Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership. Good morning, you'll find me
out with Pete and Poe.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Old I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the poet gold And
we're on the.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This morning with Dan Goldman, who has a show. It's
Conveyor Gallery and Poughkeepsie, and the name of that show
is this Land Ain't Your Land. But before we go
talking about the artwork of Dan Goldman, we're going to
go right to the poetry of poet Gold. So gold
please let the weekly poem prayer incantation.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Roll well to celebrate Poetry Month. I'm reading from a
book Quote Mightier Poets for Social Justice, which was edited
by me for CAPS Publishing, And there's a poem in here,
quote normalized by a poet, Dana Hunter. There will be found,
a standing ground, a statement made without word, a cry
(00:55):
for ears to hear, its plea, the final balance to
be found. We are not invisible, the forgotten, to be hidden,
obscure names with memories charred. We share one race to
which we all belong. Illness doesn't cancel your membership card.
Our minds and our lives are not cursed. Once we
are mentioned, you dismissed, You disperse. If you can't touch
(01:19):
it or cure it, it's pushed to the side. No longer,
No longer, our voices will rise. The time has come.
You've heard the rest. We are first in line, and
it is you we will test. A final point of
discourse must take place. I am not subhuman. We all
belong to the same race.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
The same race. That's that's the theme here in Finding
Out and Dan give us a sense of what your
show with the very alarming title this Land that you
will Lands? What's that about? In the Conveyor Galleries at
nine Main Street, and Soprina is the owner, owner and
(02:07):
curator of the gallery. She's been on the show. Everyone
likes Soprina.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, she's really gone out on the limb, you know,
at a time when Natural Endowment of the Arts is
cutting back payments and everything and Poughkeepsie, she's a shining
light giving artists like myself and others a chance to
make statements about the political atmosphere that we're living in
right now.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And so for you, it has a political dimension to it.
It does, yes, give us a sense of how that works. Well.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I mean, I've been a photographer in my whole life,
so that is kind of what I bring to the
world photography, And how can anyone these days not want
to make a statement about what's going on. Social injustice
is something that I've been around my whole life. My
parents were sort of activists, so I've heard a lot,
(03:04):
seen a lot. And i have two children, two daughters,
and you know, there's something in Native American culture called
the seventh generation where decision where you know, decisions are
made for the tribe with consideration for how it's going
to affect the seventh generation. It's not about now the
instant payback, And I just feel I have a responsibility
(03:31):
to do something for the future. I have children, I'll
have grandchildren someday. It's my way of making a statement
and feeling like I'm trying to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Has your work always spoke to the social injustices of
the time. Is this where you started with your work
or was it a natural inclination or did you start
taking pictures of flowers?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I mean, right now, that's a great question. I was
a commercial photographer in New York doing advertising those still
life and then I got married, and then I had children,
and the birth of my daughters really changed things for me.
It made me see the world in a different way,
you know, because before that it's really all about you know,
you and your wife, right, and then kids. You know,
(04:17):
you really have to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And when did you hook onto that notion of the
seventh generation?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Well, well about twenty, well twenty five years ago. Twenty
years ago, I was asked to work on a documentary
called If the Silence Could Be Broken, directed by Guy Morgan,
and we went out to Hoping and Navajo land and
we're photographing, we're filming the issues that the grandmothers were
(04:46):
dealing with. And these are things like uranium mining and
strip coal mining, water rights issues, plus internal conflict between
Navajo and Hope set up by Fall tribal governments. I mean,
there was a lot going on out there, and the
people that we were filming really really took us in
(05:10):
and shared their lives with us. And I learned a
lot about how to live while I was there.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yes, the Indigenous people teach you that, yes.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
You know, great wisdom, There really things that we need
to pay attention to today. Maybe one of the only
things that could save us if we could just back
up for a minute and evaluate what we're doing with
an open heart.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Or do do sort of practice what your children, uh
helped you evolve into, you know, Gandhi it' said, be
the change you wish to see in the world. Yes,
And I think children can spark that in people, you know,
(05:58):
particularly your own children, you know, because like you said,
you have to. I would hope that you're thinking ahead
even beyond them. You know, what do you want for
their grandchildren?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
What type of world would you?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I always have a tendency to say, you know, what
is what's going to be your legacy, what's going to
be your footprint in this world? Is not just what
says you said happening now, but generations from now exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, And first nations people picked on picked that up
rather quickly. And there is a seventh generation, like I
sy there.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's completely new to me, damn. And it's not howly
new to me intellectually my whole sensibility, maybe as an
American or maybe just as a sort of a defunct individual.
Seventh generations from now, I haven't thought of those people.
Yet I wish them wells sort of in a airy way.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
But I think it's more of American I think, I
think when you when when you said, I think it's
more of a Americans. We're present, we're present oriented as
a as a culture. That's what you're that's what you're
taught from that survival base. You know, just now, just now,
just now. But ironically enough, if if Americans, you know,
even you know, I have a Scottish back heritage as well,
(07:18):
you know my family and every every group has their
stories in which that was part of your culture. You know,
no matter what group it was, it was part of
your culture because it was you told the stories about
your your past in order to pave the path for
the future. And the telling those stories you said, it's
(07:41):
important to hold on to those stories.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yes, that's a version of it. I think. You know,
this is not a show. It's just another perspective. I
don't talk about the past, uh in my uh my
kids running there, I don't talk about it unless something
funny happened. But I mean the notion of dragging up
my working list Irish roots in New York, they're not
(08:05):
so glorious you know, I mean, I hope the seventh
generation from here is better than the seventh generation backwards.
We were not that cool.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Because that's the present, Because that's right, because that's that's
what I'm saying. Culturally as Americans, as to your point,
we're present, Yes, we're present. So so we don't practice
what you're talking about, Dan, you know, the the what's
what by bringing up the indigenous stories and then also
paving the way for the future through those stories, right, And.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
If we could do that, we'd be better off.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
But we don't.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We live in a culture that it's all about.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Taking, and that's part of your art work, you.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Know, storing and holding onto. We don't give that much,
not from our hoarding, but not from our hearts or
even from our head. Intellectually, we it's just about accumulating.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
What do you have for me? What do you have
for me?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is a real important part of that has sense? Yeah,
and give me a sense of your primarily a photographer,
but your photographs book to me as if they could
easily be patients.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Right or they've been manipulated. But also let me say
I'm also a teacher. I've got it. I'm working at
an incredible progressive school in Poughkeepsie called the Oakwood Friends School.
And since I've gotten there, every day has been a blessing. Well, yeah,
I can say that honestly. It's it's a beautiful place,
great administration, great teachers. The students have are open minded
(09:44):
and smart, and I'm really pleased that I landed there.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
But back to the photographs, they are they're created. They're
not where I met someone in the street, and it's
not photo joy and I just took a photo. These
photographs were planned out.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And before you give us a whole thing, let me
go to write the gold for her duties.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yes, my duties right if you're just doing it and
you're listening to finding out would beat in the poet
gold and I'm the poet Gold. And we're here with
Dan Goldman speaking about this land Ain't Your Lands? The
show at Conveyor Gallery on Main Street at two ninety
nine Main Street here in Poughkeepsie. So you were talking
about about your photos and you're not a photogeneralist and
(10:34):
we know that.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
More like social documentary. There's a photographer out there back
in the day named Dorothya Lang. I've always admired her
work and her pictures with breathtaking and really captured it
an emotion. And I know Dorothy Alang, but she inspired
me quite a bit. And I don't know what category
you would put the work that I do in now
(10:55):
other than art activism, an artivists artivist, which I'm fond
of that name. I didn't make it up, so I'm stuck.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
With that, right right, right, yeah, artist art, it's an
art activist. It's yes, it's art activism. So you know,
I look at our I said this the other day
on the show with another show I have, and I
was interviewing Marilena wonderful, wonderful artist and curator in the
Hudson Valley and and she's not fond of the name either,
(11:28):
and and so I had said to her, I said,
I look at it more or less as you're activating
the heart through your art. And that is part of
activism because people don't with our previous guests, don't take
to the street unless the heart is moved. You don't.
(11:48):
You're not an activist unless your heart was moved. And
then you strategically and intellectually figure out, okay, now what
are the steps I need to take. But if your
heart is not moved first, there is no movement.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
This is true. And the best work that anyone could
do is when they're working from their heart.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Right, and so that's ergo. The artivism is is that
it's it's an activation of the heart through art.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I never saw it that way. That's that's new and
better than the way I can use it before.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, that's that's how I've always you know, looked at
at artivism. You know, you may not and then you
may decide, Okay, I want to, you know, go out
in March or you know, do whatever it is that
you need to do. I want to, you know, go
into Congress, you know, and still be an activist in
that in that way, but it initially begins with the heart.
And usually art can do that. Art can like your
(12:43):
art your photos.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I love what I do, and of course my heart,
my everything that I do is in the work that
I make.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And when you sell me, you manipulate. The photographs when
manipulated sort of a word maybe none of us really
warm up to, but you could explain that because, like
I said, I thought they were paintings that were designed
to look sort of like photographs.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So photoshop is a very powerful tool for photographers and filmmakers,
but everything that I photograph goes through photoshop. Now, some
of the people that I've done portraits of what one
gentleman is a is a wall builder and another guy,
uh works in a kitchen. So I try to incorporate
(13:36):
the portrait with the wall and make them one. And
you'd have to see it. It's very hard to describe it,
but that's what I do. I try to merge what
they do with who they are and put it out
there while still hiding their identity.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So the wall builder being portrayed by the wall, you're
sort of separating the You're saying the self is bigger
than the body. The self is also related to the
activity of building a wall or doing the kitchen work,
so that a self is a complicated thing.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
You could say that, yeah, yeah, I'm just trying to
incorporate who they are. You know, that's what he is.
And I'm sure he loves it because I have seen
the walls that he's made, and it rivals.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
It is not a pichu.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
There's no scene. It's perfect. And that's what caught my eye.
The work that these people do is outstanding.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Is you a local person.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I don't know where they live, and I didn't ask
for them, even though we met three or four times
before we made the photograph. It's their animinity.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Right of course, was honored.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
And I don't have their name. They knew what I
was doing and they wanted to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
But was it an industrials county that you did the
you took the photograph? I hope. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
They were in the world.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
They were.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't cry, but.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
It's not so important. The important thing is that they
wanted to do an art project with me, and we
met in the middle.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And the part of their faces being covered, which is
an explicit way of saying they're living in a remote
place too.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Sort of. Yeah. Like a year and a half maybe
two years ago, I co curated a show with Onnase
Benjamin called you know him Well and you Know Well,
And the name of the show was behind the Veil,
which was a w B D Boys quote from the
Life of Black Folk, a book that he had written
(16:00):
m HM, and he describes a double consciousness and how
people of color in America live behind a veil. They're
not seen by white America, and if they are seen,
it's not in a good light. And then they have
to deal with double consciousness, which is kind of like
they go home to their families and they can just
(16:21):
relax and be themselves and unwind, and then they come
out to go to work or get on a train
or a bus or anywhere, and they're in white man's world.
And it's not easy. I mean, I'm not a person
of color. I can't say I know that it's not easy.
But I've never had that experience. But I felt there,
(16:42):
I felt there emotions, I felt their.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Pain as a person of color in this in this room.
You know, I've had this conversation with with some family
members actually not too long ago, about our elders, and
I couldn't imagine the type of trauma that that they've
gone through in order just to I have some you know,
(17:07):
I have one surviving elder, and I find her to
be an outstanding woman. I love her to death, you know.
And uh and but but you know that she lived
through a time of trauma just what you're speaking about,
you know, more so, and it's it's in the face today,
but it was you know, in the face then because
(17:28):
you know, people had the right to put their hands
on you, they had the right to spit at you,
so to speak, at least they thought so they had
they had the right to hang you from a tree,
and and and no one would do anything about it,
and no one would go to jail. And so but
she survived. You know, all of that time period, raised
educated children, got college degrees and et cetera, et cetera,
(17:49):
et cetera. But you know that there was still trauma.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
There's ninety four year.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Old aunt Ruth ninety one, she's ninety one to ninety
four year which just recently passed away. That was my
own die. Yeah, but you know, you know that there's
that there's a level of trauma. They're just in the
existence of time. Yeah, you know, just to speak to
you know what you were saying.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And the part where they're they're they're hiding their face
where their face is being hidden.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And you refer to as double consciousness the ways of
WB do boys made a model out of that. It's
it's hard to run two selves at once. And you know,
we all have the experience of we're a little bit
different at home than we all in public. But basically,
for me, as a white person, I'm really comfortable in public.
(18:40):
I'm not trying to offend anybody, you all for anticipated self,
but if you're a person of color that's part of
your culture, you have to deal with a hospitle a
hostile environment rather than uh one that is very hospitable
to you. Yeah, and Gold you have the advances. You're
(19:02):
really remarkably by cultural in terms of you can really
live in a white world comfortably and you live in
a black world comfortably. And I think that's actually a
distinct thing. Is that true?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, so I've been told you know, yeah, no, it is.
I mean, I'm not gonna be unrealistic about it, you know,
I've I've come to recognize that, you know, and and
not take that, not take that for granted, but that
comes from being you know that, that's just been my upbringing,
what I've been exposed to, and being able to walk
into different spaces for the most part not feeling uncomfortable.
(19:40):
And if you want to make me feel uncomfortable, I'm
going to ask you why, you know, I you know,
I'm gonna I'm you know, it's and it's never bothered
me as a child to do that. But I've but
I had to support, you know, and in my upbringing
to be able to to do that. And then finding
out later it was it was odd.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Finally, lad, it's like, oh, well, you know that's not
the way the world is.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Well, when you walk into a room, uh, and with
your dread blocks and uh you know, blonde dread blocks
walking into the room with the conference, I take it
as I'm talking with I ploral sense, white up, middle
middle class. Uh person, you're pushing me around, man, hold on, now,
(20:26):
I gotta deal with her and you. And then there's
a part with abrasive and I see people like me
and I've experienced myself when I first New Year, I
had a double consciousness in a couple of Hey, man,
what's going wrong with this woman? Right? And so you're
you bring the racial issue into the room with you, right, right?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I had it. I was in a is it time? Okay?
If you're just tuning in, you're tuning into finding out
a pete in the poet gold I'm Peter Unner and
I'm the poet Gold and we're here today with Dan Goldman.
Uh a photographers a show with Conveyor Gallery on Main Street,
you know, nine Main Street, and it's called This Land
Ain't Your Land, which is a really profound show and
I recommend that everyone go sees it. It will be
(21:11):
up through uh May as well. And just to wrap
up the thought because Dan, I want to ask you
something to that to that point, quick story. I was
in a meeting once, you know, here in Dutchess County,
and as the gentleman was leaving the room, he came
to me and he said, going back to the comments
you made about my locks, He said, well, wow, you
(21:33):
know you're a very pretty woman. I could you know,
take you out on the date, you know, And I said, oh, okay,
and then he said, he said, but I would ask
you to just change your hair and put it like Beyonces.
And that's what he said. And I happened to be
with my locktician. I mean I could see her. I
totally enraged, and I mean it was the most one
of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we were all
(21:53):
holding it back, you know, but you know, you get
in those you get in those spaces. And then as
he walked out because he didn't, you know, he didn't
stay long enough for me to unpack it with him.
You know, it was sort of like in his passing.
And then he said he looked at me with some
nerve and said think about it, you know, And I said,
I said, no, sir, I'm not going to think about it.
(22:14):
You know, my hair is my hair. We do any
comment on that?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
No, I mean ridiculous. You know, people have to educate
the people really need to do their homework. White people
have to acknowledge their privilege. White people need to really
think before they speak. And this is a great example.
(22:38):
You know, we're so accustomed to like meeting someone or
seeing something and instantly making passing judgment on it, and
maybe we don't need to speak so quickly. Maybe we
need to sit on everything a little bit before we respond.
I have a friend out there named nor Magnus, and
I know he's going to appreciate that particular part.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Lets you advising us, And it's good advice to be
a little patient, thanks before we speak. Trying that back
to your comments about the seventh generation. You're a person
on a lot of patients, Dan, So you have a
lot of patients and what I but what I want
to go back to your work. When you h you're
(23:21):
very the pictures you have are really beautiful in the
sense that you know, if you look at the figures
the people in them, they're mostly solitary men and they
have a mask over their face, but they're around them.
There's very beautiful detail in terms of the flowers, a
(23:44):
vibrant the reeds and the swamp are very vibrant. And
yet and so if you wore taking and I'm not
putting this down as a form of all your pretty
pictures a very good thing, and they sell, but you
have really beautiful pictures with human figures in them and
then the mask over their face. It occurred to me
(24:07):
that you're defacing the traditional notion of art as the
pretty picture, and so you're making a very important human,
social and political statement. And you also say defacing in
two regards. Do you have any reactions to that?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well, the photographs themselves were made with very little equipment,
Like I didn't want to be about lighting, setting up
lights or anything like that, so I did everything with
one camera digital camera DSLR and no fill lights, just
on location. And some of these photographs that are on
(24:54):
the wall now are very large, so there's a feeling
of like a grain that you might have seen with film.
But I don't mind that. It doesn't get in the
way of the message. And it's a matter of fact
to me it enhanced it.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, it sort of. I thought it was oil.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Actually, to me, these are all sacred pieces of art
if you can wrap your mind around that. Right, It's
not about the camera, the paper. It's about the energy
that the photograph carries that you see when you look
at it. Do you feel it or not? Right, that's
what the photographer. That's what the artist is looking for.
Can you connect to this photograph and.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
What does it represent for you? What does it take
you in the process as you look at it?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
My artist statement, which is hanging in the galleries, it's
very it's not too long. It's it's just meant to
pique your curiosity and to see if you can start
thinking in a new way, a different way to really
appreciate what that is.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
You have a in that art of statement. You have
a list of various thinkers and to the stuck out
to me was the primary was James Baldwin, who I
think of all the actually it might be the best
writer ever in America. And what I mean by that is,
(26:20):
for a white person reading the James Baldwin books, you
get to really like the characters in a way like
he never makes them the race invisible, so he keeps
the race present, but he has a way of undermining
our prejudice in a way. You're really rooting for the characters.
(26:44):
And I think that's a fantastic achievement. And so that
echoes in your work, saying what counts is the energy
the picture actually carries.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Thank you. That's what I'm when I'm making it. That's
what I'm feeling. That's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Now, you have an artist talk coming.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Up eighteenth May eighteenth at the gallery. I'll be talking
about all the arts, So anyone that wants to know
more or learn more, right, come on down. It'll be
I think it's three to five. We'll be making an
announcement about that. But that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And do you have a website?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I have a website www dot Dan Goldman photography dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
It's pretty easy to remember. Yeah, do we.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Still do the ww dan Dan Goldman Photography.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
That's what it is, Okay, right, So go to what
I considered the failure aggressive way of putting it knows
the way I said that, you're defacing traditional notions of
or or at least well.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, well just even the title of the show. Yes, right,
so this is landing. So that's a stolen rift from
this landing. You got three. So I've printed out the
sheet music and instead of using his words, I changed
all the words and it still sings really well. But
(28:17):
the words are now big companies that have destroyed the environment,
and big companies that have killed innocent people by the
things that they manufacture. And you know, that's an unusual thing,
and it's one of my favorite pieces.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
And racism and death with a cheerful tone.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Right, not so much, I not so much racism in
that particular piece, just a social injustice period. You know,
these companies have taken advantage of the public and put
the public a great danger and they're not really too
concerned about it.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
No, they deserve their bottom line.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
All right, So all of those companies are in that song, okay,
And I didn't bring it with me otherwise I try
to convince everyone to sing it with me. But we'll sing, yeah,
we'll sing it as the artist talk.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
The goal actually has a good voice, among other things. Yeah,
but let's repeat the notion that May eighteen, at three
o'clock at ninety nine Main Street, you can be with
a lot of very cool people. Hearing Dan talk about
his art work emanates from the heart and echoes through
(29:33):
other artists, both literary and figurative artists. So goal I
want to.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Say, great show, Dan, thank you so much for being here.
To our listeners, we appreciate you always for tuning into
finding out with Pete and the poet Gold, So thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Amen,
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership. Good morning, you'll find me
out with Pete and Poe.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Old I'm Peter Leonard and I'm the poet gold And
we're on the.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
This morning with Dan Goldman, who has a show. It's
Conveyor Gallery and Poughkeepsie, and the name of that show
is this Land Ain't Your Land. But before we go
talking about the artwork of Dan Goldman, we're going to
go right to the poetry of poet Gold. So gold
please let the weekly poem prayer incantation.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Roll well to celebrate Poetry Month. I'm reading from a
book Quote Mightier Poets for Social Justice, which was edited
by me for CAPS Publishing, And there's a poem in here,
quote normalized by a poet, Dana Hunter. There will be found,
a standing ground, a statement made without word, a cry
(00:55):
for ears to hear, its plea, the final balance to
be found. We are not invisible, the forgotten, to be hidden,
obscure names with memories charred. We share one race to
which we all belong. Illness doesn't cancel your membership card.
Our minds and our lives are not cursed. Once we
are mentioned, you dismissed, You disperse. If you can't touch
(01:19):
it or cure it, it's pushed to the side. No longer,
No longer, our voices will rise. The time has come.
You've heard the rest. We are first in line, and
it is you we will test. A final point of
discourse must take place. I am not subhuman. We all
belong to the same race.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
The same race. That's that's the theme here in Finding
Out and Dan give us a sense of what your
show with the very alarming title this Land that you
will Lands? What's that about? In the Conveyor Galleries at
nine Main Street, and Soprina is the owner, owner and
(02:07):
curator of the gallery. She's been on the show. Everyone
likes Soprina.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, she's really gone out on the limb, you know,
at a time when Natural Endowment of the Arts is
cutting back payments and everything and Poughkeepsie, she's a shining
light giving artists like myself and others a chance to
make statements about the political atmosphere that we're living in
right now.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And so for you, it has a political dimension to it.
It does, yes, give us a sense of how that works. Well.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I mean, I've been a photographer in my whole life,
so that is kind of what I bring to the
world photography, And how can anyone these days not want
to make a statement about what's going on. Social injustice
is something that I've been around my whole life. My
parents were sort of activists, so I've heard a lot,
(03:04):
seen a lot. And i have two children, two daughters,
and you know, there's something in Native American culture called
the seventh generation where decision where you know, decisions are
made for the tribe with consideration for how it's going
to affect the seventh generation. It's not about now the
instant payback, And I just feel I have a responsibility
(03:31):
to do something for the future. I have children, I'll
have grandchildren someday. It's my way of making a statement
and feeling like I'm trying to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Has your work always spoke to the social injustices of
the time. Is this where you started with your work
or was it a natural inclination or did you start
taking pictures of flowers?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I mean, right now, that's a great question. I was
a commercial photographer in New York doing advertising those still
life and then I got married, and then I had children,
and the birth of my daughters really changed things for me.
It made me see the world in a different way,
you know, because before that it's really all about you know,
you and your wife, right, and then kids. You know,
(04:17):
you really have to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And when did you hook onto that notion of the
seventh generation?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Well, well about twenty, well twenty five years ago. Twenty
years ago, I was asked to work on a documentary
called If the Silence Could Be Broken, directed by Guy Morgan,
and we went out to Hoping and Navajo land and
we're photographing, we're filming the issues that the grandmothers were
(04:46):
dealing with. And these are things like uranium mining and
strip coal mining, water rights issues, plus internal conflict between
Navajo and Hope set up by Fall tribal governments. I mean,
there was a lot going on out there, and the
people that we were filming really really took us in
(05:10):
and shared their lives with us. And I learned a
lot about how to live while I was there.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yes, the Indigenous people teach you that, yes.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
You know, great wisdom, There really things that we need
to pay attention to today. Maybe one of the only
things that could save us if we could just back
up for a minute and evaluate what we're doing with
an open heart.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Or do do sort of practice what your children, uh
helped you evolve into, you know, Gandhi it' said, be
the change you wish to see in the world. Yes,
And I think children can spark that in people, you know,
(05:58):
particularly your own children, you know, because like you said,
you have to. I would hope that you're thinking ahead
even beyond them. You know, what do you want for
their grandchildren?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
What type of world would you?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I always have a tendency to say, you know, what
is what's going to be your legacy, what's going to
be your footprint in this world? Is not just what
says you said happening now, but generations from now exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, And first nations people picked on picked that up
rather quickly. And there is a seventh generation, like I
sy there.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's completely new to me, damn. And it's not howly
new to me intellectually my whole sensibility, maybe as an
American or maybe just as a sort of a defunct individual.
Seventh generations from now, I haven't thought of those people.
Yet I wish them wells sort of in a airy way.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
But I think it's more of American I think, I
think when you when when you said, I think it's
more of a Americans. We're present, we're present oriented as
a as a culture. That's what you're that's what you're
taught from that survival base. You know, just now, just now,
just now. But ironically enough, if if Americans, you know,
even you know, I have a Scottish back heritage as well,
(07:18):
you know my family and every every group has their
stories in which that was part of your culture. You know,
no matter what group it was, it was part of
your culture because it was you told the stories about
your your past in order to pave the path for
the future. And the telling those stories you said, it's
(07:41):
important to hold on to those stories.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yes, that's a version of it. I think. You know,
this is not a show. It's just another perspective. I
don't talk about the past, uh in my uh my
kids running there, I don't talk about it unless something
funny happened. But I mean the notion of dragging up
my working list Irish roots in New York, they're not
(08:05):
so glorious you know, I mean, I hope the seventh
generation from here is better than the seventh generation backwards.
We were not that cool.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Because that's the present, Because that's right, because that's that's
what I'm saying. Culturally as Americans, as to your point,
we're present, Yes, we're present. So so we don't practice
what you're talking about, Dan, you know, the the what's
what by bringing up the indigenous stories and then also
paving the way for the future through those stories, right, And.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
If we could do that, we'd be better off.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
But we don't.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We live in a culture that it's all about.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Taking, and that's part of your art work, you.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Know, storing and holding onto. We don't give that much,
not from our hoarding, but not from our hearts or
even from our head. Intellectually, we it's just about accumulating.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
What do you have for me? What do you have
for me?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Right?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Is a real important part of that has sense? Yeah,
and give me a sense of your primarily a photographer,
but your photographs book to me as if they could
easily be patients.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Right or they've been manipulated. But also let me say
I'm also a teacher. I've got it. I'm working at
an incredible progressive school in Poughkeepsie called the Oakwood Friends School.
And since I've gotten there, every day has been a blessing. Well, yeah,
I can say that honestly. It's it's a beautiful place,
great administration, great teachers. The students have are open minded
(09:44):
and smart, and I'm really pleased that I landed there.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
But back to the photographs, they are they're created. They're
not where I met someone in the street, and it's
not photo joy and I just took a photo. These
photographs were planned out.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And before you give us a whole thing, let me
go to write the gold for her duties.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yes, my duties right if you're just doing it and
you're listening to finding out would beat in the poet
gold and I'm the poet Gold. And we're here with
Dan Goldman speaking about this land Ain't Your Lands? The
show at Conveyor Gallery on Main Street at two ninety
nine Main Street here in Poughkeepsie. So you were talking
about about your photos and you're not a photogeneralist and
(10:34):
we know that.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
More like social documentary. There's a photographer out there back
in the day named Dorothya Lang. I've always admired her
work and her pictures with breathtaking and really captured it
an emotion. And I know Dorothy Alang, but she inspired
me quite a bit. And I don't know what category
you would put the work that I do in now
(10:55):
other than art activism, an artivists artivist, which I'm fond
of that name. I didn't make it up, so I'm stuck.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
With that, right right, right, yeah, artist art, it's an
art activist. It's yes, it's art activism. So you know,
I look at our I said this the other day
on the show with another show I have, and I
was interviewing Marilena wonderful, wonderful artist and curator in the
Hudson Valley and and she's not fond of the name either,
(11:28):
and and so I had said to her, I said,
I look at it more or less as you're activating
the heart through your art. And that is part of
activism because people don't with our previous guests, don't take
to the street unless the heart is moved. You don't.
(11:48):
You're not an activist unless your heart was moved. And
then you strategically and intellectually figure out, okay, now what
are the steps I need to take. But if your
heart is not moved first, there is no movement.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
This is true. And the best work that anyone could
do is when they're working from their heart.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Right, and so that's ergo. The artivism is is that
it's it's an activation of the heart through art.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
I never saw it that way. That's that's new and
better than the way I can use it before.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, that's that's how I've always you know, looked at
at artivism. You know, you may not and then you
may decide, Okay, I want to, you know, go out
in March or you know, do whatever it is that
you need to do. I want to, you know, go
into Congress, you know, and still be an activist in
that in that way, but it initially begins with the heart.
And usually art can do that. Art can like your
(12:43):
art your photos.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
I love what I do, and of course my heart,
my everything that I do is in the work that
I make.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And when you sell me, you manipulate. The photographs when
manipulated sort of a word maybe none of us really
warm up to, but you could explain that because, like
I said, I thought they were paintings that were designed
to look sort of like photographs.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So photoshop is a very powerful tool for photographers and filmmakers,
but everything that I photograph goes through photoshop. Now, some
of the people that I've done portraits of what one
gentleman is a is a wall builder and another guy,
uh works in a kitchen. So I try to incorporate
(13:36):
the portrait with the wall and make them one. And
you'd have to see it. It's very hard to describe it,
but that's what I do. I try to merge what
they do with who they are and put it out
there while still hiding their identity.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So the wall builder being portrayed by the wall, you're
sort of separating the You're saying the self is bigger
than the body. The self is also related to the
activity of building a wall or doing the kitchen work,
so that a self is a complicated thing.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
You could say that, yeah, yeah, I'm just trying to
incorporate who they are. You know, that's what he is.
And I'm sure he loves it because I have seen
the walls that he's made, and it rivals.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
It is not a pichu.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
There's no scene. It's perfect. And that's what caught my eye.
The work that these people do is outstanding.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Is you a local person.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I don't know where they live, and I didn't ask
for them, even though we met three or four times
before we made the photograph. It's their animinity.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Right of course, was honored.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
And I don't have their name. They knew what I
was doing and they wanted to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
But was it an industrials county that you did the
you took the photograph? I hope. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
They were in the world.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
They were.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't cry, but.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
It's not so important. The important thing is that they
wanted to do an art project with me, and we
met in the middle.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And the part of their faces being covered, which is
an explicit way of saying they're living in a remote
place too.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Sort of. Yeah. Like a year and a half maybe
two years ago, I co curated a show with Onnase
Benjamin called you know him Well and you Know Well,
And the name of the show was behind the Veil,
which was a w B D Boys quote from the
Life of Black Folk, a book that he had written
(16:00):
m HM, and he describes a double consciousness and how
people of color in America live behind a veil. They're
not seen by white America, and if they are seen,
it's not in a good light. And then they have
to deal with double consciousness, which is kind of like
they go home to their families and they can just
(16:21):
relax and be themselves and unwind, and then they come
out to go to work or get on a train
or a bus or anywhere, and they're in white man's world.
And it's not easy. I mean, I'm not a person
of color. I can't say I know that it's not easy.
But I've never had that experience. But I felt there,
(16:42):
I felt there emotions, I felt their.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Pain as a person of color in this in this room.
You know, I've had this conversation with with some family
members actually not too long ago, about our elders, and
I couldn't imagine the type of trauma that that they've
gone through in order just to I have some you know,
(17:07):
I have one surviving elder, and I find her to
be an outstanding woman. I love her to death, you know.
And uh and but but you know that she lived
through a time of trauma just what you're speaking about,
you know, more so, and it's it's in the face today,
but it was you know, in the face then because
(17:28):
you know, people had the right to put their hands
on you, they had the right to spit at you,
so to speak, at least they thought so they had
they had the right to hang you from a tree,
and and and no one would do anything about it,
and no one would go to jail. And so but
she survived. You know, all of that time period, raised
educated children, got college degrees and et cetera, et cetera,
(17:49):
et cetera. But you know that there was still trauma.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
There's ninety four year.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Old aunt Ruth ninety one, she's ninety one to ninety
four year which just recently passed away. That was my
own die. Yeah, but you know, you know that there's
that there's a level of trauma. They're just in the
existence of time. Yeah, you know, just to speak to
you know what you were saying.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And the part where they're they're they're hiding their face
where their face is being hidden.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
And you refer to as double consciousness the ways of
WB do boys made a model out of that. It's
it's hard to run two selves at once. And you know,
we all have the experience of we're a little bit
different at home than we all in public. But basically,
for me, as a white person, I'm really comfortable in public.
(18:40):
I'm not trying to offend anybody, you all for anticipated self,
but if you're a person of color that's part of
your culture, you have to deal with a hospitle a
hostile environment rather than uh one that is very hospitable
to you. Yeah, and Gold you have the advances. You're
(19:02):
really remarkably by cultural in terms of you can really
live in a white world comfortably and you live in
a black world comfortably. And I think that's actually a
distinct thing. Is that true?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, so I've been told you know, yeah, no, it is.
I mean, I'm not gonna be unrealistic about it, you know,
I've I've come to recognize that, you know, and and
not take that, not take that for granted, but that
comes from being you know that, that's just been my upbringing,
what I've been exposed to, and being able to walk
into different spaces for the most part not feeling uncomfortable.
(19:40):
And if you want to make me feel uncomfortable, I'm
going to ask you why, you know, I you know,
I'm gonna I'm you know, it's and it's never bothered
me as a child to do that. But I've but
I had to support, you know, and in my upbringing
to be able to to do that. And then finding
out later it was it was odd.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Finally, lad, it's like, oh, well, you know that's not
the way the world is.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Well, when you walk into a room, uh, and with
your dread blocks and uh you know, blonde dread blocks
walking into the room with the conference, I take it
as I'm talking with I ploral sense, white up, middle
middle class. Uh person, you're pushing me around, man, hold on, now,
(20:26):
I gotta deal with her and you. And then there's
a part with abrasive and I see people like me
and I've experienced myself when I first New Year, I
had a double consciousness in a couple of Hey, man,
what's going wrong with this woman? Right? And so you're
you bring the racial issue into the room with you, right, right?
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I had it. I was in a is it time? Okay?
If you're just tuning in, you're tuning into finding out
a pete in the poet gold I'm Peter Unner and
I'm the poet Gold and we're here today with Dan Goldman.
Uh a photographers a show with Conveyor Gallery on Main Street,
you know, nine Main Street, and it's called This Land
Ain't Your Land, which is a really profound show and
I recommend that everyone go sees it. It will be
(21:11):
up through uh May as well. And just to wrap
up the thought because Dan, I want to ask you
something to that to that point, quick story. I was
in a meeting once, you know, here in Dutchess County,
and as the gentleman was leaving the room, he came
to me and he said, going back to the comments
you made about my locks, He said, well, wow, you
(21:33):
know you're a very pretty woman. I could you know,
take you out on the date, you know, And I said, oh, okay,
and then he said, he said, but I would ask
you to just change your hair and put it like Beyonces.
And that's what he said. And I happened to be
with my locktician. I mean I could see her. I
totally enraged, and I mean it was the most one
of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, we were all
(21:53):
holding it back, you know, but you know, you get
in those you get in those spaces. And then as
he walked out because he didn't, you know, he didn't
stay long enough for me to unpack it with him.
You know, it was sort of like in his passing.
And then he said he looked at me with some
nerve and said think about it, you know, And I said,
I said, no, sir, I'm not going to think about it.
(22:14):
You know, my hair is my hair. We do any
comment on that?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
No, I mean ridiculous. You know, people have to educate
the people really need to do their homework. White people
have to acknowledge their privilege. White people need to really
think before they speak. And this is a great example.
(22:38):
You know, we're so accustomed to like meeting someone or
seeing something and instantly making passing judgment on it, and
maybe we don't need to speak so quickly. Maybe we
need to sit on everything a little bit before we respond.
I have a friend out there named nor Magnus, and
I know he's going to appreciate that particular part.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Lets you advising us, And it's good advice to be
a little patient, thanks before we speak. Trying that back
to your comments about the seventh generation. You're a person
on a lot of patients, Dan, So you have a
lot of patients and what I but what I want
to go back to your work. When you h you're
(23:21):
very the pictures you have are really beautiful in the
sense that you know, if you look at the figures
the people in them, they're mostly solitary men and they
have a mask over their face, but they're around them.
There's very beautiful detail in terms of the flowers, a
(23:44):
vibrant the reeds and the swamp are very vibrant. And
yet and so if you wore taking and I'm not
putting this down as a form of all your pretty
pictures a very good thing, and they sell, but you
have really beautiful pictures with human figures in them and
then the mask over their face. It occurred to me
(24:07):
that you're defacing the traditional notion of art as the
pretty picture, and so you're making a very important human,
social and political statement. And you also say defacing in
two regards. Do you have any reactions to that?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well, the photographs themselves were made with very little equipment,
Like I didn't want to be about lighting, setting up
lights or anything like that, so I did everything with
one camera digital camera DSLR and no fill lights, just
on location. And some of these photographs that are on
(24:54):
the wall now are very large, so there's a feeling
of like a grain that you might have seen with film.
But I don't mind that. It doesn't get in the
way of the message. And it's a matter of fact
to me it enhanced it.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, it sort of. I thought it was oil.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Actually, to me, these are all sacred pieces of art
if you can wrap your mind around that. Right, It's
not about the camera, the paper. It's about the energy
that the photograph carries that you see when you look
at it. Do you feel it or not? Right, that's
what the photographer. That's what the artist is looking for.
Can you connect to this photograph and.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
What does it represent for you? What does it take
you in the process as you look at it?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Right?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
My artist statement, which is hanging in the galleries, it's
very it's not too long. It's it's just meant to
pique your curiosity and to see if you can start
thinking in a new way, a different way to really
appreciate what that is.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
You have a in that art of statement. You have
a list of various thinkers and to the stuck out
to me was the primary was James Baldwin, who I
think of all the actually it might be the best
writer ever in America. And what I mean by that is,
(26:20):
for a white person reading the James Baldwin books, you
get to really like the characters in a way like
he never makes them the race invisible, so he keeps
the race present, but he has a way of undermining
our prejudice in a way. You're really rooting for the characters.
(26:44):
And I think that's a fantastic achievement. And so that
echoes in your work, saying what counts is the energy
the picture actually carries.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Thank you. That's what I'm when I'm making it. That's
what I'm feeling. That's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Now, you have an artist talk coming.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Up eighteenth May eighteenth at the gallery. I'll be talking
about all the arts, So anyone that wants to know
more or learn more, right, come on down. It'll be
I think it's three to five. We'll be making an
announcement about that. But that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
And do you have a website?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I have a website www dot Dan Goldman photography dot com.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
It's pretty easy to remember. Yeah, do we.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Still do the ww dan Dan Goldman Photography.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
That's what it is, Okay, right, So go to what
I considered the failure aggressive way of putting it knows
the way I said that, you're defacing traditional notions of
or or at least well.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, well just even the title of the show. Yes, right,
so this is landing. So that's a stolen rift from
this landing. You got three. So I've printed out the
sheet music and instead of using his words, I changed
all the words and it still sings really well. But
(28:17):
the words are now big companies that have destroyed the environment,
and big companies that have killed innocent people by the
things that they manufacture. And you know, that's an unusual thing,
and it's one of my favorite pieces.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
And racism and death with a cheerful tone.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Right, not so much, I not so much racism in
that particular piece, just a social injustice period. You know,
these companies have taken advantage of the public and put
the public a great danger and they're not really too
concerned about it.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
No, they deserve their bottom line.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
All right, So all of those companies are in that song, okay,
And I didn't bring it with me otherwise I try
to convince everyone to sing it with me. But we'll sing, yeah,
we'll sing it as the artist talk.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
The goal actually has a good voice, among other things. Yeah,
but let's repeat the notion that May eighteen, at three
o'clock at ninety nine Main Street, you can be with
a lot of very cool people. Hearing Dan talk about
his art work emanates from the heart and echoes through
(29:33):
other artists, both literary and figurative artists. So goal I
want to.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Say, great show, Dan, thank you so much for being here.
To our listeners, we appreciate you always for tuning into
finding out with Pete and the poet Gold, So thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Amen,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!