Images from a Soft Prison
123 images Created 30 Mar 2020
In the late 1980’s I began to feel unwell.
I did everything in my power to get better but relentlessly my condition deteriorated. I was given bad medical advice and deteriorated further.
Eventually in the early 90’s I collapsed and was forced to give up my career at age thirty-three; everything seemed to be at an end and I simply ran out of fight.
The light inside me, what we call a human soul I suppose flickered and sputtered for a few months after losing my job and then went out completely.
For several years I barely left the house, I was trapped in a world of profound exhaustion, pain and withering mental health. My beloved career as an artist and teacher became an aching memory.
The daily stimulating interaction with students and colleagues was gone and I was now painfully isolated and creatively impotent.
I became a virtual recluse in a lush, centrally heated, softly furnished suburban semi detached home, surrounded by a plethora of physical comforts but I had nothing, I felt utterly empty.
In 1990 I had published a book of photographs (Ideal Home, a Detached Look at Modern Living) describing an almost identical abode as part of my then fascination with suburban living, now the subject had apparently swallowed me up.
With more time on my hands than I could ever have imagined my life had become all but intolerable and I prayed to die almost on a daily basis.
My purpose in life had gone and mental illness stealthily and chillingly crept into the dark grey void.
I was disenfranchised from the world and inhabited a luxurious one man Gulag. I saw no one save the appearance of my long-suffering wife in the evenings and the occasional postman during the day.
I started lying to friends and family about my health as I
found this policy of disinformation preserved relations better than trying to adequately express the numbing reality of my predicament.
I also found to my great cost that people became irksome and judgmental when I failed to return to health after a while. Friends fell away and family relations became strained, agonizingly people would ask me ‘isn’t it about time you were better?’
Eventually I quit ‘whining’ and internalized my suffering.
After several un-numbered (and uncounted) years an occasional gloriously translucent lacuna would pierce the meniscus of my grey foggy existence presenting me with wonderful short patches of relief.
Sadly these oases of hope did not last long and after an hour or two regression occurred.
I used these clear spots first to do some gardening or cooking and then for the first time in many years to take pictures.
‘Images From a Soft Prison’ is a collection of the pictures I have taken in my more lucid moments around my home these last thirty-three years.
I did everything in my power to get better but relentlessly my condition deteriorated. I was given bad medical advice and deteriorated further.
Eventually in the early 90’s I collapsed and was forced to give up my career at age thirty-three; everything seemed to be at an end and I simply ran out of fight.
The light inside me, what we call a human soul I suppose flickered and sputtered for a few months after losing my job and then went out completely.
For several years I barely left the house, I was trapped in a world of profound exhaustion, pain and withering mental health. My beloved career as an artist and teacher became an aching memory.
The daily stimulating interaction with students and colleagues was gone and I was now painfully isolated and creatively impotent.
I became a virtual recluse in a lush, centrally heated, softly furnished suburban semi detached home, surrounded by a plethora of physical comforts but I had nothing, I felt utterly empty.
In 1990 I had published a book of photographs (Ideal Home, a Detached Look at Modern Living) describing an almost identical abode as part of my then fascination with suburban living, now the subject had apparently swallowed me up.
With more time on my hands than I could ever have imagined my life had become all but intolerable and I prayed to die almost on a daily basis.
My purpose in life had gone and mental illness stealthily and chillingly crept into the dark grey void.
I was disenfranchised from the world and inhabited a luxurious one man Gulag. I saw no one save the appearance of my long-suffering wife in the evenings and the occasional postman during the day.
I started lying to friends and family about my health as I
found this policy of disinformation preserved relations better than trying to adequately express the numbing reality of my predicament.
I also found to my great cost that people became irksome and judgmental when I failed to return to health after a while. Friends fell away and family relations became strained, agonizingly people would ask me ‘isn’t it about time you were better?’
Eventually I quit ‘whining’ and internalized my suffering.
After several un-numbered (and uncounted) years an occasional gloriously translucent lacuna would pierce the meniscus of my grey foggy existence presenting me with wonderful short patches of relief.
Sadly these oases of hope did not last long and after an hour or two regression occurred.
I used these clear spots first to do some gardening or cooking and then for the first time in many years to take pictures.
‘Images From a Soft Prison’ is a collection of the pictures I have taken in my more lucid moments around my home these last thirty-three years.
