“We don’t believe you, ‘cause we’re the people …”
Skin
On Broadway Street, the heart of old Los Angeles. We recognized each other, and Ivy was pleased to find that I remembered the rabbit she kept tucked in her shirt when we had crossed paths back in March. Her speech today was not quite as impaired by substance as it had been that day, and she related that Raymond Yellowhawk had died, and pointed out that in fact, his prosthetic leg was now on display on a shelf in the store across the street, the very store where they had been sitting on the sidewalk that day in March. There was a little more conversation about sleeping conditions, prison tattoos, and we waved goodbye…


“What I’m trying to describe is that it’s impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else’s…. That somebody else’s tragedy is not the same as your own.”
― Diane Arbus

Relating these encounters anecdotally risks contextualizing the lives of Ivy and others as just “stories” leaving one with the sinking feeling that they carry semiotic and emotive pinpricks to the conscience not unlike those in fairy tales, anthropology and possibly religion (sure to be a debatable point, that last one).

There are enough pictures already, enough tales of suffering and despair, so that long ago if they were to be effective enough to make a bigger difference, society would have had to have been thoroughly shamed into whatever means necessary. But no, so more photographs are on the way regardless; even while I struggle with my own concerns about exploiting the drama of their circumstances, I hope the public sees it not as decorative art or entertainment.
#OneOfUs
#OneOfUs
