Thank you to Meg Norris..With the help of a brand new volunteer (Megatron) we got 17 cameras into labeled and stamped envelopes and hit the streets this past Wednesday.
We got the first four cameras out .. and i took photos myself. Have 5 lined up to give out Saturday at a soup kitchen in corktown, and i am sending 4 to burbs for people at a church that helps vets i think. I have 5 left to find my favorite guys and ask them...and one for Miss Vicky if she changes her mind... fingers crossed.
Took notes on the gentlemen who took the cameras today and got pictures of all but the 1st guy..i had such a good talk with him i forget.!
so here are the notes.. lets see if i can translate..
first gentlemen we talked to was by the MGM Casino on the service drive..popular place to be before and after normal work hours to hit up the the commuting crowd.
I asked the gentlemen if he wanted a backpack and i got out to get it for him then he told me he didnt want one too much to carry around. (that was a first..and i was happy he was honest).. and then asked him if he would be interested in a project i was doing...and went on to tell him about it and how i would love to let him have his voice heard...to speak in images to people who may never hear him or much less even look at him..he said he knows that feeling.
I asked him his name and told him mine. He is Don Pixler, from the Detroit Cass Cooridor..ie hes been around.. esp since its been renamed Midtown to make it more palatable to the suburbanites who associate the corridor as a place of homeless, prostitutes and drugs...thats the corridor i moved into and love! I was 'poor in the corridor' for a very long time.
Mr. Pixler is 57 years old and when i asked him how long he has been on the streets ..he shock his head and told me...too long. I felt his pain.
He was happy to be involved in the project and told me he would do it right away and was an honest man and could be trusted to it..i told him i believed him.
I told him i had a museum pass for him but he declined it. i asked him it was too difficult to get there..no he told me he didn't have anything to wear there. i told him it didnt matter he could exactly as he was but he told me he was too full of shame to go. i told him i understood how he felt.
I showed him how to operate the camera and i gave him $12 i had in my pocket.
then we left.. and then i instantly remembered i forgot to get his picture with the camera i am using and went back to find him..but he was gone.
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his not feeling he could go to the museum is exactly why this project is important to me. He feels shame and that he would be judged for being who he is by the white walls of the hallowed space or more to the point the people who frequent these places will not accept him.... and part of his fear is spot on...we ignore the homeless..the undesirables.
we do not have to see them.. we are able to blur that part of our vision where a person stands asking for money. we are able to stay safe in our cars, we figit with the radio, play with our cells, we look away stare at the traffic light wishing it would turn green faster to ease our discomfort, anything but look at that person and at least say hello and tell them sorry we can not help.
which makes his voice so much more important...to reach an audience he may never have a chance to tell a small portion of his story to.
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