THE FRONT Q&A
NATURE ALWAYS WINS A Q&A WITH ROBBIE BRINDLEY. And whether or not you like it, decay is part of the South. Decay is everywhere. It’s hard to keep mold out of a house in Arkansas because it’s so humid. The grass grows fast. It’s great, but when you’re trying to be a human living in that space, it can be hard. … I wanted it to feel like West Helena in August, which is an awful thing. What’s weird is that I find those things endearing now that I’ve embraced living in the South. I started wearing tank tops, and I was like, “OK, now I get it. I look like a redneck, but I get it.” Those sorts of things are funny to me. Like, “This field is really beautiful, but do not run through it, because it’s full of copperheads.” I like it here. I find it very romantic.
MATT WHITE
Maybe, like me, you first encountered Robbie Brindley’s photography by way of social media, where his work jumped off the screen with kinetic depictions of Hot Springs revelers, fresh off the dance floor at the town’s annual Valley of the Vapors festival or frolicking in front of a minimalistic backdrop on the way into a documentary film festival afterparty. What you’ll find in his new book, “Kudzu and the Usual Erosion,” though, is unabashedly still, heavy, humid — and probably best summed up by this passage in its introduction: “At some point, we all start to crumble; the things that once made us feel strong are soon made weak, and remind us of just how vulnerable we are. We’re the same as an old house on a humble road or a storm moving across the Delta. We’re here and we’re strong, then we aren’t. … . This is a study on those things — on understanding childhood or the people that influenced it. It’s a constant reminder of how frail we are and how nature always wins. It’s a way of coming to terms. It’s a desire to live peacefully with demise.”
WHAT ALBUM(S) ARE YOU LISTENING TO THESE DAYS? Will Johnson, “Wire Mountain” and Jason Molina, “Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go.”
Yeah. I find that as I get older, I mark the year differently. And maybe more like the way I marked it when I was a child, when the first firefly of the year felt like the beginning of something. Yeah, and the past year did that to us, too, where we were very slowed down. You notice when the dogwoods or the Bradford pears start to bloom, like “It’s almost here.” And then it starts storming. And then the fall comes and it gets quiet. Or you mark time by how bad your allergies are.
How did you pick these subjects? They don’t seem like the sorts of things you So obviously you took a huge risk developing HIDDEN TALENT? I can nap anywhere. pick out beforehand as destinations, but the film last thing, in such a volatile way. things you happen upon on your way to FAVORITE GAS STATION FOOD? Hunt Brothers What was your reaction when you started to somewhere else. see the work? pizza. It was definitely just driving around. Going First, I was really happy to see that there were for a drive is a good way to deal with photos on the film. My friend Annie Gerber BIGGEST ARTISTIC INFLUENCE? People who anything. Especially in the Delta. If someone live simply and work hard and live a normal, scanned all of it for me, and she’d send them is, like, right on my tail, I’ll just pull over and to me. And I was surprised at the diversity of quiet life. let them go around. ‘Cause I just wanna what I’d done. … I’m not one to trust myself. be out there and listen to NPR, or some And with this project, it was very personal music. There were plenty of days when I went out and didn’t even because I had to trust myself, and trust what I was attracted to. … not take a photo. … It’s really odd and it was scary, but I did this project pushing ideas away or pulling them in, and trying not to have pride in an without developing any of the film prior. I shot a roll and I would keep unhealthy way. that roll. I developed it all at once. Because I didn’t want to be like, “Oh, here’s this photo, it needs this other kind of photo to complement it.” … . If there’s anything the photos get across, it’s humility, right? It’s If the whole project came out and it was all roads or something — like, the idea you talk about in the book’s introduction, that nature always subconsciously, I was doing that — then that’s how I wanted it to be. wins, and that we are very small, and all these things will pass. A friend was telling me, “You’re absolutely an idiot, because you don’t Yeah. The losing of one’s self is a beautiful thing. I still struggle with know if you have a project or not. Like, what if the rolls all come out all of those things, but I’m in a lot better place than I was before the black or something?” But I didn’t want to have a photo and have it start project, as far as humility and patience. And hopefully grace and to become this ego-driven thing. I just wanted it to be like when I was kindness. younger. When you’d just take a Polaroid because you felt like taking a Polaroid. … It’s very honest, and the way they were chosen is almost —Stephanie Smittle childlike. Just because they looked neat, or odd. Find the book at robbiebrindley.com, and find the full version of this interview at arktimes.com/rock-candy. ARKANSASTIMES.COM
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