the niki download

4/30/2021

Hey,

Welcome back! Last week’s email proved to me that every American grandfather born before 1950 worked in the auto industry. Thanks to all who responded, you are making this project fun.

I get obsessed with different processes and practices. Every couple of years I unconsciously shift my focus into a new practice that gives my day-to-day life a rhythm. Without this rhythm, I would surely die… HA!

Eventually this unconscious decision to focus on a specific practice condenses into a conscious decision. When this happens, usually the “magic,” “the muse,” that ineffable feeling which I can only describe as bliss, starts to dissipate and I know I am on the road to something else, project goals be damned.

Right now, I am really into portraits.

This is the last portrait I have made, Eric Hardin, owner of TODAY Clothing, in Ann Arbor. We just recorded Culdesac #25: Retelling Retail. It is good, Eric recounts his early work experience at a skateshop in Frankenmuth, MI that also rented tanning beds. He was 13ish, need I say more?

Photographing people was my first art practice, like Eric, my entry into “life processes” was through skateboarding. Photography and I took a break, it became “work” and I got pissed off.

Though, I did find a way to “make it work” with one of these…

A polaroid camera.

The perfect camera for creating a warm luscious feeling of nostalgia.

I mean, look at this image, the patina, the feeling…

Obviously I did not take that, I did not own a polaroid camera or know Cecilia at the time.

I have only ever owned two polaroid cameras. Both happened to have been given to me by people I fell in love with.

Love is one feeling that I can think of comparable to the ineffable bliss that a good art practice brings me. I deeply believe that love will save humanity, if we are brave enough to truly know it.

Unfortunately, most of us (myself included) are often motivated by fear, oversized ego, and wanting to explain everything. Love is accepting the mystery of life, being grateful and being humble.

Anything more can become overly possessive.

The irony of being against “feeling possessive,” as a man in a heretofore monogamous marriage is not lost on me. The truth is, love takes a lot of work. I have many obsessions and a finite lifespan and feel I can only truly give my all to one person.

Lucky for me I found someone.

Above is a picture from when Cecilia and I eloped in Toledo, OH. Funny story about that. We had planned to get hitched in front of our friends and family, in the usual way. However as fate would have it, we had moved in to her father’s house in Woodbridge, Detroit, to save money (not my brightest idea), and he told us we could not share a bed since we were not married… We fixed that the next day, my mom was pissed (sorry mom!).

Since Cecilia and I have known each-other we have been shooting polaroids.

We keep them all in this box.

If the house ever burns down, that box is the one thing I am grabbing.

Ok. I know I said we are monogamous,
but I have to admit, there is someone else...

But don’t worry, Ceci sees her too.

Luckily our family accepts our arrangement.

Would not want them to freak out…

The main thing Cecilia and I use the polaroid camera for is to make us look hot.

For Cecilia it is effortless. I try my best.

We like to joke that we are “Michigan Tens.”

She always is. Usually I look like this.

Because I am an over sharer, at least for now, I have scanned and uploaded all the polaroids we have taken together and put them here.

See you next week.

-niki

niki’s radar

Things that keep me up at night.

Scientists created early embryos that are part human part monkey, in an effort to create “chimeras” from which to grow organs for transplant to humans. This seems to be taking place with little ethical consideration for their creations or what might come of them.

Another possible chimera you may be familiar with is COVID-19.

I highly doubt this will be the last global pandemic that will occur in our lifetime, the deck is stacked against us considering our blood lust for animal agriculture. It is deeply disturbing to me that many of us are standing by and defending the inherent greed of capitalism as wealthy countries hoard vaccine and patents to manufacture vaccine.

With dropping fertility rates caused by plastics in our bodies, coming major shifts in weather patterns threatening penguin killing monsoons in Antartica, and the fact that locust eggs are drought resistant things do not bode well for our future generations.

We know the solutions to many of these problems, in-fact all the knowledge we need is tried and true and here already. The only question that remains is are we brave enough, on the individual level, to change this death cult of a society we call contemporary life?

“BURN” Music Video with DECLINER

During lunch today, 12:00 PM ET go to Playground Detroit
to see the premier of the music video I made for Burn with my friends Decliner.