifting and moving patients, but shockingly also high rates of violence.
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Seniors depend on the help they receive to live and finish out their days with dignity. Care workers make that possible, we need more of them and they need to be paid a living wage and have predictable schedules. Higher pay for workers, universal healthcare and access to affordable education would go a long way to solve these issues.
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Our world is completely dystopian, and they are the ones currently in charge. Their time is running out. Despite how they conducted themselves, my generation (currently staring down the second recession in our working lives) will need to step up to take care of them.
We collectively need to heal.
We need to restore dignity to American life.
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The best way, in my mind, to do so, is so simple it sounds naive: We just need to stop extracting from each other and begin radically caring for one another.
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I believe that in-fact, we each are each-other, we will each live out every existence that is possible in this infinite universe.
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Reminding myself of that helps me to love unconditionally. That sounds simple enough, but we are still in our animal phase of our evolution of consciousness, so alas it is complicated and primal…
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It is gray.
With love,
-niki
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