Tuesday night, after a night of wrestling over state politics at my party's caucuses, I returned home to a great loss. There on my computer screen was a lovely, wise and gracious visage I had seen in person and in photographs throughout my life. Gordon Parks -- photographer, filmmaker, musician, composer, memoirist, teacher, poet and pioneer -- had died in his apartment in New York City at the age of 93.
His death wasn't tragic, as was that of Dana Reeve who had died the same day. His life wasn't cut short and he didn't leave behind an orphaned boy, but we are all a little poorer today than we were a week ago because he is no longer among us.
Gordon Parks lived his life fully. I seriously doubt in the end that he had regrets and his face carried the serenity of a man who found his way in the world and was satisfied. He started with nothing and by being open to opportunities and valuing them, he climbed to the top of his profession as a photographer for Life magazine. He explored the many talents buried in him and enriched both his own life and those of millions of people he never even met. After establishing himself as an internationally recognized photographer at a time when African American men were struggling for minimum wage jobs, he went on to be the first black to direct and produce a major motion picture (
Shaft), to compose symphonies, a ballet and smaller musical works, and to write.
Yet, in my mind, what truly distinguished him was that he exemplified what it means to be a good citizen of the world and the best definition of an artist. His camera, his music and his words were his "weapons" to make the world better for the generations that followed him. In his first autobiography, he wrote that he realized in his youth that he had a "choice of weapons." He could either give into bitterness at the injustice he endured in early 20th Century America or he could fight it with a camera he bought for $7.99. He never regreted his choice. He documented the violence and pain of Harlem and the poverty of Buenos Aires. He truly held a mirror up to his time and showed us our own visage. Sometimes it was ugly and sometimes beautiful, poignant and celebratory. He had an eye for the moment and for the fleeting experience of being human and captured it with respect for his subjects and his viewer.
When his work was on tour several years ago it arrived in my town and I took the opportunity to try to help my regular English students develop an appreciation for the power of art. I marshalled them to the art gallery. Everybody wanted to come. After all, it was a day out of school. But when we walked into the gallery and they came face to face with Parks' pictures, I didn't need to do any more talking. As a matter of fact, I knew to be silent because his work spoke to my students in a way that words could not. The blue tints of a ghetto in Buenos Aires, the grim and awed faces of two black kids from Harlem staring into the coffin of their dead friend, the crowded bed with seven children in a tenement. American Gothic, with the dignified face of the African American cleaning woman in front of an American flag with mop in hand. Further on in the gallery were Parks' newest works. In his early 80s at that point, Parks had decided to experiment with the new digital imaging that allowed him to scan photos of found objects (flowers, petals, sea shells and fibers among other items) into a computer and then cut and paste them against each other and painted backgrounds to create surreal images of beauty and wonder. He was still learning, still creating, still living fully.
That same spring I had the honor to hear him perform a concerto from the symphony he wrote as part of the exhibit's festivities. He had written it as a tribute to his son, who was killed many years earlier. I watched him, his long fingers gliding along the keyboard in an atrium of the gallery, and considered how many places he had been, how much he had seen, how much of the century he had witnessed and shared with us and felt blessed to be in the presence of such an artist and man.
Gordon Parks lived life fully and shared fully of himself with his family, his community and strangers he never met. He opened our eyes and our hearts. Through his work and his life, he taught us that we each have choices, for good or bad. His life wasn't blessed with ease but he lived it with grace and taught me and many others a little about how we could do the same. Never pass up an opportunity for good or to make a contribution. You get out of life what you give. Perhaps that is the ultimate lesson of Gordon Parks' life and why we all felt a loss at his passing.
