Constantly Amazed by the Experience

Remembering Stephen Cysewski

STEPHEN CYSEWSKI, who passed away on July 20, 2020, was a Fairbanksbased photographer and Professor Emeritus at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) whose photographic work largely documents Alaska from the late sixties. The keystone of Steve’s approach to life and photography was that he learned to accept what was happening rather than holding on to his idea of what should have been happening, because he knew that doing so would have distracted him from reality. For Steve, photography was the interaction between what we see, what we experience, what we feel, and what we think.

In the weeks preceding his death, Steve and I talked several times. In one of the last calls we had he told me, “Maybe I am one of those people who gets famous after they die.” We laughed and then I told him that I was committed to transmitting his work. “I wonder, will my death be meaningful to somebody?” he asked. I was struck by that question. I said, “Yes, it will be meaningful to many, and definitely it will be meaningful to me. You have touched me deeply with your work and as a mentor.” As Steve would say, it was serendipitous that we met.

In February, I organized a solo exhibition of his work called All that we see is new but a photograph should age at Bivy, the art space I run in Anchorage. More recently, in collaboration with his daughter, Margaret Cysewski Rudolf, I curated an exhibition of his work called History and Personality are Both Revealed in Structures, currently on view on the website of the Anchorage SIMONETTA: If you look back at your body of work, all Museum. these years spent taking photographs, what are some

I am still humbled that Steve kept in touch thoughts that come to mind? with me during his last weeks. In one of our final conversations, I asked him to speak with STEVE: Well, I’m excited about your discovery of my me about his photography for FORUM. photos on Instagram because those are just... “Now!”— in the present moment. And they are unpredictable. I don’t go in with an intention—when I see something, I ask myself, “What is the feeling that I feel? Why do I “I stop, I look, and want to take the picture? Is it to share? Is it competition? Is it the joy of beauty? Is it a memory?” I’m trying to somehow in my be aware of that process. I notice something, I stop, I mind I calculate look, and somehow in my mind I calculate how that would be as a photograph or how I can express what I’m how that would be seeing as a photograph. Because whatever that was that as a photograph or catalyzed that feeling, the immediate thing that is there, that created a photographic moment—the composition, how I can express the light, a twig, or a distraction—I don’t want to lose what I’m seeing as a what that was that becomes a stimulus for a bigger set of interrogations of what I’m seeing.

photograph.”

SIMONETTA: In your photographic practice you respond to what you’re seeing, without creating a specific condition or setting for a photograph. Has this always been your approach?

STEVE: It has pretty much always been my approach. I mean, if you look back at the beginning it’s the same style all the way along. I love going to an environment that somehow is rich to me and just wandering around. Margaret [Steve’s daughter] and I sometimes will go back to places that we’ve both enjoyed. I’m looking at the old Tacoma photographs now... there is a deeper meaning especially in Tacoma and Seattle because I grew up there... the images of the brick buildings or the alleyways, they are images that have appeared periodically in my dreams.

PRECEEDING PAGES: Sandhill Cranes taking flight on a foggy morning at Creamer’s Field in Fairbanks. Steve walked at Creamer’s Field every morning since retirement.

ABOVE: Steve grew up in Washington state and often visited old haunts in Seattle and Tacoma to remember and document change. This photo was taken in Tacoma in the 1970s.

RIGHT: An Instagram/Facebook ‘Now’ photo taken May 2nd, 2020 inside Steve’s home.

STEVE: The other way around. Photography, the way of seeing, the way of responding was the dominant thing. Also philosophy, but that’s related to phenomenology, because it is the same thing as focusing on the experience. And in philosophy sometimes people get so immersed in what is true and what is false that they divorce themselves from their experiences. You see that same process happening to many photographers. But instead these are all organic processes.

SIMONETTA: You’ve always found joy in the experience of taking photos. Even more recently, and it’s understandable through your Instagram account, which I really like, in every photo there is now. And now. And now. In a way it illustrates how joyful it is to have the experience of being in the present moment.

STEVE: And also not looking for a photo... It all sort of amazes me. And then quite often I’ll think, “Okay, I’ll try to discipline myself, no photo today.” And then: “Oh look at that! Take a photo!” Some people use long lists of tags to attract viewers and I just don’t do “I have a philosophical it. If people find what I’m doing and find it useful to them, I want predisposition, of finding it to be a discovery for them, I didn’t herd them into doing how things connect something.

together. But it’s not the

SIMONETTA: I remember driving force, it’s a result that the first time I visited of experiencing.” your website was an incredible discovery for me. I instantly saw a great documentary and historical value in your work, but also in the composition. Even though you respond to what you see without too much of a visual pre-construction, the composition is always really good. There is a consistent, subconscious, visual response in your style, in effect, that goes hand in hand with your acceptance of reality for what it looks like.

STEVE: Yes, that’s true. Composition is an organic process that you have to tune yourself into. Things like the balance, etc., for me are not an intellectual process. I’m aware of the composition, and it’s really important to me, but it’s an organic process.

SIMONETTA: I suppose that composition is important to you not only because it is part of the experience itself, STEVE: Just recently I was reading about an older photographer who said that he was mentored by the history of documentary photography. And I think that’s true, and so many young photographers don’t have that, they don’t have that embedded awareness of what photography has meant for so many people, especially when they try to make it too perfect and all of that.

SIMONETTA: Is it fair to say, and I am not trying to merely reduce you to certain labels, that besides being a photographer, a teacher, a meditator, and therefore being more rooted in the experiential component of the practices, you’re also an intellectual?

STEVE: Yes, and that goes back to the fact that I have a philosophical predisposition, of finding how things connect together. But it’s not the driving force, it’s a result of experiencing. I had discoveries through the years but I didn’t find the avenues to present them, and now with my health, it is just not going to happen. But I much rather like to be in an environment where people ask me questions, it’s just much more rewarding for me.

SIMONETTA: You’ve been a teacher at UAF for many years, and Alaska Pacific University before then. Do you think that being a teacher influenced your photography in any way?

STEVE: I wanted to help people to find their own vision that expresses who they are, having confidence in what they’re seeing and not being distracted by judgments. The underlying sense of helping people express and discover themselves, as well as being vulnerable and exploring that vulnerability, learning from that and sharing it with others. Photography has helped me do that as a tool to guide others in finding their own centers of gravity. This one student I had took this very beautiful picture of a horse, a very close-up picture of a horse, it was very unintentionally abstract, and she just did it because that was what she saw. So there is an underlying unity, and that unity really has to do with people becoming fully who they are. Especially people who grew up in judging environments, or with racial and cultural prejudice, all those kinds of situations where the experiences you have devalue you in every step you take. And it’s not fair. It’s not true. It doesn’t have to be. And it can be overcome.

SIMONETTA: Yes, and that can be very empowering.

STEVE: Yes. It’s also based on my own life experience, to have empathy for people who experience the world that way. And Buddhism mixes in with all this stuff, it’s not the organizing principle or anything, more likely phenomenology is the organizing principle. Phenomenology is liberation.

ABOVE: As part of his role as documentary photographer, Steve made this photo inside the 1941 Fairbanks Hotel on 3rd Avenue right before it was demolished in 2004.

OPPOSITE: A Buddha Steve found in Bangkok, Thailand.

STEVE: Yes!

SIMONETTA: I like these parallels between seeing it for what it is and how what is can be translated into a photograph. But in a way, because you’re the one seeing it, it can’t be universal because there is your own eye, so there is a specific perspective and personality.

STEVE: As you’re talking I am thinking that I used to go down to Bird Point two or three times a week before it was part of the State Park. Or Creamer’s Field is a place that I returned to very often because of the joy and the stimulus that environment offered and the things that I could see there. And see again. And see again. It’s so rich. I kept returning because of the experiences I was having.

SIMONETTA: It’s all about the experience. One can intellectualize lots of things but then it all goes back to noticing reality, whether you’re practicing Buddhism or not, there is an alignment with the truth that happens when we observe reality, it’s just a matter of awareness. For instance, uncertainty is definitely part of reality and most things are unknown to us. Just taking the times that we are living in as an example, with the pandemic and other things that are happening. It can be profoundly unsettling, uncertain, unknown. Many people like to use the word unprecedented to describe them. But perhaps these times help us be in touch with the reality of uncertainty.

STEVE: For so many people who I care about and I communicate with, I find that they’re in denial, or they will say things like, “We’ll pray and it will get better.” And I keep trying to help them by saying: “That’s just going to torture yourself.” Because we don’t know any of that. But people are trying to create certainty for themselves.

SIMONETTA: And yet, living with uncertainty seems so unimaginable in the Western world. John Cage, an American artist who used to practice Zen, said: “I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I’m doing.” Does this resonate with you and your photography?

STEVE: I like that. That’s what you want because then you’re constantly amazed by your experience.

SIMONETTA: It makes you appreciate every moment. Life is a miracle, really.

STEVE: Yes!

May you be free May you be happy May you be at peace May you be at rest May you know we remember you ■

“Things like the balance, etc., for me are not an intellectual process. I’m aware of the composition, and it’s really important to me, but it’s an organic process.”

A 2019 photo of Steve, used as his artist profile photo.

STEPHEN CYSEWSKI lived in Fairbanks, Alaska. He graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in philosophy in 1967, then moved to Alaska as a VISTA Volunteer. He lived in the village of Shaktoolik for a year, and worked at many jobs including as a high school counselor for Indian Education at West Anchorage High School. He earned a master’s degree from Alaska Pacific University and was hired as an Assistant Professor in Information Technology at University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1991, retired as a Professor in 2007, and was granted emeritus status at retirement You can see his more of his work at www.wanderinginalaska.com.

SIMONETTA MIGNANO is from Italy and lives in Anchorage. She is the co-founder and director of Bivy, a contemporary art space in Anchorage, and the School of Nonfunctional Studies. She was a recipient of the SEED Lab Fellowship at the Anchorage Museum in 2019-2020. She is a member of the Italian collective and publishing house Viaindustriae. She is co-author of Come Cucinare Cuore e Cervello, Kiwi: Deliziosa Guida di Rosarno and Happy Fashion, among other publications, and she is cohost of the Togetherings, the Forum’s conversation series on KONR.

ABOVE: In the 1970s, Steve would often visit Bird Point south of Anchorage for the ever-changing rock and sediment formations from the tide.

RIGHT: Steve would often capture people and their relationships in real moments, such as this photo taken in the 1970s near Mt. Rainer in Washington state.