Scan(t) Memories

I have been spending a lot of time scanning old negatives lately for archival purposes. A LOT of time. I'm not totally sure if ultimately it will be worth it to anyone, but if nothing else, it's a mostly nice walk down memory lane. I say mostly because there are quite a few photographs of the woman to whom I was once married, Penny, so it's inevitable that my mind goes back to those days when I thought the relationship was good; that it would last. What tends to hurt most about the fact that it didn't last is recalling—knowing—how completely in love I was with her. The problem, though, was that I did a shit job of showing it. I was pretty good at falling in love, I guess, but knew nada-zip-zilch about what to do after that. Which is not to say that I was entirely responsible for the breakdown of the marriage. Our inability to earnestly communicate with one another on a level that wasn't either scoldlike or defensive was probably the biggest factor, at least as I see it. Penny could no doubt lay out loads of reasons I screwed things up, and I wouldn't dare suggest she'd be wrong, but the real answers lie in the twisted and tangled nuance.

Elk Grove Village, Illinois, 1980 — ©2025 Patrick T. Power

That I have had a relatively satisfying life post-marriage hasn't kept me from constantly analyzing those years or my behaviour (and Penny's) over the course of our fifteen-plus year relationship. We'd met on 22 June 1980, married 7 August 1982, and the divorce was final on 29 November 1995, two days before I turned 40. Specific moments—good and bad—replay in my head almost on a daily basis, without need of prompts from old photographs.

Illinois, 1984

Regardless that I long ago resigned myself to the fact that the marriage was over and done and gone and never to be reconciled, I've pretty regularly thought about what might have saved it. I wonder what might have happened had Penny confronted me head on about my shortcomings; or that I had expressed myself about my own concerns much earlier than I did. I don't know, of course, if my concerns would have been heard and discussed in earnest or dismissed as they were later on, once the split occurred... who's to say?

Summer, 1986

As I've mentioned before, I believe that a lot of my issues were work-related. It was only my second job out of university, and it was supervisory—my first job in that kind of position. I really had no clue about what lay ahead of me when I took the job, with a staff not much younger than I and a boss from whom I would learn the wrong way to supervise. My previous experience within the photographic industry was one of cooperation and dedication to a shared task, so I had a bit of a pie-in-the-sky attitude that my employees shared the same work ethic. I guess I hoped they would catch on. For the better part of my time in the job, I had employees—a few, not all—who seemed to take no pride in getting work done properly or on time. My problem was not being able to hold them accountable.

Red Penny, 1988

Feeling that it ultimately was my responsibility that the work got out on time or done correctly, I worked long hours to cover for others or to pick up the slack, whether by going in early or staying late; often, too, by going in after hours. While this never led to arguments that I can recall, it most certainly ate at whatever affection Penny had for me. I didn't communicate the pressure I felt to Penny until—I'm quite certain—long after she'd decided she was going to move on. I was so paralyzed by my fear of failure that I couldn't even talk to her about it when I did get around to bringing it up. I wrote what I was feeling in my notebook and shared that with her four years before the divorce.

Helpless, 1991

Her response was decidedly and rather shockingly dispassionate. Nothing was likely to change her path, I guess. But weirdly, the topic of divorce never came up, nor do I recall that she complained to me about the depth of her unhappiness. Check that... divorce did come up one time, before we decided to buy a house a couple of streets up from the rental we'd lived in for a few years. With my ongoing stress over work, I wasn't feeling compelled to commit myself to the kind of debt a house would force upon us—me, really, since my income made up the overwhelming share of our income. Discussing it one night, she said that the house was one she felt she could afford in the event we got divorced. I guess an alarm should have gone off at the mention of it but it didn't. I guess, too, that I hadn't considered divorce even a remote possibility. I often think that Penny had been considering divorce not long after our son Zachary had been born in February of 1985—maybe even before that—but had decided to soldier on. What wasn't spoken, though, showed up in her lack of affection. Of course, I was too foolish to realize that her coldness had anything to do with me. It didn't occur to me to ask what was wrong.

In August of 1994, A couple of years after we did buy the house, and about a week after our twelfth anniversary no less, the work situation came to a head, and without getting too deeply into the details of that, it was my inability to hold an employee accountable that put me in a situation in which I felt compelled to resign. Penny was with the kids visiting a friend in northern Michigan at the time. I don't recall much about the phone call now other than that she was furious. Weirdly, she didn't ask what had happened. Not then, not when she got home. Not since. The following February, just a few days before Zachary's tenth birthday, she informed me of her desire to split up.

March 1995

And now, as I think about and process everything for the umpteenth time, I also recall what Penny had told the minister who married us, John Carson, when we met with him about the marriage ceremony. I guess that at the time, I took it as sort of a joke and maybe it was, but 20/20 hindsight makes me wonder. She said, "None of that 'til death do us part stuff."

Occasionally, I'm asked if I would get back with Penny if I had the chance, and while years ago my answer would have been an emphatic "NO!," my heart these days is a bit softer. My head, on the other hand (hmmm... there's a phrase for you!), tells me, "You had your chance, dude." Of course, the urge is to want to make things right, to fix what I messed up the first time around, but the reality is that I'm only half of the equation... I can't imagine a scenario in which Penny would even consider such a thing.

I've long said that I miss the best parts of our time together. I suppose that to a degree, the photographs allow me to hang on to them.

I guess I never knew
What she was living without
People speak of love don't know what they're thinking of
Wait around for the one who fits just like a glove
Speak in terms of a life and the living
Try to find the word for forgiving
—Jackson Browne, "In The Shape Of A Heart"

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Cat and Her Early Morning Surprise

Cat in the Window — ©2025 Patrick T. Power.

When my former wife, Penny, and I were still rather early in our relationship—I'm guessing sometime in 1980—we went out to her mother's adoptive parents' home on Woodbury Road in Laingsburg, Michigan to get a cat. Actually, I don't recall now if we went out there specifically to get a cat, but while we were there, we made the decision to bring one home to her place. The cat that lived on the Criders' farm had recently given birth to six or seven kittens, and with little deliberation, we brought home the runt of the litter. We had a tough time deciding upon a name, though. I recall that I thought Tuck was worthy of consideration. Ultimately, we settled on Cat, a name that later morphed into Big Fat Cat or BFC.

Like a lot of cats, Cat wasn't much into being held. She would lie on our laps if we had an afghan draped over us, but didn't generally care to show much affection for us. When she was hungry, especially in the wee hours of the morning, she would chew on whatever she knew would wake us up, whether books or record album covers. Somehow, she knew it was annoying to the point to get action. And it was more than just the sound of paper tearing, it was clack-clack sound of her gums (or whatever) coming together and then separating time after time after time.

Cat's handywork (mouthy-work?)

One very early morning years later, after we'd married and moved to Lansing from Toledo, where we'd lived for about two years (and where Cat's decision to pee on a carpet cost us a rental deposit), the sound of Cat gnawing on something woke us. The sound was coming from beneath and behind Penny's drawing table which was on the opposite side of the room from the bed. We discussed what it was she was chewing at when all of a sudden, she let out a "yaoow" amongst a flurry of paper, work that Penny had tucked between the table and the wall.

We quickly surmised that she'd chewed through the electrical wire leading from the wall to the desk lamp and got shocked. After a few seconds of silence, and breaking the tension of the moment, Penny asked, "Do you think she's dead?" At which I think we both burst out laughing.

I got out of bed and went into the living room to check on her. Cat was panting heavily but she otherwise seemed fine.

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The Artist Project

Carol Wansley (outtake, crop) ©2025 Patrick T. Power

I've been on a negative scanning jag of late, gearing up to complete a project that I should have taken care of years ago, so I thought I'd write about this little project of mine back in the mid-1990s.

In late 1994, after I'd left my job at Michigan State University, I tried to make a go of freelancing as a photographer. I got hired by the Lansing Art Gallery to photograph an exhibition by Brian Whitfield in November of that year, and again to photograph items in the gallery for their upcoming Holiday Art Market. I had a conversation with the gallery director at the time, Karen Stock, and I asked about the possibility of having a show of portraits at the gallery sometime, which, as I think back on it now, I had no business suggesting such a thing as my portrait experience up until that time had been fairly limited to whatever I would have done while at MSU, along with an internship I'd done for school in the summer of 1980. But I had an idea. I don't recall now when the specifics of the idea had hatched in my mind but the plan was to photograph a number of Lansing-area visual artists in a studio setting. I had purchased a used Mamiya RB67 a few years earlier, along with a lighting kit, a softbox, and background gear, and I was champing at the bit to use it for purposes other than taking pictures of the kids and the occasional group photograph for hire.

Because my then-wife Penny was an artist, I'd become acquainted with quite a few other artists through her, so after getting the go-ahead from Karen, I made up a wish list and began making phone calls and scheduling people. At the same time, I managed to procure in-kind support from Kodak (film), John Manning at Photo Connexion (photographic paper), and Larry Carr at Photo Mart (darkroom facilities). Since I didn't have a studio per se, I had to wrangle up space somewhere. Penny had graciously (I think) agreed to let me use her ArtSpace studio/classroom when it was free of activity, but with as many classes as she was conducting, I had to work around her schedule. I also had to find an alternative for when it wasn't free.

I had volunteered a bit around that time for the Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse, a local folk music and dance organization, mostly helping to set up and tear down sound equipment or re-arrange seats for their concerts, but also on several occasions to photograph the Residents Night performers. Residents Night was a concert made up of local musicians donating their time to raise funds for the organization. (For a spell, I also served as Residents Night Co-ordinator.)

Residents Night, 20 October 1993 ©2025 Patrick T. Power

Most of the Fiddle's concerts were held at the Unitarian Universalist Church in East Lansing for a more-than-reasonable fee of one dollar, if memory serves, so I checked with the church's caretaker, Regina Fry, to see if I might also be able to rent the room off the main room of the church. I got the OK, so my first bunch of photo sessions were set up, with the first one to be held at ArtSpace on 19 December 1994. Barb Morris, owner of Otherwise Gallery, which was right next door to ArtSpace on Turner Street in Lansing's Old Town area, was the first; Jill Lareaux was the second. For Barb, I had an idea of what I wanted to do and had sketched it out on paper, but with Jill, I just winged it. She appeared in a beautiful white blouse that I felt had be photographed against a dark backdrop as it seemed to shimmer.

 

The next twelve would be done at the church on three separate days:

20 December 1994 — Dennis Preston and Brian Whitfield

 

26 January 1995 — James W. McKenzie, Jane Rosemont, Carol Wansley, Paul Thornton, and Regina Fry

 

 

1 February 1995 — James Adley, Kate Darnell, Clif and Jane McChesney, Liz Wylegala, and Bruce Thayer

 

 

I did the the next five at ArtSpace on the 9th of February:

Robert Busby, Mark Beard, Jean Rooney, Mark Mahaffey, and Kelly Boyle

 

 

Larry Carr at Photo Mart provided a darkroom for me to print the 11-inch by 14-inch prints, and I pumped out two of each portrait—one for the show and one to give to each artist. I was certain that I'd properly exposed the film for everything so I decided to not use polycontrast paper (I think I used Ilford paper) for the prints. Without bogging you down with technical details, I'll just say that while that choice worked out for me for the most part, there was one portrait, Jane Rosemont's, for which I wish I'd had just a little bit more control over the final print's contrast.

Then came the second week of February, and Penny informed me she wanted out of our marriage.

I don't recall now how it came about, but in early March, I took some time off from everything and took a train to Washington, D.C., where I stayed with a friend I'd met at a biomedical photo conference in Rochester, New York about ten years earlier. So much about that trip is a blur to me now. I don't know why I chose D.C.

Distance, I guess. And time.

Upon my return, and with less than a month to take the remaining portraits, print them, and get them framed, I dove back in, scheduling the remaining nine artists, including Penny, all of which took place at ArtSpace:

18 March 1995 — Teresa Petersen and Regina Fry (re-takes)

 

19 March 1995 — Margaret Meade-Turnbull and Barbara Hodge Borbas

 

25 March 1995 — Penny Krebiehl-Power

31 March 1995 — Mark Mahaffey (re-takes)

As for the two retakes, I'd made the mistake of showing Regina Fry the proofs from her session, something I hadn't done with anyone else. She didn't like them. My feeling was (and still is) that it was my project—I wasn't Olan Mills—and therefore had the right to choose the content of my show. She would refuse to participate in the project if I used them. I didn't want to be a dick about it so I relented and did a second session. Ultimately, I'm glad I did, as I do like my final choice, but I was perfectly happy with the first set. I was not at all happy with Mark Mahaffey's, however, so I sheepishly asked him to come back for another session.

I can't recall why, but I had to find another place to print my enlargements once all the portraits had been taken. Enter Bill Harrison at Custom Photographic. Unlike Photo Mart, where I hand processed the prints in trays, I ran them through a machine at Custom, which turned out to be a blessing as it cut down considerably on the time needed to get everything printed. My preference was hand-developing as I believed it to be a more archival process, but time was of the essence. With the printing finished, it was off to see Bill Hankins at Prints, Ancient & Modern to have everything framed for the show, which had to be hung on Monday the 3rd of April. The show would open the next day, and there would be an opening reception on the Sunday the 9th, coinciding with the 14th annual Botanical Images Competition. I'd informed Bill in advance as to the number of frames and their size (they were all something like 16-inch by 20-inch) so that once all the prints were done, his team could go at it.

During one of my trips to Prints, Ancient & Modern, Judith Taran, East Lansing's communications director, and wife of Irv Taran, a professor of art at Michigan State University, informed me that my portraits should have been taken in the artists' studios or in some way with their work. I stood there rather aghast that the wife of an artist would question another artist's choices. I can't recall how I responded, but I wondered if she similarly told her husband how to paint.

Everything went off as planned. There was a pretty good turnout of friends and family (my mom and sister-in-law even made it up from Toledo), along with a number of the artists and their friends. Nothing sold, although I didn't really expect any would. It wasn't intended a money-making venture.

An interesting thing happened once the show came down. My interest in photography took a nose dive. For a good five years leading up to the show, I had immersed myself in photography books and magazines. I'd spent a lot of time working on lighting techniques at work and at home. I had the kids pose for me, and occasionally got Penny to. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the artists and getting to know them a little bit as I completed this project, but all of a sudden, my interest fell flat, thanks mostly to what was going on at home. It wouldn't rekindle for almost ten years when I discovered Flickr.

As I look back on the experience, and as I look again at the contact proofs from all the portraits, I've come to have second and third thoughts about some of the choices I made for the show. I know that at least one other person other than Regina—Liz Wyegala—wasn't pleased with my selection, but in my defense, to know Liz is to know she's an emphatic way of speaking and often uses her hands when she does. I really felt it was representative. As is clear with many of the portraits, looking at the camera wasn't a requirement.

Also in retrospect, I was a fish out of water, so to speak. I didn't know the first thing about the etiquette of art exhibitions, and I know I didn't thank Karen Stock enough, or, I suspect, in a more appropriate fashion. As I alluded to above, I did give the participating artists who attended the show a copy of their portrait. Not all attended so I still have a handful stashed in a box with the negatives. As I was preparing to move to San Francisco in January of 2010, I contacted as many of the artists as I could and gave them the framed versions of their portraits. A few went unclaimed.

And sadly, in the thirty years since I undertook this project, eight of the artists have died: James Adley, Mark Beard, Robert Busby, Barb Morris, Clif and Jane McChesney, James W. McKenzie, and Paul Thornton. As have in-kind contributors John Manning and Larry Carr, and Bill Hankins. Mark Beard and Robert Busby were the biggest shocks as Mark died because he'd accidentally been given the wrong medication while in the hospital for a minor issue; Robert was murdered by someone to whom he had been giving assistance in the form of work and housing.

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