The Weight of Ash, is now available for pre-order at @deadbeatclub . This book was incredibly intense and emotional to make from the start. Big ❤️❤️ to everyone who has helped along the way. Link in bio.
“Between 2014 and 2020, Ian Bates traveled tirelessly along the West Coast of the United States. For years, he has photographed there a charred land suffering from increasing scorching wildfires. But, far from any voyeuristic dramatization, scarce are the depictions of the roaring flames, or of the fire’s fury. Rather, standing at a respectful distance, Bates photographs in rich black and white tones what is at the margin, the traces, the aftermaths. The beauty and horror of the landscape, too, enshrouded in a grey cloak of ashes and plumes. “There is a moment after a wildfire burns but before humans return”, says Bates, “where the land and forests are both beautiful and terrifying.”
His photographs, seemingly suspended out of time in a muffled silence, at the edge of the catastrophe, are a meditative exploration on this liminal stage between calm and violence, on the fine line we dance on when we build and expand on nature’s ground. A meditation on the harshness, anxiety, and beauty of wildfires—which can, as well as destroy, prepare a fertile ground for new life to start.”
Poem by @caitlinlorrainejohnson
Essay by Daniel Gumbiner
“There’s never an end to dust
and dusting,” my aunt would say
as her rag, like a thunderhead,
scudded across the yellow oak
of her little house. There she lived
seventy years with a ball
of compulsion closed in her fist,
and an elbow that creaked and popped
like a branch in a storm. Now dust
is her hands and dust her heart.
There’s never an end to it.
“Carrie” by Ted Kooser
Missed seeing so many lovely friends at both the LA Art Book Fair and ICP Photobook Fair this past weekend. I was lucky enough to have my book, The Weight of Ash, at both due to the incredible hustle of @deadbeatclub . If you also missed the fairs, you can pickup a copy over at Deadbeat through the link in my bio. 🩷❤️🩷
