Andrew Schroeder

Over the course of the last 5 or 6 weeks, I have slowly moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now, I know what you may be thinking (because it is the same thing I’ve been thinking a great deal): why the hell would I move to a place like Green Bay. The simple explanation:  my BF found an amazing job here and due to lower costs of living, I am able to open my own letterpress/photo studio called “Pig & Weasel”. Despite how fascinating Green Bay may be as a topic, I’d like to just briefly touch on how it feels to completely change my modes of dwelling.

For the last 10+ years I have been an apartment dweller. In fact, I haven’t lived in a “normal” house since I was wee high school student living with my Mom. When I began my studies, I simultaneously began my movement from dorm room to sprawling two-bedroom 1930′s charmer apartment in Minneapolis. Never in my wildest pipe-fantasies did I see myself living in a house.

A couple quick observations of an apartment dweller now a house dweller:

- It is ridiculously quiet. I’ve lived underneath everyone from a Vietnamese family of 12 (in Lincoln, NE) to a bitchy hipster couple who wore combat boots and had a squawking parrot. I keep waiting to hear… something.
- Houses come with kitchens. Well, apartment’s do too… but the room with the oven, sink, and refrigerator is actually large enough that I can MAKE FOOD. It is a strange, remarkable, beautiful thing to be able to prepare food and not accidentally jam your hand into a blender (my old kitchen was that small-think coffin sized).
- The washer and dryer do not take quarters. No more loading up my pockets with $2.50 in quarters to blow on washing/drying only to go back down and find my clothes aren’t dry. Or, even better… I don’t have the violated feeling that comes with having one’s clothing moved from the washer/dryer because some other jerk can’t wait to use it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to continue to revel in the glories of a 1950s housewife.

At what point does it become acceptable to take on risks and seek out a future in line with one’s values? That is the question I have had on my mind the last few weeks. A new opportunity to engage in work that is more satisfying than sitting in an office for 45 hours a week is appearing on the horizon. I may be able to move to Green Bay, WI (or another similar city) and open a press. Nothing fancy. Think: a press wedged in the garage next to the cat’s litterbox at first. However, eventually there is the opportunity to make something that could actually be a satisfying way to spend my days and nights.

One nagging question keeps me from diving head-first into the world of being a small business owner: can I make it work? Is it worth it to have something to be passionate about and also give up a healthy paycheck from a soul less employer?

Just a couple of things on the back burner(s):

1. Jorg Colberg has a great recent post that includes the thought that all photographs exploit their subject matter. I’m not quite sure this is always the case. I’m more inclined to believe that the connections between photograph and subject (and viewer) are less exploitative than made out to be. Instead, this connection is more of a dialogue – something less cut and dry and more like the relationship between producers and consumers explored by Michel de Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life.

2. Google +. I’m on it and it is a strange feeling – much like going to a party, arriving early, and then finding out other guests might now be coming. But this did get me back into reading about Jürgen Habermaas and his ideas regarding the emergence of public space. Habermaas wrote about the role newly emergent 18th century European public spaces played in the rise of a new political class. I guess, I’m a little creeped out how quickly we seem to have evacuated ourselves from physical public space to enter into virtualized, electronic, privately-owned public space.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Nauvoo, Illinois. In case you’re not familiar with your US History, this is the first site of the Mormon temple and the city where Joseph Smith is buried. It was from Navoo that the Mormons set out on the trek to Salt Lake City, UT to build a mecca for followers of the LDS. In a way, it is a very strange and creepy utopia. It represents the self-reliant ideals of the Mormon community and also is a newly emergent hotbed of real estate development.

As part of the city’s summer festivities, the church organizes a pageant celebrating the history of the area and the triumph of the Mormon’s over mosquitos.

Q: What could possibly be better than a cast of 100 or so dancing, leaping, singing Mormons?
A: A bourbon on the rocks, some coffee, a mountain dew, being gay, and most importantly not being converted.

It appears that within American culture, there are three times it is acceptable for a man to be an enthusiastic gardener: either when young in rural Nebraska, when in one’s late 60s, or when one is British. Although I am technically none of the above, I am incredibly thrilled by the variety of things growing this summer.
I’ve been somewhat of a flake when it comes to the actual work, but I have had the extreme pleasure of sharing a community garden plot with two good friends. The concept of urban gardening is truly something that any resident of a major city should not take for granted. As I was walking around the garden this afternoon taking photos, I started to wonder about the evolutionary effects of our species movement to urban areas will have on the plants we bring with us. Will we engineer and come to favor planting pollution resistant variants of spinach? Or, instead of changes to the plants we tend, will our cities take on the positive qualities, biodiversity and egalitarian aura of the average garden?

Although for the most part this blog is pretty lighthearted in nature, ranging from items that I jam into my face to various bits of photography from my surroundings, I am actually debating something of more consequence this evening. For the last couple of months, I’ve toyed with the idea of getting “serious” about photography again. You see, in the three years since I finished my MFA, I haven’t really had any ideas for new work, nor have I had the studio practice to back it up. I find myself, now in a non-glamorous or satisfying state I like to call “post-practice”.

I’m weighing my options and thinking of ways that I could start to build up a solid portfolio of more commercial-oriented work and also make moves toward freelancing. I have a great job, although it is often frustrating and I easily feel like an insignificant cog.

It is times like these, like the true nerd I am, I turn to philosophy to help me make decisions.

Particularly, The voice I find myself turning to is William James. His notion of acting as if what you do makes a difference has me taking this decision on, full force. A basic butchering of his thoughts, which I will now attempt, looks something like this:

• If I am lost in a forest or hostile environment and I stumble into a path, I have two choices of action.
• Option 1: I can do nothing and believe the path goes nowhere. By doing nothing I will freeze, starve, and die.
• Option 2: I can believe the path leads to food or shelter. I could then follow the path out of the forest to food, shelter, safety.

In both options, the actions taken have made the belief true. One should always act as if what they do makes a difference.

So. Do I take the leap, follow a path, spend some more money, and start up working as a photographer?