.Stereoscopy Photographs.

Q: I feel like you are so focused on this immediate thing- a...

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:18:00 -0700

Q: I feel like you are so focused on this immediate thing- a book, a game, a bug, a worm. When this thing has your attention there really is no way to pull you away from it, is there?

A: Nope. I got it perfected. Nailed solid.

Q: What’s perfected?

A: This tool. It’s a technique. I can turn anything off at will. It’s like switching a button. And I can stay there as long as I have to.

Q: Well how long is that?

A: Just waiting ‘til it’s over. I think it’s almost over, isn’t it?

Q: What is that all for? A: Oh, it’s for the hole. We...

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:12:00 -0700

Q: What is that all for?

A: Oh, it’s for the hole. We gotta do something. It’s a mess.

Q: Ouch. Like what? Fill it in?

A: At best. I don’t know. We dug too deep, for too long and its just a total mess. Rocks rolling down the hill, sinkholes settling in, rancid smells emanating from the hole. It’s just out of hand.

Q: You’re gonna try to dump those rocks in?

A: Yep. Have you heard of the phrase ” I’m rearranging deck chair on the Titanic?”

Q: Oh, I have. I’m sorry.

A: All along you have always been cryptic about this project....

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 22:18:00 -0700

A: All along you have always been cryptic about this project. You thought it was about the end of a long term relationship or some such nonsense. Look at those images again, with this distance. This is about your youngest son- his role in the family and his challenges with this hand of cards life has dealt him. He’s supposed to be the easy one. Well it doesn’t look easy to be him. You have NASA’s greatest minds cracking the code of your eldest son, the best drugs money can buy, and all these professionals steering the ship. Knowing how to connect with him now is second nature. But your other son, he’s still an enigma, isn’t he?

Q: Totally.

A: Look at those images again. You’ve got an audience this weekend and you need to give this a jolt of adrenaline- you can’t just phone this in. Something happens in a family and it resonates through everyone….no one is isolated and un-affected. Once you start to think that something or someone is easy, is on auto pilot, well that’s when you lose it.

Q: You think that should be the lecture?

A: Duh. You’ve been shooting it and wrestling with it. You’ve heard the saying “write what you know?”. Now go forth.

Q: OK.

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Baton Rouge Autism Speaker Series

6pm, Saturday April 13, 2013

An Evening With Timothy Archibald

The Manship Theatre at The Shaw Center for the Arts

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

A: Oh, no question that everyone who sees it will want to look...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:42:00 -0800

A: Oh, no question that everyone who sees it will want to look down into that hole.

Q: What are they looking for?

A : Who knows? Probably something they recognize. I’d think they are looking for something that might relate to themselves.

Q: How do you feel about that?

A: Well everyone here in the house looks into it every day. And everyday we see something new. And rainy days when it fills with water, all you see is yourself.

Q: Now, this is more like what you are trying to do,...

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:51:51 -0700

Q: Now, this is more like what you are trying to do, isn’t it?

A: Sure, it’s closer. But it’s hard not to get something on Halloween.

Q: The hole, again? A: Yes! But this shot…it’s...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:33:00 -0700

Q: The hole, again?

A: Yes! But this shot…it’s totally different. Maybe it’s the last hole photograph ever.

Q: How come?

A: Oh, it’s not about digging the hole or obsessing on the hole. It’s about a sunny day, climbing optimistically out of the hole! Take a deep breath and feel the sun!

Q: Huh. I think I get it. So what would then happen to the hole?

A: It’d be filled in. Rich soil and seed filling the hole. Sunshine and water. And the hole becomes a garden. Green, healthy, living, growing…the tree of life grows there.

Q: What’s this about? A: Well, it’s all about the...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:26:00 -0700

Q: What’s this about?

A: Well, it’s all about the light on the rock, and the way it is reflecting the light and just taking up the space right there in the middle.

A: And the kid laying down on the ground?

Q: Oh, well he’s a supporting character. Don’t worry about him. It’s the rock. Because the rock fits perfectly in the hole.

A: It does?

Q: Well, not perfectly. But this is nature…it’s not perfect.

Q: You are still working on that hole? A: Yeah, for sure. Like...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:13:49 -0700

Q: You are still working on that hole?

A: Yeah, for sure. Like everyday I do a little bit on it.

Q: This has been easily a year of your life. All focused on this?

A: Sure. I want to get it right.

Q: How right can a hole ever be?

A: Ok, I hear ya. It comes down to this: I can finish the hole by tossing a hand grenade into the ground…and then we’ll have a massive jagged scorched earth hole. Or, I can hire the expert craftsmen, those trained with surgical precision to excavate this hole…and make it really…sustainable. I could have this hole for years.

Q: Yikes. You gotta accept the idea that a hole is really just a hole.

Q: So a skeleton appeared at your bedside? A: Yah, right there...

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 23:23:00 -0700

Q: So a skeleton appeared at your bedside?

A: Yah, right there on my nightstand. It’s gotta be a sign, don’t you think?

Q: For sure. But most people would think of it as a bad sign. Like bad news ahead…grim reaper…the opposite of life?

A: Oh not at all. This time it’s a positive.

Q: So you went back again? A: Sure, but this time I went back...

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:53:00 -0700

Q: So you went back again?

A: Sure, but this time I went back with the kids. It does feel like a ritual that I don’t know if they even care about. I take them to my school, my jobs, my bedroom, by favorite food places, even the most mundane things you can imagine- I showed them a place I fell off my bike.

Q: So what are you looking for?

A: I was into to the idea that when I left my hometown life started anew. Other people inhabited that town and I no longer did. Like a hotel room- it resets itself anew for the next person and the receipts are ripped up from my stay. No record, no evidence. Life moved forward only.

Q: And you found that to be true?

A: No, not even close. It’s all connected…history never gets erased. No matter how hard you try to make it do so.

A: Here is the part that I’m kind of surprised you...

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 22:41:00 -0700

A: Here is the part that I’m kind of surprised you don’t understand. Kids aren’t here for you. They aren’t yours. They belong to the Universe. They have their work to do while they are here, and your job as a parent is to guide that. You’ll have some input, you’ll steer some things, but beyond that, they have their mission statement and are going to act on that.

Q: That’s silly. They are my kids. They are what I make of them, right?

A: I don’t think so. I think you just need to provide sun and water and then, you know, stand out of their way.

A: Now this one is absolutely stereoscopic. If you blink your...

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 23:35:00 -0700

A: Now this one is absolutely stereoscopic. If you blink your eyes really slowly, you’ll see the kid in the trees in perfect 3 D.

Q: I didn’t see anything.

A: If you didn’t see it, you blinked too fast. You’ll have to try again.

A: You know, it’s Trompe-l’œil, French for...

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:04:00 -0700

A: You know, it’s Trompe-l’œil, French for “deceive the eye”. It’s that technique involving realistic imagery in order to create this optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.

Q: Oh, right. You think it’s working here?

A: Yeah, for sure. But the kids aren’t fooled for a minute.

A: It’s really all about gravity. Gravity is all around...

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:58:00 -0700

A: It’s really all about gravity. Gravity is all around us like air. Adults never even notice it, but kids do. It pulls them to the earth, to the lowest point, like water always running to the point of least resistance.

Q: Another law of nature?

A: Yeah, totally.

Q: Well, is this like some type of re-photographic survey,...

Tue, 01 May 2012 22:52:00 -0700

Q: Well, is this like some type of re-photographic survey, where photographers go back to important places and photograph that place from the same position to show how time has changed things, or left things the same?

A: Wow, I guess you could compare it to that. It’s like the nature keeps growing and cycling through the seasons but the people, the kids, the adults are just shifting through. Another kid will squirt a squirt gun here…

Q: But the same flowers will keep growing?

A: Yeah, exactly.

Q: Can you tell me that story about the light again? A: Sure....

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:20:28 -0700

Q: Can you tell me that story about the light again?

A: Sure. So we walked into the hotel room in the dark and flicked on the light. Unfortunately it was filled with cockroaches…they were really everywhere, all over everything, in every corner and fold. In the light they run and hide and the room looks great, but I’ve already seen them. I can’t un-see them. I know they are there, everyone does, and we can’t really forget and just fall asleep.

Q: So what do you do?

A: Oh we had to leave and sleep in the car. Whether it was dark or light, they were always there.

Q: So what is so fascinating about that tree to you? A: Nothing...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:29:00 -0700

Q: So what is so fascinating about that tree to you?

A: Nothing really. It’s just always been there. Kinda classic looking, kinda stately, kinda timeless.

Q: You know it’s dead right? It’s not going to blossom again, it’s just going to stay like that. That is as far as it’s going to go.

A: Oh, I didn’t think about that. I guess you’re right, but it’s hard to imagine walking by and it not being right there.

This Is That Magazine, Spring 2012, 166 pages Edited by Kate...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 22:32:00 -0700

This Is That Magazine, Spring 2012, 166 pages

Edited by Kate Osba. Featuring Fiona Aboud, Timothy Archibald, Philip Cheung, Sam Comen, Robyn Twomey and Reed Young.

Design by Jennifer Cogliantry

Featuring Stereoscopy Photographs sixteen page portfolio and interview.

Buy it HERE.

Q: Back home now? A: Yep, here we are. I was talking to a...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:50:36 -0700

Q: Back home now?

A: Yep, here we are. I was talking to a friend and her theory was that once you start investigating family, in your writing or your photography, it changes the way you see everything. Once you dig deep into family, it always shows up in your work. It changes everything.

Q: Do you believe that?

A: Now I do, for sure.

A Letter

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 21:51:00 -0700

Hello Timothy ~

Just thought I might dash off a few first thoughts about the stuff you are putting on your Tumblr Stereoscopy.

I was quite struck by the first ones you posted, the ones of ur kids. There is so much whimsy in them, as well as a slight mind-fuck and some vague reference to photo history and even a few other threads I can’t pin down.

A very interesting continuation of your work with your kids and
about growing up, or something.

When you posted the ones of your dad I thought that they looked too preordained,
stiff. They lacked the overt whimsy of the earlier ones. Seemed, to me, to be the work
of a commercial photographer.

Then today I saw the one of yer mom and, while it still seemed pre-visualized and
sort of static (like the ones of your dad) there was some echoing in it of the ones of
your kids.

The kid ones look organic, like you weren’t even trying. The parent ones look like
you were (trying).

It’s just a feeling.

Now, could be that that’s what you want to do, to show the difference between the young
and the old. Or it could be that these reflect, somehow, your relationships with the
folks you are picturing. But it’s probably a combo of both those things and a hundred
other things as well.

As usual, I’ll leave the nuance to you. Like I said (and as typical) these are just
hammered out before dinner (damn, I’d better get the rice on) thoughts.

One way or the other, though, I’m digging who you are and what you’re in to.

Best regards.

XXXXX