“I’m always looking outside trying to look inside…trying to tell something that’s true. But maybe nothing is really true. Except what’s out there, and what’s out there is always different.” – Robert Frank

I’ve been fairly obsessed with shadows recently — or more specifically — what we make of shadows. This obsession is nothing new, only slightly reinvigorated. I grew up enthralled by my grandfather’s dark room as he played with the light and the objects in his photography, effectively living in a playground of captured shadows. There is something in a shadow that seizes our imagination. There’s a mystery there – the dark underbelly of a person, a culture, a situation, or an object. It has the ability to unnerve us as it seems to signify or imply something dark — something hidden — about us, its creators.  

Now, why shadows when this is a News Brief? Mostly because while I looked through the news, trying to find a topic of interest for this very post, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Shadow of America, and the pain and anxiety that arises at our attempts to shine light into this void. By Shadow of America, I mean the dark underbelly we don’t like to acknowledge as attached to us. The realities of the horror and atrocities that happen daily, that have happened throughout history — they belong to our nation. These issues that we constantly hear about like racism, climate change, sexism (to truly name only a few) are so painfully real, and yet, many of us constantly turn to denial instead. I find myself asking why?

I feel like we live in this strange time where shadows, in this context, are constantly being brought to light in the chaos that is the 24-hour news cycle. The purpose of the news has always been to dig in to that underbelly, but the constant onslaught of facing the darkness attached to our own feet? Many don’t want ownership. They don’t know what happens once we claim responsibility. This constant attention to our darkest parts is what is so stressful about the news and is what hurts many into apathy and/or denial. America has some festering wounds on its hands, and though it stings, we’re cleaning out the pus right now, hoping we can aid and heal.

This most recent bout of shadow hunting was brought upon by my lingering over the Robert Frank archives since his death on September 9th, 2019. For those who don’t know, Robert Frank was one of the most influential documentary photographers of our age. An absolute legend, most known for — and often hated for — illuminating the shadows of everyday American culture during some of our most turbulent times. 

His best known work is his book The Americans which, when first published in 1959, was not simply ignored, it was reviled. In an article discussing his life, NPR quotes an art curator saying that The Americans at one point was described as a “sad poem by a very sick person.” Ouch. His images, thought to be joyless and overly-confrontational, were forcing the America of the 50’s to take a good hard look at that shadow attached to their feet. The image it presented of everyday America did not match up with the shiny white lives of the nuclear middle class family living the American Dream as was expected to be presented to the public. The book shows images of factory workers, of deli workers, of mechanics, of segregation, of gay people, of black people, of boredom, of confusion, of hunger, of anger, and apathy, and the strange or too-plain. The everyday. What Frank’s work showed was exactly what he saw as he journeyed through the country. It was an expedition into the shadow America still has yet to reckon with. 

It feels a bit like we are Peter Pan when we first meet him – do you remember? He’s searching for his shadow, and though he wants to reattach the wiggly thing, he cannot. In a somewhat baffling move, he tries bath soap as a form of adhesive, but ends up sitting on the floor crying until Wendy awakes to help him. In a ridiculous way, is this not familiar? We don’t know how to deal with our shadows. Perhaps we’re currently rubbing our feet with soap, in dire need of a Wendy or a Robert Frank, to at least teach us how to sew our shadows to each foot, forcing us to actually reckon with the darkness as it is a part of us.

Look how boldly America could be in braving its demons!

So with this small rambling news brief, I pay my respects to one of the great shadow hunters of our times. I also leave you, the patient reader, with one more shadow: the rarest kind. One that does not add fear to an object, but rather, takes it away in the cutest way possible. Enjoy. 

Thanks for reading!

Mary Seeburger