selections and fragments of work made in the past ten years that sing to or move

  past fractured moments, some fleeting/some more situated amongst or against

    recordings made – recordings found – phrases in books – family – portraits

                  borders on a map – in between spaces  – songs made

                     for special occasions – ice melting – people soaring

                        color fields in landscapes – travel documents

                           things leaving and animals moving, passing

                                  through dissonance or a pause

                                      with occasional tenderness

Possible ways that a familiar image or sound or movement or moment seems both recognizable and necessary. A season for now with winter frost and body temperature rising against the quiet quiet of snow.  It’s not too hard to buy a plane ticket and stand amongst strangers with comfort, with the sounds in your chest increasing beats.  Smile and acknowledge a certain kind of privilege, a kind that conjures thoughts of others who move through this or that space. Move through the space.  And point it back to your own home, – I think it is my home or at least it sounds that way when described to others who don’t live there. The animals move and the flowers return in a season that follows.  The warmer sun can bring lust or longing – still negotiating a difference but will welcome them both – write something down, the longer days propose to be documented but try to simplify, especially when the descriptions are jumbled.  Or at least think about heading north and looking back down from this small mountain.  The sky grows from here and I thought of you as I squinted towards the sun. I am sorry for not telling you sooner, apologize for something, maybe for waiting all this time. Or a conversation around personal fragments and external reverberations.

This project is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts’ Electronic Media and Film Presentation Funds grant program, administered by The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes (www.NYSCA.orgwww.eARTS.org).

For ascending

Of a dividing line, division of light, gestures and glances, a body of water, against two continents, amongst a time of reflection, and a moment from Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad: “I saw a dog of this kind start to nibble at a flea–a fly attracted his attention, and he made a snatch at him; the flea called for him once more, and that forever unsettled him; he looked sadly at his flea-pasture, then sadly looked at his bald spot. Then he heaved a sigh and dropped his head resignedly upon his paws. He was not equal to the situation.”

A compilation of films as song or poems or eulogies. “Have you seen a horizon lately?” You can hear the echo in it. Side A: for them ending, for a winter, the wedding present, 90 years, a logic sore, new year sun

Jerusalem with this quote written about it: (There) “was a certain stone built into a house – a stone that was so seemed and scarred that it bore a sort of grotesque resemblance of the human face.  The projections that answered for cheeks were worn smooth by the passionate kisses of generations of pilgrims from distant lands. We asked Why?”  -from The Innocents Abroad

In a year with 13 deaths, sunbeam hunter, wash+shave, copper green, warm spots.

A single recording, recorded in a tunnel that one passes through after exiting a boat taking you from one continent to another, where people are selling bright colored toys and bright white sneakers. for the brief variations in the movement on the periphery

Set up the picture – it is a celebration, it might mark the time with movement, patterns, bluebird eggs, little things. Then there is the moon,  it might mark the time with seasons. There is a song, here is a gift.

Jonathan Schwartz is an American experimental filmmaker. He is also currently a Film Studies Assistant Professor at Keene State College.

Rebekah Rutkoff is currently the Hannah Davis Seeger Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University.