What I See

What I See

By Feng Haoyu

1+NEW YORK Spent 1 week in New York, found 1 thing at a time, photograph 1+ New York.

1 chandelier

1 glass

1 rain

1 piece of paper

1 baby

1 song

1 call

1 delivery

1 shot

1 naked lady

1 pregnant women

1 couple

1 door

1 cross

1 read

1 nanny

1 man

1 lost key

1 bite

1 kiss

1 beauty

1 piece of art

Jim Campbell 1956 In 2012, I worked with Jim Campbell on one of his art projects, and the series was created in his studio in San Francisco. it shows his workplace, his work in a afternoon in San Francisco, and amazing details even when the art pieces are work in progress.

Jim Campbell was born in 1956 in Chicago and educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gifted electrical engineer Jim Campbell is recognized around the world for his fusion of technology, art, and human relations. He lives and works in San Francisco, California as an artist.

California Spring Break Spring break falls around 4/08 nation wide in USA. This is a California middle school, left with mark of teens.

Back to the Roots 2009 Back to the Roots was founded by Alejandro Velez & Nikhil Arora during their last semester at UC Berkeley in 2009. Two months away from graduation, and heading into the corporate world of investment banking & consulting, they came across the idea during a class lecture of being able to potentially grow gourmet mushrooms entirely on recycled coffee grounds. Inspired by the idea of turning waste into wages & fresh, local food, they experimented in Alex's fraternity kitchen, ultimately growing one test bucket of tasty oyster mushrooms on recycled coffee grounds. With that one bucket, some initial interest from Whole Foods & Chez Panisse and a $5,000 grant from the UC Berkeley Chancellor for social innovation, they decided to forget the corporate route, and instead, become full-time urban mushroom farmers!

Inspired by the idea of producing local, fresh food from what was an urban waste stream, Back to the Roots has since grown to create the Grow-Your-Own Mushroom Garden which lets anyone, across the country, grow their own gourmet mushrooms at home as well!

Daniel 1948 These photos tell a story about our lives. Even though the children and grandchildren are not in them, they and others in our family are in photos and object in the background of this pictures. Our house is such an important character in our lives. For years we dreamed of having a house. When we rented we always talked about the things we would do, always including walls we would tear down! Our house has been Daniel's canvas. He has done all the remodeling, built lots of the furniture, created the garden, build me beautiful things and given me my wonderful nest.

This has been, in some ways the most difficult period of our lives. So much going on. Daniel's cancer, the accident, my mother moving in. But through it all we have not forgotten that we are blessed. I am reminded of it every time I lift my eyes and see something beautiful that Daniel has created. Our joke is that he is an "artist in residence", our residence!

Life is rich, and messy and complicated. I think beauty is an important reminder that there is always something to come back to. It has accompanied us through all that has happened these last few months. As I write this Daniel and the dog are asleep in our bed, that Daniel built. I look up to see pictures of fathers, grandmothers, sisters, children, and grandchildren and listen for the sounds of my mother sleeping in the other room.

By Daniel's wife, Denise

Daniel: I've always been an engineer and a musician. Here, my father caught me working on a motorized "windmill", which I suppose one would call a fan.

Denise: I have always loved this picture of Daniel. It is remarkable to me that he was so completely who he is when he was so young.

Daniel: OK, OK. I'm a bit of a mad man. But I do my solid modeling of a car frame in soda straws.

Denise: Daniel is right, he is a mad man. He is so in his element here.

Daniel: There are little ideas in each frame that make them worth keeping.

Denise: The first moment I noticed I was in love with Daniel was seeing this look of pure concentrate. I have never known anyone who puts themselves more into their work.

Daniel: ...even if they are taking over my electronics shop.

Denise: He delights in his madness.

Denise: Daniel loves spending time in his basement. It is his domain.

Daniel: The seven-foot ceilings in my wood and metal shop, allow me to hang lots of stuff from the ceiling.

Denise: Daniel is a wonderful blend of craftsperson, mad scientist, and philosopher. I love this picture of him, it is so Daniel.

Daniel: It's a little embarrassing to have Maher Baba looking over us as we make love, but he does.

Denise: This picture is so rich, with all the family pictures and yes, Meher Baba watching over us. The photo of Meher Baba belonged to our close friend and housemate Roman. He lived with us while he was dying and this picture watched over him, it still gives me comfort. I believe that God shows up everywhere. Certainly for me one of the places is in that kind look of his.

Daniel: Proof positive that there isn't enough room to put a little dinette area in the kitchen...kidding. 8?)

Denise: Daniel and I collaborated on almost all of the design aspects of the house, but it has been his genius and hard work that has made it happen. One of the few fights we got into in the remodel was my wanting this dinette, that he was against. But here it is.

And all Pliskin. Three legged table, lamp (still a work in progress), wonderful pass through where the cat and the grandchildren love to sit.

Daniel: I got the idea to open up the built-in, so that light would get through between the living room to the kitchen. The next day I was up there with a skill saw, slicing and dicing. And I'm still glad I did it.

Denise: The picture to the left of Daniel was done by our foster-son's mother when she was just getting off of heroin. She was clean for over 15 years before descending into the abyss again. You can see it in her sad eyes.

Daniel: When you stop thinking you get kudos for being miserable, life shows up as fabulous.

Denise: Daniel and I have an amazing life. When I look at this picture I think of what we have gone through this past year and feel blessed. When we found out Daniel had cancer it was terrifying. When he lost his fingers a few months later it seemed like something out of a bad movie. But it here we are, happy and feeling blessed.

Daniel: I love to weld, so I gave myself the assignment to come up with ten steel spheres, of different technologies. It's amazing how much geometry I need to dredge up, in order to make these things.

Denise: I love these balls! I have commissioned 30 from 4' in dia to 1". So far I have 2 and am told there is a 3rd in the shop. I really want 100, but I may wait to tell Dan.

Daniel: Gee, we've had several weddings at our houses, so that the newly weds could kiss under my arch of roses, but this is the first time I've gotten kissed under it.

Denise: I love this photo, there is so much going on. Our house that we love so much, our wonderful dog, the arch that represents a gateway to life, the two of us together.

Daniel: Somehow, I got more interested in practicing than in performing. I've practiced one instrument or another, for the last 59 years. For the last 14 years, it's been the trombone.

Denise: One of the saddest things to me when Daniel lost his fingers was that he would no longer be able to play the guitar, banjo, English horn or oboe. But I am so glad he has his trombone. But he's wrong, he has been playing it got 16 year. He started when I went to India to take Roman's ashes to Meher Baba tomb in India.

Daniel: Is my wife eating a pillow?

Denise: This is actually a very reveling photo. We were just getting the room ready to move my mother in. There is here wheel chair in the background. I think I was filled with hope and fear. Another big change in our lives.

Denise: I look so serious here, and a little sad. Perhaps just pensive. The background is filled with our lives. A sculpture Daniel's mother did of him, a painting by our granddaughter, photos of and by Daniel's father on the shelf. Both of Daniel's parents were artist. His father was a famous advertising exec, one of the Mad Men.

Denise: Our Dining room was inspired by a wonderful hotel in Manhattan that has a large open lobby that is a cafe and a library. I wanted to paint the wall black but Daniel vetoed that. So much has happened in this room. Wonderful meals, great conversations, the grandkids toys are in there, so much life.

Daniel: It strikes me as odd that I really haven't changed all that much over the last 55 years.

Denise: I love this picture of Daniel with himself as a child. He is still very boyish!

Daniel: You seem to particularly love seeing D and I kissing.

Denise: Here we are, in our wonderful little house. Daniel's canvass.

Daniel: Yow, If I can just keep my mouth shut, I just might get some tonight.

Denise: Daniel's sarcasm (note HIS comment), is what I love least about him. What I love most is how brilliant and creative he is. But also how big his heart is. He hides it behind his sarcasm.

Daniel: Again, Dan working on a motorized "windmill".

Denise: There is so much in this photo. I didn't expect to be so moved. That same wonder that was there when he was young has sustained him. There is also my covering Daniel's hands with mine. When he lost his fingers I was, in some ways, more devastated than he. I had felt, irrationally, that I should have been able to protect him from harm. Somehow I think that is my job, to keep my family safe. I failed.

/End

Henry 1961 Henry Evans suffered a brain stem stroke at age 40 that left him paralyzed and mute. Robot maker Willow Garage helps Henry and his wife Jane in a project dubbed Robots for Humanity, which is exploring using a robot as a surrogate for Henry's paralyzed body. Henry controls the robot with minute head movements.

I documented a robot(PR2) test with Henry before a demo for a class from Stanford on a beautiful California afternoon in 2013. And I decided to mix in his story with my photographic series

From Henry's blog CHAPTER 1 - THE EARLY DAYS, TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2006 Things finally seemed to be settling down. I had a decent job that I actually liked, my kids were doing pretty well in school, and my marriage was good. We had just stretched to buy a house; no mean feat in the Bay Area when you have one breadwinner and four kids. I had just had a complete physical and the doctor said I was in 'excellent shape '. I coached my boys in football and baseball and was very active in the Scouts and school. All in all, your basic American Dream. I was forty, and it felt like life was just beginning.

My wife says I stumbled down the hall, using the walls for support. I said I just wanted to hold Jane and fall asleep. She insisted on calling my doctor. It would not be the last time she would save my life. I had to crawl out to the car, and could barely climb in. Jane urged me on, and then drove me to Mt View. My doctor took one look at me and said, "Take him to the ER."

When I started to come to, I was on life support. My kids cried when they saw me. I remember Jane singing 'Phantom of the Opera' songs to me, because she had heard that people in comas can often hear you. I used to play those songs a lot.

Jane noticed I was following along with my eyes. I soon realized they were all I could move-in fact, they were the only reason I was not a complete vegetable.

My dad explained that I had no motor control, and I got it - I was trapped in my own body.

When I came to I was on about 25 medications , mostly antibiotics to keep me from starting to rot alive - since I could not move and my immune system was probably doing overtime .

The immediate effect of this was that I frequently had hallucinations . First , I was convinced that I was in Kaiser Permanente , and that the doctors were trying to kill me. I also thought some woman kept dressing up like my Mom to gain my trust and then do me in . I thought the nurses kept intervening , against orders , to save me from being dumped into a meat grinder . Although I never moved from the ICU , I thought they had put me in a parking garage to save money.

I imagined that I kept going places and our car had a special lift to get me in . I used to swim a lot, and I kept fantasizing about the water. We had just driven through the Sonora Pass on vacation and I dreamt we went there again . For awhile I thought I had turned into a horse , roaming Central California.

My friends must have kept visiting , because I had all kinds of hallucinations about them. I thought some guy was trying to take advantage of my situation and get my 54 MG, which I had built in high school and still treasured . I vaguely remember the doctors saying I had a periodic fever ; this must have been related to the hallucinations , which came and went. The hallucinations were unnerving , and basically the time in the ICU seemed to take forever. When the nurses started calling me 'the miracle ,' I realized how close I had come to death.

Finally a Doctor from a rehab hospital came in . He made me laugh for the first time . They made it sound like his exam was very important ; that his rehab hospital was a big deal and was hard to get in to. I did get in.

They took Jane into a room full of doctors and told her that , in their professional opinion , I would never move and her best bet was to pump me full of anti-depressants and stick me in an institution , and soon. Well, that was the wrong thing to say to Jane . She told them she didn't care how many degrees they had, that I was young and they had no right to jump to conclusions. They acted like she was just a grieving spouse , so she stormed out of the room.

It wasn't too long before I proved the doctors wrong. On my birthday , October 10. I moved my left index finger . Jane said it was the best birthday present I could have given her. They tried to move me back to the stroke floor , but we said we were done moving . It was not long before my six year old taught me how to wink. He was very persistent and I told him I did it to get him out of my face . Winking may not sound like much , but it was huge. To this day I wink when I need a scratch, and to indicate the end of a word on my board . But back to my finger . My speech therapist immediately recognized the significance of my finger moving and began to train me to click a mouse. After I learned to click a mouse , the speech therapist hooked me up to a special computer . By now I had a little control over my neck. They put a reflective dot on my glasses and put a laser device on the computer . It reflected off of my dot, so that my head movement moved the mouse. The computer had an on-screen keyboard , so I could point at a letter and then click. In this way I could slowly spell out words.

WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE PARALYZED AND MUTE First of all, I should explain exactly what is wrong with me. When the inner lining of my basilar artery came apart, it destroyed my center of motor control, leaving me quadriplegic and mute. Only my eyelids were not affected. My center of emotional control was also severely damaged, leaving me extremely labile. My senses, including touch, were not affected.

Neither was my mind, including my memory, which is very good. People, especially little children, often ask me what it feels like to be paralyzed.

I guess the best way for me to summarize what it is like to be mute and quadriplegic is to think of a dog. In a word, it is very dehumanizing. Dogs can't talk, so many people assume 1) they are pretty stupid compared to people who can (I know some people who might be exceptions), and 2) that they have no emotions. Their behavior is shaped by obeying orders to get treats. They like to have their heads rubbed. If people get tired of them, they put them in a room and leave.

All of this could be said about me, especially when I am around only strangers. Around people who knew me before my stroke, it is different. They assume I am still at least partly the person I always was.

What is 'the Board'?

'Physically, it is a 12" by 12" piece of Plexiglas with all 26 letters and all 10 digits stenciled on it. The translator then holds it up between us so I can see all the letters. I stare at the group of letters that contains the one I want. The translator calls them out until I hear the one I want, at which point I nod. In this way we slowly spell what I want to say. It is very slow. Before I could nod, I blinked, which was even slower.

Our latest email conversation: Yu: Morning Henry, This is a series of pictures I picked, I hope the Stanford demo went well. On Wednesday, everyone is patient even though the test wasn't going very smooth.

Henry: thee pictures look great! nice lens! the stanford demo went extremely well[we found the problem] thanks for coming!

/End