Maya Washington (www.mayawashington.net) reached out to Tom Baker (www.manitouphotos.com) and me about collaborating for a submission based for the MadeHere MN: Energy public art exhibition on themes from her documentary “Through the Banks of the Red Cedar (www.throughthebanksoftheredcedar.com). Knowing that her documentary chronicles the story of her father, Gene Washington, and his former football teammates from #MichiganState and the pros, I couldn’t wait to hear her ideas. From that first phone call, I knew this was going to be something special – Maya's passion to tell her dad’s story across multiple platforms encourages you to do anything possible to assist her in accomplishing her goal. In fact, she has now written a book of the same name available on Amazon (www.amazon.com/ThroughTheBanksOfTheRedCedar).
Our concept was to take dignified portraits of Gene Washington, Carl Eller and Alan Page, incorporate their quotes from “Through the Banks of the Red Cedar” and pair them with images of fit models at their physical peak. Over the next few months, we rode a rollercoaster together – learning from each and every step of this process.
One memory that sticks out is listening repeatedly to the voicemail from Maya when we found out our project would be on the side of Mayo Clinic Square in Downtown Minneapolis to make sure I heard her correctly. When we finally saw the awe-inspiring (and slightly overwhelming) sight of the over 15-foot tall blank canvases where our artwork would be displayed, we snapped into problem-solving mode. Swift decisions followed as we figured out the image and quote selection within the space. Our amazing friends cheers us on and helped us realize anything is possible! The amount of maths involved to ensure our images fit each panel correctly and that all the text was uniform took pages and pages and pages of my notebook. But in the end, all the hours micro-moving text and doing calculations was all worth it when we saw the final product.
Please enjoy the original images and a few outtakes from my portrait sessions with Carl Eller and Alan Page.
Thank you to everyone who helped up make this project possible! Thank you Maya for your heart, determination, friendship, your brilliant concept and for being you! Tom – Thank you for your long days behind a camera photographing Gene and the models! The imagery is stunning and I learned so much working with you on this! My mother allowed me to move all of her downstairs furniture around to make her living room into our studio with little notice – she’s seriously the best! Our subjects, Gene Washington, Carl Eller and Alan Page gave their time and their willingness to share their story. We had incredible models from Wehmann Models & Talent, Inc, Darnell Edwards and Rahmaan Patterson that are some of the best, most giving people that I have met! The team at UNLEASHED PRODUCTIONS & DISPLAYS are serious magicians – the prints are GORGEOUS! And finally, thank you to everyone at Made Here and Hennepin Theatre Trust for reimagining public art and revitalizing Downtown Minneapolis in the process! We are so proud to be apart of this exhibition!
Absolutely Legendary.