Still life of normal

When I was 14, I got my first job collecting carts in the parking lot of our local grocery store, by the end of the summer I was bagging groceries. I would continue to work on weekends and after school when I could for the next few years. The money helped out my Mother, a single parent and I enjoyed having this purpose. After almost a year of being a cashier, I was promoted to stock an aisle. An entire aisle was my responsibly, I loved making sure everything in the aisle was perfect and would get frustrated with customers who would move things around to take an item from the back, thinking it was fresher. To this day, I find myself straightening items on the shelf at the grocery store, almost at times with out even thinking.
My last shoot was Wednesday March 11th. On the Thursday, I went to Target and Whole foods and bought as many things as I felt could sustain us for a while. On the Friday, March 13th at around 11am, already numb from the news I went to our daughters schools' and signed them out, I wasn't waiting for the state to act.
10 years ago, I shattered my right leg and was on crutches for several months. The thing I missed most was grocery shopping, its a thing, hard to explain, I used to go everyday. It was an adventure, no list just shopping for what felt right. When I was cleared to drive, the first thing I did was head straight to the grocery store, it was liberating for me.
These past five weeks grocery shopping has felt more like being at a wake with an open casket, that's the best way I can describe it. It's been completely emotionless until a few weeks ago, when the grocery store had these most beautiful parrot tulips. I may have even smiled when I saw them and picked them up with my gloved hand, I might have even motioned to smell them through my masked face but that would have been fruitless.
After the postmortem exercise of disinfecting everything, I was now ready to allow myself the idea of being creative again. I was full of self doubt, what could I possibly do with these tulips that would have any real meaning, how could I inject my soul into a flower. I decided I would challenge myself to four still lifes using only items I could find around me.

This first one was simple, the books I've been privileged to be a part of, a piece of pottery and this cheap white pitcher, I think I found at target a few years back. This one was more about taking the training wheels off more than anything else. Is it really true that one can never forget how to ride a bike? It felt good, I started to remember what I could see, I started to see again the way that I do, like a camera, its this gift I've always had, the ability to only see what the camera sees, no noise, no peripheral vision. First one done, three more to go, it was 9pm, I poured another glass of wine and stripped myself of all negativity and doubt and took a deep breath. 

The red box was a gift from Serena who I worked with at R. FitzGerald and Company. The skull a gift from Lisa Buyuk, a Designer who knows my affection for skulls and the petrified branch, part of a bar cart I bid on and won at Heading Home to Dinner, I paused. Will that incredible event even happen this year? I poured another glass of wine. Next up, was I just throwing shit at this to see what would stick, I would make the next one simple. Still with the weight of whether or not meaningful charity events would ever happen again, I used this gold vessel, also a part of the bar cart I won that year. There I did it, I could do it. Back to throwing shit at the wall.

It was very late when I created this one, running out of vessels for the flowers, I found this Ketel One nip and said what the fuck. I have always been fascinated by Fornasetti, how he wrapped a bike, a chest, a screen and the faces he created. He truly was a Designer of Dreams, what would I dream about that night...

Next up, cutting some branches from the forsythia hedge I stare at every morning over coffee, simple composition using my late Mother in Law's Depression glass, the news hasn't stopped talking about the great depression, is that really the fate of 2020? I remember everyone posting about the roaring 20's at the begging of the year...

Another week had gone by and it was time to return to the funeral home for another open casket wake of groceries, and a simple bunch of Tulips. This time I forced myself to experiment more with the light, to not think so much about it, but to just let it happen, stop the voices.

These next two started as conversations with the objects of my very ordinary life. How could I bring them together in an almost celebratory way, would that even be acceptable, to dare. Can I even say the word, C E L E B R A T E.

The gold watch was my late Uncles'. He passed away exactly one month before my older daughter was born. I always fancied his watch. It's set at the time he passed away, as my Aunt, my Mother and I sat in the hospital next to his bed. How many people have lost loved ones, alone, unable to be there for those last breaths. It was late, I was drinking, I got out this photo I took of a statued man in Paris, its only a print (I keep telling myself someday I'll frame all of these), I used tape to hang it on the back drop, his expression, his hand over his face in utter disbelief. The pistachios placed just so, after all if I don't laugh I'm just going to fucking cry. 

I had to be reminded that this was school vacation week, I smirked as I thought about how funny that is. School vacation week, I'm laughing right now as I type that. I've been re-reading my favorite author, Edgar Allen Poe. The beauty and the fear that drip from his words haunt me. I'd driven by this beautiful flowering tree several times in the last month. I would go in the dark, I would be silent, I wouldn't take more than I needed. As the sound of the steel blade of my clippers cut through the firm full of life branch, I paused. I looked around to see if anyone could see me in the dark, I stared at the clippers, I would need more branches...

It started with the bottle of bleach. I wanted something that KILLS in the photo, I wanted to inject a macabre humor that only Edgar would appreciate. I then took all of my favorite books from some of my favorite authors'; Charles Baudelaire, Atticus, and Leonard Cohen would suffice. The apron I had found in this most beautiful gift shop in Montreal, two summers ago. I've never worn it, I don't want to get it dirty, I love the leather pockets and brass snaps. It just hangs in the kitchen, it reminds me of the late Anthony Bourdain. Oh could I use a bit of his wisdom during this time of numbness. 

Peace

Michael J. Lee