Mother May I

Aside from the plethora of tragedies that converged this past week on this culture, a couple of homegrown phenomena crossed paths in front of me.  While the Mayor of Portland was telling the media that he's aware that the new name for his city has become "Tent City," I finished the novel Mary Coin by Marisa Silver.
Portland has a serious homeless problem.  Parts of the city resemble the "Hoovervilles" of the 1930s. Tests and makeshift lean-tos pockmark the bridges, underpasses, and trails surrounding the many beautiful parks.  It's the underbelly of the American Dream and it won't go away.  Now, the problem has morphed with the addition of broken down RVs that are often towed to a city lot for destruction.  It's not uncommon to find a person's belongings inside these decrepit vehicles.
But then, living on the side, or by the side, or underneath or on the margins is nothing new.  In fact, one of the most iconic photographs of all time, Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" takes this lowest rung of human existence and converts it to fine art.

This photo, which brings from 40 to 400,000 dollars for an original print is now the subject of a remarkable novel by Marisa Silver.  In her work, Silver creates an alternate universe that brings together the lives of the subject and the photographer.  The cliche says it's worth a thousand words, but Silver has made an entire novel, and one worth reading at that.
She takes some of the facts and then skillfully carves out a story of the woman by the side of the road and who she is and what has brought her to this moment in time.  Combined with a couple of other characters, we see how the photographer, Vera, based on Lange, has issues and challenges in her life that are remarkably similar to Mary Coin, the fictional name for the mother in the photo.
Real life tells us that in the 1970s when the woman, Florence Thompson was re-discovered, she took exception to some of the facts and disputed Lange's telling of the tale.  But no matter, the picture is frozen in time and its impact cannot be undone.
People often ask what made Lange such a skilled photographer?  Much of her skill was enhanced by her own vulnerability.    Lange walked like the polio survivor she was.  Keenly aware of angles and distance.  The fact that she moved with a hitch in her walk that seemed to serve as a comforting attribute.  A photographer must maneuver into position to get the shot and Lange was easily able to do just that.
Probably, somewhere in Portland today, and perhaps in your town as well, is a photograph waiting to be taken because it represents all the anguish and uncertainty of our own times.  I doubt it could ever achieve the status of "Migrant Mother" because our visual literacy seems to be changing as well as our ability to empathize.