Reflections On Radiance: The Photography of Susan Schaefer

Article by Bob Ingram, photos by Susan Schaefer

Riverview Tower is a Minneapolis condominium high rise overlooking the mighty Mississippi, T.S. Eliot’s “strong brown god,” Huck Finn’s magic carpet into the American soul, and a visual preoccupation of mine each time I visit the upper floor unit of Mill City Times’ reporter and photographer, Susan Schaefer.

Long ago and far away, she and I were married, and only since then have I learned so much more about her, each stay in that welkin aerie and the now unarmed flow of our voices at table and at rest adding leaves of insight and wonder to the book of a life I had only glimpsed through the blinkered eyes of the rude boy I was then, married or no. It is a big life, and fool that I was, I let it pass through me.

But enough of that. Let us talk now of radiance and visibility coaxed from the invisible, to use Susan Schaefer’s very words, that is all taking place in the Lobby Gallery of that same Mississippi-marked Riverview Tower in an exhibition of the photographic art of this same Susan Schaefer, whom I had known only as a writer – albeit talented and lucid – in my green and stumbling years with her.  

There are women from whom festive events – parties, weddings, and the like – provoke a visible radiance, always there, slightly subsumed, but streamlined by the heightened interaction inherent in these social mixes. 

So it was at the opening of Susan’s one-woman Riverview Tower show this past Saturday, September 24th. She flowed among the throng of neighbors and friends, totally into each moment and person: a touch here, a laugh there, a quick discussion of this or that piece. Dance time to inner music. Wonderful to watch.

Which is as it should be because the many photo portraits on the lobby walls partake of this same radiance. She finds it and gently grasps it in her subjects with a simple click of the shutter (not that simple, truth to tell; she studies this art with the quiet dedication of a medieval scholar).

One series of photos I’ve been especially taken with and always thought was a telling concept of Susan’s involves getting everyday people to pose in the Namaste position, hands clasped, fingers pointed up, at chest level. It is Sanskrit-derived and still used as a greeting in India.

Namaste Izzy’s

And my favorite in the Namaste series was taken of workers at the iconic Izzy’s ice cream parlor in Mill City. The red-haired young woman between two of her co-workers moves me in a sweet, complete way: she is her own version of an unconsciously, slyly, shyly modern-day beatific – a budding double-dip saint, if you will.     

Namaste Kieran

Namaste Worker

Fate favors the prepared, and the mailman in the Namaste pictures was actually completing his last day before retirement, and might have been giving prayerful thanks for a career well spent for the public good. Another telling photo in this series has a construction worker posing naturally in front of a heavy-duty machine whose brand name, Vermeer, becomes both part of the image and, of course, a reminder that art is afoot here.

The Director

The woman in a photo titled simply “The Director” makes me wish I worked where she directs. There is a responsible kindness and strength in that face that says more about what we call work in all its elements than a shelf of books in the business section. Sign me up, direct me, we’ll get it done together. I trust you, ma’am.

Chester

On an easel, separate and apart, as he was in real life, sits the portrait of Chester, bearded, top-hatted, the local nomad – alcoholic and grubby – whose jury-rigged lean-to sits behind Riverview Tower’s parking lot, still occupied by his woman. Chester is dead now, and the Riverview receptionist, a pleasant, well-spoken man, said that during the day of the evening opening, he had to inform passing residents who commented on Chester’s portrait, that he had indeed passed away. He said it with a sad, slow shake of his head.

Karla’s Wash

Besides the portraits in the show, there is a photo called “Karla’s Wash,” taken in Plum City, Wisconsin. It is wildly popular each time she has shown it, Susan says, and I think this disarmingly simple shot of drying, flapping wash on a clothesline evokes to those of a certain age memories of when laundry was hung out to absorb the freshness and subtle smells of the clean, fresh air that is part and parcel of the blue-drenched sky overhead in that picture. If I were a marketer at, say, Oxydol, I would grab that photo and build a campaign around it.

Crushed Cans

The happiest, brightest piece at the Riverview is a 2014 photo called “Crushed Cans.” (All the photos were taken beginning in 2014 and most in the last two years, an amazing progress.) In it the local artist Brant Kingman stands before a dazzling panoply of the crushed cans with which he has made part of his wide range of art, a riotous whirligig mosaic of color and texture. His arms are outstretched and the blue of his patterned shirt blends into his kingdom of cans. He is very somber-faced and wearing a beige vest and a light tan, straw pork pie hat. The whole effect is simultaneously one of the seriousness with which he takes his work and the playful, hi res color that is its basis. You want to reach out and shake his hand and wait for him to break down and laugh with you.

Red Door

“Red Door” is just that, yet it could be a magic door: the textures of the worn wood and faded color bring to mind the Walker Evans Appalachian cabin walls of “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” What lies behind that red door? Enter and see.

My Lost Yiddish Civilization

Finally, Susan Schaefer has recently been working in collage and the result in the Riverview Tower show is a deeply religious work entitled, “My Lost Yiddish Civilization”, of two parallel strips of her collaged poetry, faded photos of her ancestors, and excerpts from the Kabbalah. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking work of achieved reverence and respect.

Riverview Tower Lobby Gallery is located at 1920 S. 1^stStreet, Minneapolis, MN. The phone number is 612-338-1920. Hopefully, a call ahead will admit you to see this memorable exhibit that runs until November 25, 2016. Her next one-woman show opens March 21, 2017 at the Birchwood Café in the Seward Neighborhood.

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Editor’s Note: Bob Ingram is a writer/journalist/editor/filmmaker whose work has appeared in Philadelphia Magazine, Atlantic City Magazine, South Jersey Magazine, the Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Weekly, Atlantic City Weekly, the Drummer, and the South Street Star, among others. A recipient of the Philadelphia Bar Association Scales of Justice Award for a story on Juvenile Court, and an award from Sigma Delta Chi, the national journalism fraternity, for a story on Vietnamese refugees, Ingram has also co-written, co-produced and narrated a documentary film about the Boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ, called Boardwalk: Greetings from Wildwood By-The-Sea that airs regularly on local PBS stations.