I have been friends with Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary’s founders Jenny Brown and Doug Abel since a bit before they started working on the sanctuary in 2004, and have been blessed to watch it grow into the wondrous hippy hipster refuge for rescued critters that it is today. It somehow still feels strange for me to go to the events at the farm when the animals we call people outnumber the people we call animals. The time I spend there photographing the animals is typically peaceful and meditative as I try to imagine the world through their eyes and understand who they are. There is plenty of commotion; grunting pigs, chickens and roosters chasing each other around squawking, goats bleating and maybe a cow’s ruminating bellow sounding above the crowd. And of course there is Jenny Brown making her rounds chatting with the animals and orchestrating the day to day chores involved in running a farm animal sanctuary. Still, with the mountains all around and the immense importance of what is being done here, it feels somehow quiet and relaxed.

By contrast, the June Jamboree is an event bristling with families and activity, live music and amazing vegan food being served by celebrity chef Isa Moskowitz. There are lots of people I know, social responsibilities to attend to, foods to sample, pictures to take and potty breaks. For some reason I tend to spend less time with the animals when there is an event going on (except for the ones with opposable thumbs). It is heartwarming to see kids and animals bonding, and wondering if they will grow up to be compassionate and wise. I photograph these interactions because I know they will be used to bring people and donations to the farm, even though it feels a little intrusive sometimes. Usually I just put on a big lens and stay in the background, but sometimes I have to come in close with my wide angle to see what’s up.

I had originally hoped to attend this event with the Vegan Bus, but as it turned out the bus was in the shop getting new brakes, and so my friend Meredith drove me down along with my friend Scott and her friend Wendy. It is fun to be in a car full of vegans and the two plus hour drive through the Berkshire Mountains and into the Catskills went quickly. It was Wendy and Meredith’s first time visiting WFAS, and they were both moved by the experience. Scott seemed to enjoy himself as well, didn’t you Scotty? I thought so.

Anyway, here are some photos of the trip, hope you enjoy them and will be encouraged to visit, donate, volunteer, or send some love.

See all of the photos on my flickr account.

Close-up of Monica’s skate and her evil ass…

I’m in New Orleans this week visiting my partner Monica who is a star player for the Big Easy RollerGirls (BERG). For anyone unfamiliar with roller derby, it is quite a rough sport and all of the players have satirical names that suggest violence or sexual promiscuity. Monica’s derby name is “Ibeatya Amber”, after a Louisiana-brewed beer called Abita Amber. Her teammates gave me a “derby boyfriend” name, “Ibeathim”.

We took a road trip down to Tallahassee, Florida for their match with Capital Punishment. Unfortunately BERG got their butts kicked, but they did it with style. There matches are always followed by an after-party, in this case at some kind of clam shack. The girls all got liquored up and performed some outstanding karaoke. There was also a leg wrestling match, in which the participants lay on their backs with heads next to the other ones feet, and interlock their adjacent legs. The object is to flip the other person. Monica was really great at this, only one woman could beat her, and she was about twice Monica’s size.

The next day we drove back, with a stop in Ft Walton to go swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. All in all it was quite a thrilling experience from start to finish. Ibeatya… my vegan derby dream girl!

Capital Punishment’s “La Voodoo” about to fall on BERG’s Deb-U-Taunt

Buck Wild giving the elbow

Monica and I at a Starbucks in Ft. Walton on the way home

Here is a slide show with all the photos…

this poem is my gift to you
in this prelude to the new swine flu
we all feared, but who really knew?

who knew these sweet and noble beings?
live confined in their own shit and vomit
on concrete beds beneath artificial light?
thank god they can not think and feel
like we do.

well who really knew?
it did not say so on the pinkish styrofoam
or even on the news.

if i said i knew
you would hang me from the highest tree
for lying to your children.

if i said i knew
you would put your hands around my throat
and choke the words inside of me.

if i claimed to have lived with snakes
inside of a volcano
you might believe me
yet if i told you the world is alive
you would say i am a lie.

in this time we have to dance tonight
in this sweet twilight of an era
i will say that i forgive you
and tell you that i love you
and that is the truth.

this way has been passed down
from mother to baby
father to child
like faery tales of santa clause and jesus
we flash our funny little teeth
and pretend to be carnivores
something about killing someone else
makes us feel immortal
something about someone else’s flesh
can taste like heaven for a moment.

the world is alive
her strangled seas
her burdened air
her sweet pigs
most noble and loyal of creatures
sweet sweet pigs.

who knew the consequence of commodifying sentience?
pigs so different from us on the outside
but to a virus perhaps not so different
from the impoverished worker
who had to kill mothers and babies
over and over until he was de-humanized

who knew that even a penny of our purchase
went to the man who came home with a pandemic?
it didn’t say so on the cellophane
dripping with blood
it only said cook to a proper temperature
and everything will be all right.

These photos are from my recent visit to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary with my wondrous girlfriend Monica. It was her first time visiting the farm, and she was in vegan paradise! We picked a good weekend to go, as there were some new rescues who are both extremely lovable and ridiculously photogenic.

The star of the weekend was definitely the new baby goat named Anne. She was only 5 days old and just starting to run around and attempt little goat jumps. Once she tired herself out she would just sit in your arms and be loved. When it was feeding time she would down a soda bottle full of goat milk in about 20 seconds. She also liked to suck on people’s fingers. Anne was born on a goat farm where her mother got an udder infection and refused to feed her. A compassionate person working at the farm brought her to Woodstock. She still had a little umbilical cord dried up on the outside of her belly, and everyone was enthralled by her cuteness.

I was also happy to get to photograph the Valentines Piglets, named so because they arrived on Valentines weekend. They were three months old when we were there, double the age they were when they arrived, but still piglets none the less!

A man in western New York purchased 4 young pigs from an Amish farmer to raise for slaughter. He kept the pigs in a small, unheated garage, and one morning discovered that one of the pigs had given birth during the night. Twelve tiny piglets lay next to their mother, wet and covered with excrement. Eight were already dead and four others lay shivering and barely alive.

The Rehabilitator, Shanon Rumbugh, received the call on New Year’s Eve and she rushed the piglets home. She tirelessly nursed them back to health—but it wasn’t an easy road. Once they were stable, the original owners had the gall to ask for them back to raise for slaughter along with the others.

Right before we left there was another group of babies arriving, chicks from a school hatching project. I didn’t get to photograph them much, but they sure were cute and fuzzy!

As happens frequently around Easter, we received a call from a school teacher looking for a home for 5 just-hatched chicks — the living, breathing result of a classroom project. These fuzzballs quickly grow into larger hens and roosters who have a lot of space, temperature and care requirements, and can live for over a decade.

As soon as the novelty is over, assuming the chicks or ducklings can survive the unnurturing classroom environment, the teacher or parent has to find a “home” — more often than not the end of the road for those animals. The takeaway for the kids is less about biology and more about the disposability of life. If you’re a parent or student who hears of an upcoming hatching project, please encourage that teacher to consider more humane alternatives to hatching.

I also took some photos of founders Jenny Brown and Doug Abel with animals and the farm in the background. They are two of my favorite people so that part was fun. Of course lots of photos of Monica, and she took some of me. In-between we worked on the farm and ate lots of amazing vegan food, had profound conversations, and were constantly reminded why we choose the vegan path and how blessed we are to be on it.

Check out www.WoodstockSanctuary.org to learn about ways you can help out and to see more of my fabulous photographs!

As a wedding photographer I support marriages of all types. As a human being and citizen of this country I think that denying marriage to people based on their sexuality is just another form of oppression, based on fear and misunderstanding. Being a citizen means standing up for the rights of others, and respecting their biology and their beliefs. I feel it is a deep shame on California for enacting this unconstitutional proposition. Sometimes humor is one of the best ways to point out the absurdity of human beliefs, as in this video “Prop 8 The Musical” featuring Jack Black as Jesus…

The Commonwealth Center for Change (C3) is a nonprofit that provides office and program space, shared resources and capacity building programs to local progressive nonprofits and artists so they can do their work more sustainably, effectively and collaboratively. Storefront ART is a new Commonwealth Center for Change program that supports local artists by working with building owners to creatively use vacant downtown storefronts as temporary artist studio, gallery and performance space. I am currently one of several curators for the future art that will happen in these spaces.

The kick-off event for C3 happened on Friday June 13th, and featured work from all of the curators plus some performance artists. It was held at the brand new “Windows” gallery on Main St in Northampton which is run by the non-profit arts organization A.P.E. (Available Potential Enterprises, Ltd.). The event went perfectly, and we are all very proud of the work we did and the turnout.

We started with a parade through Northampton featuring local dixieland band The Primate Fiasco. We had hula hoopers and my friend Gina Gaetz in a frog costume, and caused quite a commotion downtown. People just love a parade, even when it is on the sidewalk! The security team at Thornes weren’t amused when we marched through the mall, but was nearly as fun getting chased out as it was making a ruckus inside (I should mention that this was a spontaneous idea, and nothing that we had planned with C3).

The show itself kicked off at 5pm and featured performances by folk singer Dave Dersham, modern dancer Vanessa Anspaugh, the Serious Play! Theater Ensemble, youth video art group Video Vanguards and a hula hoop performance by myself (billed as “The Human Centrifuge“) and the lovely Hoop Master Sass. The event ended with an amazing performance by the FemmeAesthetik female hip hop crew.

Visual artists in the show included Martha Fleming-Ives, Julia Handschuh, Megan E Labonte, Oceana Shawanda and Brettney Young. Jenny Orozco set up a really cool sound installation piece which was a gold tent people could lay inside and listen to music on headphones. I debuted a new approach to showing my farm animal photographs I called “Reason“. The photos of the animals were displayed in a horizontal row of 11×14 clip frames with text on them answering the commonly asked question “Why are you a vegetarian?” in a variety of poetic ways. In a vertical row of more decorative but smaller frames running through the center of the animal photos I had photographs of meat that gave reasons I have heard people espouse for eating flesh. I just came up with the idea in the last couple of weeks and I am hoping to expand on it in future shows and projects.

I got lots of great response both on my photos and on the hula hoop performances. The whole event was documented by Northampton Community Television (NCTV) so hopefully there will be some video soon. Thanks to everyone who came out and made it a great night!

Promo image from heads 2 Hoops Exhibit

On March 6th Megan E LaBonte and myself held the opening for our Heads 2 Hoops show at the Green Bean in downtown Northampton. The turnout was great and people seemed to really enjoy the work as well. I created a coffee table book in iPhoto and ordered a couple copies, which sat on a table with one of Megan’s heads and our comment book. We also had a companion “Green Bean Exhibit Zine” to go with the exhibit.

Megan’s mother came through in the last minute with some vegan cakes and a vegan peanut butter pie. Megan made several pans of her new favorite recipe, vegan stuffed shells, which were scooped up in the first half hour. I contributed some Scheese, the amazing new vegan cheese from Ireland that tastes great on crackers and comes in several flavors. It is available locally at Cafe Evolution I should add.