Erin and I spent the rest of the afternoon sifting through the stacks of photographs Joey had thematically stored in labeled boxes. Not surprising since everything the man owned had a place chiseled out for it. We were grateful. He took care of the initial organization for us, which was needed given his prodigious output. And yet, we felt with each lift of a box cover the removal of a casket lid. So many pictures, each with a memory, a story, a mood, a vision of his world, a sad remainder. For months we had been talking about putting together a show for Joey, possibly even a book. Carol and Joe were willing to support whatever project we would fashion, allowing us full access to their son’s basement studio. Take anything you can use, they said.
Hours of shuffling boxes, naming portraits, rubbing temples, and not knowing what to claim and what to leave behind left us limp. We sighed at each other with little left to say. It was simply too much.
And then Carol and Joe came downstairs. Take it all, they said, as if to lift the shroud they knew was weighing down the room. Maybe they sensed our weariness, or maybe we had worn out our welcome. We could have been there all night. It was too big a job. We thanked them profusely, flattened the back seat of my Golf, and loaded her up. With everything. Even his music – Bauhaus, Peter Murphy, Schuyler Heinkel – everything.
All we left were a couple of computers, whose contents, without a password, would always remain entombed.
Almost seven years have passed since we hauled away Joey’s black and whites. Seven and a half years since he passed. Over those years Erin and I have met many times at my house, where his work has resided, and we have waded tirelessly through his photos. We have separated and labeled. We have created spreadsheets and files. At times we laughed our asses off. Other times not. We have distinguished between must be seens and must never be seens. We have had over to the house Paola Savarino and Giorgio Della Terza to survey the work in which both of them figure so prominently.
They were good friends of Joey, Giorgio his close confidant, Paola his artistic mentor. 
Giorgio Della Terza and Paola Savarino
Erin and I have enjoyed many splendid lunches together (thanks to Rosie)and planned for shows. And yet, we have been delayed by the immediacy of our ongoing lives and wearied by the ever-conflicting notions of whether to hoist the dead or allow him rest.
In February of 2007, Erin curated an exhibit of a selection of Joe’s photographs and video at Piazza Cenci 56 in Rome, Italy. It was a show organized in conjunction with Rhode Island School of Design’s European Honors Program, in which Erin and Joe both took part during the school year of 1994-95. “He returned several times to Italy,” Erin writes on the show’s invitation card, “drove the Autostrada fearlessly, and documented his travels with photographs and video.” Many of Joe and Erin’s classmates and friends attended, as did current Honors Program students, as did members of Erin’s family. In fact, many of those attendees helped in the transport, repair, and hanging of the works. For Erin, it was an enormous achievement, one built on faith and reliance, calling on past and current participants of the Program to help pull it all together. It shows what a community of like-minded people can do when honoring one of their own.
Both sides of the Rome Show invitation
Erin’s curatorial debut was entitled “Altro Sara Svelato,” or “More Will Be Revealed.” It was an expression that Joe often used during their program in Rome back in the fall of 1994. “If he was uncertain or at a crossroads,” Erin explains in the show’s leaflet, “- whenever patience was needed - Joe would say, ‘More will be revealed.’” The Rome show was a long process brought to completion for Erin. Its beginning, middle, and end were expertly documented in her accompanying PowerPoint put to her own music. There is now a very important stone there that marks his spot forever with this Program, with this country, home to his ancestry. But more importantly, home to where he realized artistic happiness. The Rome show was one of the nicest gifts anyone has ever given.
This blog – a virtual gallery of photos and essays - will also have a beginning, middle, and end. It will be a project that attempts to feed off the energy created by Erin’s show, an attempt at another means of making good on Joe’s promise.
Joe and Erin en route to Amy Custance and Paul Hamilton’s wedding, where Joe was the wedding photographer. 1995.
It would be fitting for his saying – more will be revealed - to ring prophetic and recurrent, as he has left behind for us so many images, so many memories, so many stories to tell. Whatever plans Erin and I originally had, the exercise of uncovering Joey’s photos has always felt communal. It is my hope that this is a place where friends and family, acquaintances and admirers of Joe can view his work, talk about it, celebrate it.
The photos included in this project might ring nostalgic for those who favor the backward glance: an array of portraits, landscapes, and stills taken primarily in the eighties and nineties. For Joe, this was a period of experimentation, destruction, rehabilitation, friendships, self-discovery, and entrance into the art world. My narrative accompaniments to these photographs are associative, as a friend and follower of his work.
Joe and I sometimes talked about doing a project together, his pictures with my words. We did a little bit of that over the years, but maybe this blog in some way can be the accrual of those plans made long ago. I look forward to working with him again and welcome whoever wants to join us.Joe and Matt (me with hair) at Watertown apartment, 1986
Thank you, Matt, so much for doing this. It's importance supersedes anything that I might think I'm doing. If there's anything I can do to help or just be a part of it in someway, just say so.
ReplyDeleteMatt, what you've done and where you've taken this already is amazing. He was always amazing. I wish I had known him more. There was some sort of spark and intrigue with JC. I can't explain it.
ReplyDeletejoe loved documentation. he urged people to document their travels (travails?). he was also interested in new media. so matt: the vehicle you've come up with is, well, brilliant.
ReplyDeleteThis is a touching portrait in words, Mattie B. I'm both excited and nervous to look at this work, some I'm sure from periods during which I had a good deal of contact with Joey. I was always interested to see more of his work--and indeed I see some of it every day in my bathroom where a portrait of Hank Peirce at Salisbury beach has hung for years. It's cleverly arranged in a sort of tableau with figures Jay T. and his wife, Alice in the background. This was no snapshot, for certain. And yet, it has a real sense of spontaneity. In other words, he made it LOOK spontaneous. Masterful..
ReplyDeleteWhen can we expect a new series of images?
ReplyDeleteThe LUST FOR LIFE portrait mentioned by Chris is one of my all time favorites.
ReplyDeleteMatt, this is a wonderful living/evolving thing. The way you've written along with the pictures is so evocative. After reading a number of your stories about Joe, this brings him to life in another way.
ReplyDeleteAnother most interesting leg on this Journey of Joe.
ReplyDelete