La Playa
August 7 – 30, 2003
When I visit my grandmothers, there’s usually a list of chores scribbled on a yellow post-it note and stuck near the phone. Their lives are plagued with a constant stream of things that need doing, things beyond their physical capacity; light bulbs that need changing, windsocks that need to be hung, toilets with flushes that stick.
A few years ago, my father’s parents moved to La Playa Manor Estates, a senior citizen residential community, in an attempt to organize and simplify their lives. La Playa is a place of order. Before my grandfather had to be moved out, just a couple of years after they had moved in, he took comfort in the fact that his lawn would be mowed on Tuesdays before noon and that the watering would be taken care of, whether he remembered it or not.
This project began while visiting family in the summer of 2001. This was a period of time that followed the death of my father-in-law, saw significant declines in the health of both of my grandfathers, and the summer that my wife became pregnant with our son, Sam. It was a time during which the smallest gestures and objects of the everyday took on a significant weight.
Making photographs isn’t necessarily enough, but still, it’s something worth scribbling on my list in the morning. It’s another of the things that needs to be done.
– (written in 2003)
Shawn Records holds a BA from Boise State University and an MFA from Syracuse University. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), LightWork, and the Portland Art Museum (PAM) and has been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Blue Sky (August 2003) and Castillo/Corralles and group exhibitions at MoCP, PAM, Jen Bekman, the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Gallery at Reed College, and Photo Center Northwest, among others. His work has been published widely, including Vice magazine’s annual photo issue, Contact Sheet, Remain in Light, Camerawork, Pause to Begin, DoubleTake, and Adbusters. From the Bottom of a Well, a “poetic and tragically humorous account” of a 2010 Chinese government-sponsored trip, was published by A-Jump books. Based in Portland, Oregon, Records also teaches photography and serves as President of the Board of Directors of Photolucida.
