Homage to Vivian Maier

If you've been to my journal before, you probably know that I am in love with Vivian Maier, a woman who died desperately poor without ever having published a photograph in her lifetime. She's now a worldwide sensation, thanks to John Maloof and Jeff Goldstein, who are both making fortunes selling her work after she's dead. Without them, we wouldn't know about her work, and I don't guess she would have cared about the adulation, but we don't know that for sure. I think she would have appreciated the money. She'd have developed and printed her own pictures and made her own choices about which pieces to share; and she'd have travelled till she dropped. She loved what the light does, dancing on human flesh.

We have glorious weather in Portland today: bright sun, 70 F/ 21 C. I went out in search of a 500th Blip, thinking I might be able to find an unhoused person on my one street with someone in the background in phoneworld. I got a few possibilities, but on the way home, just as a fluke, I shot a self-portrait in a dirty window, thinking of Vivian and wondering if she continued making self-portraits when she was my age. By then she no longer had enough money to develop her rolls of film, but those rolls are in the possession of those two men, who may eventually develop and publish them. Maybe in time we will get to see an older Vivian. For now, we have to be content with the young Vivian, as in this example, when she was not quite half the age I am now.

Here I am, in gratitude for the gorgeous weather, gratitude for Vivian, gratitude for the several people who asked me to do an SP for my 500th. Here it is, on my One Street, along with my deep thanks for your comments past, present, and future; for your good hearts and your Blip-hearts, for your wonderful photographs and beautiful texts, and for the love and the kindness. Thank you all.