Happy Birthday Vivienne Gucwa

Happy Birthday to Vivienne Gucwa

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            Often times, on January 4, I present a remembrance blog of my father, Amos McDonald, who was born on January 4, 2015 and passed away on June 19, 1989. I owe so much to him. He was a farmer and welder, who had an eighth grade education and taught me about life with the stories of a self-made sage. He was less successful teaching those around him when he was working. He was impatient when he worked. I never learned to weld and didn’t much want to farm when I grew up. But in the evening, when his work tools were put up and he was watching television, if a son wanted his attention the television became a distant sound in the far distances of the other side of the room. If he were giving advice he wanted his son to learn he would tell a story. I suppose I got the desire to write and to blog because I grew up wanting to tell stories that others would want to hear. So a father who seldom committed any thoughts to paper helped a son want to write. That is something I have long wanted to do, but until I started blogging I kept writings to myself mostly or pestered people who were really too busy to give much attention to my papers. Brevity was not my gift and I am working on that. So I guess I could not create a January 4 blog without saying words about my father.

            I discovered recently, or was reminded recently that January 4 is also the birthday of one of my favorite photographers, Vivienne Gucwa. In early December 2014 I visited New York City for the first time in my life. It began as a scary journey for someone who had grown up on a farm and was taught to be distrustful of cities. I was going alone and staying at a bed n’ breakfast minus the breakfast in the Hell’s Kitchen area of New York City a few blocks west of Times Square. It was about the time I went to New York City that I discovered the online presence of Vivienne Gucwa, who had a book of photographs of her hometown of New York City, called NY through the Lens. I didn’t get the book in my hands until after my visit to New York City but what I discovered about the author on line had me sold on the book before it arrived.

            I am going to share one photo taken by Vivienne Gucwa that was online, to whet your appetite for more. I went in the winter hoping to see snow but there was no snow. Still it was a magical visit because the first restaurant I visited, a charming server seemed as interested in figuring out where her customer was from and all of a sudden the big city was more of a place where people lived who had dreams just like everybody else. Within three days I realized I had seen some sights of New York City but moreover I had visited neighborhoods like Chelsea and Clinton and Hell’s Kitchen. Then Vivienne Gucwa’s book arrived and I saw a hometown girl’s photographs and written descriptions which were expressed in poetry and prose that read as if they were another way of framing a photograph of images in one’s mind. I had stood near the spot where this Central Park scene had been taken. I had wished there was snow on the ground, but there was none. But I saw the scene in snow through Vivienne’s book –

Her work is so much more - so look at her link here

I mean it – look here

 

            The book and the link I gave can lead you to the work of a wonderful artist who brings you into a world of someone who looks at the world with wonder, with it is in seeing scenes in the home town of New York City she loves, or in other cities and places that she feels blessed to be able to travel to in connection with her work as a photographer. Her story is unique and wonderfully inspiring. She was living on her own, going to school, living on student loans, and piling up stress. She bought an inexpensive point and shoot camera and to relieve stress began to take walks along streets capturing scenes with her camera that didn’t work properly in all its functions. She began putting her photographs on the internet. Now she is a photographer sponsored by Sony with a best-selling book of photographs. She is also the descendant of immigrants who came to New York City having suffered and came when the city was a place of hope and she often sees history in the bricks of the neighborhoods she captures with her lens. Those of us who follow her on Twitter or like her Facebook page feel as if we are being given a very special tour of life through her words and photographs. She is one of the artists, photographers, writers, whose perspective on the world has deeply touched my soul. I won’t forget that her birthday is on January 4, because my Dad’s was also. I have felt deeply blessed reading from her blogs, looking at life through her photographs, reading the beautiful words she uses to describe what she sees. I am sure I speak for many others who on her birthday wish to thank her and somehow express to her what her work has meant to all of us.

            Happy birthday Vivienne Gucwa – you have been an inspiration for so many of us even though most of us have never had an opportunity to meet you. But in your work you have given yourself to us and so we simply want this day for you to have a most happy birthday.