consumptive.org

James Luck­ett

✼ cv pdf

2009: Turned the cor­ner sober, imbib­ing locally pro­duced whole milk. Made a book. Love and hap­pi­ness. Migraines. Mar­riage. Moved to Spring­field, Ohio. Liv­ing large as an artist or worse. Win a pho­tog­ra­phy prize. New mantra: be kind to yourself.

2008: Divorced. Mostly sober fol­low­ing mantra: don’t drink at home, don’t drink alone. Mak­ing photographs.

2007: Get a job push­ing book Stacks Office of the Har­lan Hatcher Grad­u­ate Library. Salary low but full ben­e­fits. Move out, liv­ing tiny Tokyo sized apart­ment back quar­ter of a house with access to base­ment for dark­room and stu­dio.

2006: Return to Amer­ica, set­tling uni­ver­sity town Ann Arbor, Michi­gan. Sad­ness, acri­mony, recriminations.

2004–2005: Step up Eng­lish hus­tle fee with suit and new title Con­sul­tant of Pro­fes­sional Busi­ness Prac­tices and Career Devel­op­ment. Drink with clients, drink with friends, drink alone to accel­er­ate alien­ation and organ fail­ure. Tri­umphantly cater new year’s food Osechi Ryori for 15 families.

2003: Criss-cross Tokyo on train and foot hus­tling Eng­lish con­ver­sa­tion, edit­ing Japan­ese to Eng­lish trans­la­tions and empow­er­ing for­eign­ers to shop and cook Japan­ese home­style foods. Eat a lot of soba.

2002: Fail to speak Japan­ese lan­guage but man­age to deci­pher cookbooks.

2001: Live for two months in a base­ment in Port­land, Ore­gon enact­ing fan­tasy of being a mis­er­able artist that lives in a base­ment in Port­land, Ore­gon. Return to Chicago, the so-called “city of broad shoul­ders.” Work in a large uni­ver­sity library as a pro­fes­sional book mover. Relo­cate 12% of the col­lec­tion (800,000 vol­umes) from one place to another place. Develop a mighty grip and pow­er­ful fore­arms. Expe­ri­ence mys­ti­cal insight into the nature of time. For­get about art, move to Tokyo and refo­cus on housewifery.

1998–2000: Trans­plant to Chicago, the so-called “city that works.” Employed swing shift as mas­ter pho­to­graphic printer at a cus­tom pho­tog­ra­phy lab spe­cial­iz­ing in meet­ing the evi­den­tial and illus­tra­tive needs of lawyers, insur­ance agen­cies and law enforce­ment. Make prints from approx. 80,000 unique neg­a­tives and drink untold gal­lons of Busch beer, often on the job, to depress ner­vous sys­tem, sup­press night­mares and induce brain death. Begin consumptive.org as an alter­na­tive to par­tic­i­pa­tion in the unseemly. Get mar­ried. Spend week­ends pon­tif­i­cat­ing pho­tog­ra­phy at city col­lege.

1995–1998: Study and work at a uni­ver­sity in Tuc­son. Meet future wife, begin prac­tice of Japan­ese home­style cook­ing. Hide from sun, emerg­ing only to teach award win­ning pho­tog­ra­phy classes and carouse with the boys. Spend sev­eral days with Fred­er­ick Som­mer. Ask about ethics, time and pho­tog­ra­phy — says “that’s nei­ther here nor there.”

1995: Phoenix, Ari­zona. Hap­less immer­sion in con­ti­nen­tal phi­los­o­phy, night watch of elderly uncle.

1991–1994: Went to school in Olympia. Inde­pen­dent study of art with Imo­gen Cun­ning­ham, Ralph Eugene Meat­yard, Mor­ris Graves, John Cage, Joseph Beuys and Margeu­rite Duras with the kindly pro­found facil­i­ta­tion of Craig Carl­son. Live in a shot­gun shack. Spend finan­cial aid money on wine, drum tobacco, punk rock and pho­tog­ra­phy supplies.

1990–1991: Receive col­lege rejec­tion let­ters; find legs and a men­tor, the esteemed artist, pho­tog­ra­pher and teacher Don Gre­go­rio Antón, at the com­mu­nity col­lege. Drop other classes, spend nearly every day in the dark­room. Con­stant debate with friend whether art or cook­ing is the greater service.

1989: Nearly fail voca­tional pho­tog­ra­phy class due to cre­ative ten­dency. Meet Lou Reed.

1988: Take career apti­tude test, says I’m most suited for “chief dieti­cian.” Dis­re­gard result. Become a “the­atre person.”

1987: Learn to jug­gle, win numer­ous tal­ent shows, skip the circus.

1984–1986: Reset­tle on other side of Puget Sound in Port Orchard. Just start “fail­ing” after a teacher accuses me of cheat­ing on a draw­ing. Remem­ber to bring inter­est­ing books to read dur­ing classes. Obsessed with G.I. Joe action fig­ures; fan­ta­size about own­ing a minia­ture pos­able father. Arrested for shoplift­ing. Lie and tell other kids at group coun­sel­ing that I stole Hus­tler magazines.

1983: Learn to use chop­sticks.

1982: Shadow aunt through Seat­tle as she lives life as a bohemian, artist and model.

1981: Move to a Seat­tle sub­urb. Col­lec­tively raised by tragic mother, artis­tic aunt, prag­matic grand­mother and MTV.

1980: Get a Big Brother of Amer­ica, an owner of a jan­i­to­r­ial com­pany named Stan. Teaches me to fish.

1978–79: Read­ing, writ­ing and cable tv. Fall from a height, injure back and pro­ceed through life with a “schol­arly hunch.” Spend lonely Lynchian sum­mers with the Lit­tle fam­ily at a sawmill in Pend Oreille County: man machines, guns, hunt­ing, bro­ken horses and a leather dis­ci­pline.

1977: Father van­ishes from the face of the Earth and Elvis dies. Become man of the house. Begin cooking.

1976: Spend days as a knight slay­ing the couch and defend­ing a cas­tle built from the din­ing room table. Some­how real­ize the anachro­nism; change career goal to native amer­i­can. Learn to build a teepee out of branches and a blan­ket and hunt buf­falo. Father changes career to anti-communist mer­ce­nary.

1974–1975: Sun­day school. Fail to under­stand key con­cept of Chris­tian­ity — why are we happy to kill Jesus? Visit from stuffed Easter bunny, who becomes a trusted con­fi­dante through­out childhood.

1973: Nearly lose hear­ing fol­low­ing a series of excru­ci­at­ing ear­aches.

1972: Father retires with a stand­ing ova­tion from the United States Army, trans­fers us to Spokane, Wash­ing­ton and opens a bookstore.

1971: Born near an army base in Stuttgart, West Ger­many. Tour Neuschwanstein Cas­tle.