Digger Pine Cones

Digger Pine Cone - Tehama County  2007

Digger Pine Cones - Tehama County  2007

Mike's 2007 trip involved taking photos of Digger Pine cones in preparation for a photo project he was working on.

Yes, the term "digger" was meant as a form of derision—a term of contempt meant to describe the California natives. But with the long slow passage of the days, months and years the opprobrium has faded. Ironically, it was the hydraulic gold miners themselves who were more deserving of the word.

Latter-day revisionists, with good intentions, I'm sure, have attempted to remedy the historical injustice by renaming the tree. “Gray pine,” we're now supposed to call it.

But this effort only compounds the affront. From the poetic standpoint this erases the “Diggers” from our shared history. And in the end, the poetic standpoint is the enduring standpoint. So, with apologies to those who might be offended, I have elected to continue calling this pine the Digger Pine. 

- Rebecca Saito

Dry River

Out in the dry riverbed I wander through corridors of corroding rocky soil. Randomly halting, I gaze at the clean colored stones under my feet. Pale-shaded, ochre, vermilion and mauve―what was the poet’s phrase? Ah yes, "The infinite sum of particular things."

Just a few simple elements: sky, rocks, mountains, the steaming cup in my hand. Can moments like these ever be fully realized? I pause . . . I hesitate. A revelation is just at the edge of things, borne on that dry breeze caressing my skin. I smile and dismiss the half-formed notion of a desert satori.

And yet. The slanting sunbeams pick out discrete objects; boulders and plants glow in the desert splendor. The wind shakes a dried shrub, creating a slight, subliminal rattle.

And yet . . .

—Rebecca Saito


Photo: Dry River—Death Valley, 2002

. . . from the archives #46: Mill Creek—Shasta County, 1990

Summer's vagrant breezes can be found in winter's chilly winds. It was the new desktop calendar that did it. Idly flipping the pages during one spell of endless Southern California rain—when was it?—January? February?—with thoughts of hours, days and months travelling through eternity, scattering beneath my thumb—I began to see myself as a traveler, not just through certain Northern California byways, but drifting cloudlike through the days and months of the coming year like the haiku poets of old.

—from Narrow Roads to the Deep North, by Rebecca Saito

Photo: Mill Creek—Shasta County, 1990

. . . from the archives #43: Mud Hills—Death Valley, 1992

Listen to the crunch and crackle of my boots, here in the mud hills. The last light of the day picks out little details on the dried mud clots. A fine ramble, but somehow, in spite of the deep physical satisfaction that I take in my rambling, there is something missing. Shall we call it x? At times it seems to me as if my life is a mathematical problem to be solved, but a problem to which I haven’t the key. Perhaps if I assign an arbitrary value to one of my unknowns? It is not that I am unhappy.

In the gullies and swells high above the salt plains the first stars appear; the sun has finally set. In the twilight: mud thoughts in the mud hills.

—from Notes From My Desert Novel, by Rebecca Saito

Photo: Mud Hills—Death Valley, 1992

Exhibit Sign

I refuse to write an Artist’s Statement. If I may speak in my Spiro Agnew mode, almost all that I’ve read are pontificating pieces of pretentious pompousness.

For example: "Capturing the light is what I strive for every time I head into the field, for it is the light that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary." . . . etc etc blah blah blah.

But you need some kind of something for an exhibit. I was lucky enough to be able to use a little essay by Rebecca Saito, as follows:

A Larger Narrative

While going through a stack of Mike Mundy’s photographs it becomes clear that Mike has never been interested in cultivating a distinctive photographic style: a fatal amateurish flaw, or so we’re told.

But it’s evident that he does like to take pictures, and that he’s been doing it for quite some time. He started using a camera in the 1950’s, when he was going to high school in Los Angeles, taking photographs of, mainly, trains: a decrepit cab-ahead articulated at the Southern Pacific’s Taylor Yard, an abandoned Tower Car in the old Pacific Electric facility on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Mike himself resolutely refuses to commit to paper any kind of aesthetic philosophy. He has a collection of hilariously pretentious Artists’ Statements that he likes to bring out and make fun of. Needless to say, he avoids any kind of remarks that might be construed as an Artist’s Statement. And anyway, he says, not only would he be unable to put together enough coherent phrases describing his art, but any such attempt would be tedious in the extreme.

Maybe so. But while going through that stack of photos it becomes clear that all of his work forms part of a greater, unseen whole. Whether he’s aware of it or not, his billboards and taquerias, sand dunes and granite mountainsides are all perfectly coexistent. All are, or could become, part of a larger narrative, the infinite sum of particular things, that encompass and define the photographs of Michael Mundy.

—Rebecca Saito

Thematic Considerations II

So I’ve spent some time putting together a little booklet displaying my work, with the opening section titled "Los Angeles & Environs, 1958—2008." As an experiment, I'm going to have the overall dimensions 11x11 inches, so I can use both horizontal and vertical pictures. (So it's taking some time: I'll have to print the pages onto 11x14 paper and then trim to 11x11.)

With those dates, I had to use something from 1958: my Pacific Electric photo, and then something from 2008: my jogger photo. Scattered in-between are various black and white photos from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. I also wanted at least two color shots: I picked the one of the Oki Dog and then, the above Mural Painter photo.

The second section of the booklet has selections relating to my published work—quotes from Robinson Jeffers, Gary Snyder, Rebecca Saito and others.

Photo: Mural Painter—Los Angeles, 2006

Thematic Considerations

While waiting in the reception room at Kaiser the other day, I was leafing through my "handout," the little booklet I’ve put together to show my photographs to gallery people, interested parties, or anyone. It’s divided into two sections: "Photographs" and "Limited Editions." The Limited Editions section covers works produced by James Linden (letterpress editions) and Glen Drive Productions (inexpensive, spiral-bound editions.)

The Photographs section, though, is honestly a bit of a jumble. I’ve got landscapes, street scenes, old photos, new photos, black and white and color. As Rebecca Saito has written:

Going through a stack of Mike Mundy’s photos can be somewhat disconcerting. Some of them are color; some are black and white. Photographs of the Oki Dog and Trashy Lingerie in Los Angeles mix with serene autumn colors in Rhode Island. Black and white images of austere mountain landscapes are set against seductive Valentine’s Day mannequins in Macy’s. It seems clear that Mike has never been interested in cultivating a distinctive photographic style.

Well, that’s certainly true. But now I’m wondering. I think that I should, possibly, present a more unified image, at least in my little handout. I’ve been thinking of having, in the Photographs section, just images of Los Angeles (as representing one of my more consistent themes over the past decades.) Maybe "Los Angeles, 1973—2008."

I might just give it a try.

Photo: One Dollar Yard Sale—Los Angeles, 2007

Publications (#1): Notes From My Desert Novel

Out in the dry riverbed I wander through corridors of corroding rocky soil. Randomly halting, I gaze at the clean colored stones under my feet. Pale-shaded, ochre, vermilion and mauve―what was the poet’s phrase? Ah yes, “The infinite sum of particular things." Just a few simple elements: sky, rocks, mountains, the steaming cup in my hand. Can moments like these ever be fully realized? I pause . . . I hesitate. A revelation is just at the edge of things, borne on that dry breeze caressing my skin. I smile and dismiss the half-formed notion of a desert satori.

And yet. The slanting sunbeams pick out discrete objects; boulders and plants glow in the desert splendor. The wind shakes a dried shrub, creating a slight, subliminal rattle.

And yet . . .

—Excerpt from Notes From My Desert Novel by Rebecca Saito, © Glen Drive Productions 2004

Photo: Rocks, Fall Canyon—Death Valley, 2003