artgallerymarchintervy

interview with

1) What inspired your “B&W Bottle” series? Any particular reason you chose wine bottles to be the focus of this set? Are they intended to be a metaphor for something or did you use them for purely aesthetic reasons?

         the season of long white arrived early last year, and by the end of october the keweenaw peninsula had accumulated about three inches of snowfall. at that time I received an e-mail from bob penick, a poet living and writing in louisville, kentucky. bob informed me he had a chapbook manuscript titled bottle of night and wondered if I was interested in doing a cover photograph for him.

          like the gray-whiskered trophy rainbow trout rising to yet another spring mayfly hatch, I replied, “yes, sure, don’t mind if I do.” bundling up in my ratty old parka and lacing tight my scuffy sorel boots, I filled two digital camera memory cards with scenes focusing on bottles. I shoot at the highest resolution which allows l7 pictures per memory card. so after bob made his selection of the bottle of night photo he wanted to use, I was left with 33 unused pics.

          my fine artist and poet friend henry denander recommended that I check out the on line zygote in your coffee production. later I posted some of the bottle pictures “on spec” to editor brian fugett, and you might say the rest is history.

2) What format did you shoot the series in? Digital or film? Do you prefer one over the other? If so, why?

the bottle pictures were taken with a nikon cool-pix 5000 digital camera. I still shoot kodak tri-x black-and-white print film in my olympus om-4-t cameras, however, I am gradually placing more time and filming emphasis on the digital format.

3) When seeking a new subject to photograph, do you already have some preconceived idea of what & how you want to shoot it? Or does the nature of the subject itself sort of dictate your style & approach?

         I think the correct answer is “all of the above.” sometimes while out adventuring for something new to film, I discover a white-hot subject that immediately strikes my creative consciousness. however, there are often other instances where I seem oblivious to possible filming subjects until a picture prospect grows into my perspective.
          most often I feel touched with a conscious sense of creative electricity when finding a filming scene. after that borrowing the university of michigan football philosophy, “I do it until I get it right.” quite often I’ve returned a third or fourth time before reaching the degree of filming satisfaction I want from a subject.

4) Creatively speaking, does your approach to photography differ much from your approach to writing poetry? (Please explain how or how not)

         there are different moods and dimensions to being splake taking photographs and t. kilgore writing poetry. I don’t think I can honestly articulate this exact mind frame for a reader. yet, for example, I use two printers, a laser and inkjet with my present computer processing arrangement. there is a coupler-switch that allows me to change back and forth. using this analogy, it would be disastrous to try and capture quality photographic emotions in my poet’s focus, and contrawise, poetry written from a filming point of view at best would turn out to be poor verse.

5) Has any particular photographer or art movement had an influence on your own style?

          I have serious reservations about the ability to “teach” creativity. classroom and workshop poetry and photography seem rare to produce works of high energy that possesses a ‘spritzy’ edginess to it.

          years ago at an after christmas bookstore sale, I purchased the coffee table tome world photography, by bryn campbell. I frequently browse the works by andre kertesz, henri cartier bresson, and other fine european filming masters for renewed inspirations. the noted french photographer brassai is my photographic idol-mentor, and I try to emulate his fantastic black-and white camera genius.

6) So you gotta’ tell us the origin of your t.k. splake moniker. It’s one of the coolest names I’ve come across in a long time.

         I came to writing poetry relatively late in my lifetime after a career of teaching political science at kellogg community college in battle creek, michigan. in real life I am tom, the favorite son of margaret smith. my mother used to remind me that I was her ‘only’ son, to which I would reply, “yeah, mom, but I;m still your favorite, eh?”
          in the beginning when I finally decided to test the small press waters and submit a few of my early poems to magazine editors, it felt like a very scary endeavor. I was more than moderately panicked over the thought, what if my writing stinks and the poetry is no good. the solution I chose was to adopt the nom de plume of t. kilgore splake to provide me with a degree of anonymity.
          at the same time I began writing poetry, I caught a large fish at sable lake otuside grand marais in michigan’s upper peninsula. for the next two or three days I waas celebrated in grand marais as the man who caught the huge splake. a splake is a planter trout that grows very rapidly and doesn’t reproduce. that same summer of the splake saga, I read all of the titles of kurt vonnegut that were available in paperback. as many vonnegut devotees recogize, kurt had a frequent character called kilgore t. trout. thus combining tom smith and the tale of the trout with vonnegut’s writings, I became t. kilgore splake.

7) So where should we expect the lens of t.k. splake to point next? Any projects in the works we should know about?

          shortly I will publish my fourth chapbook collection of black-and-white photographs in an edition titled poetry of light. I expect a finished book sometime in march. in addition I have am ambitious spring-summer-fall filming agenda planned as soon as the keweenaw peninsula backwater location is liberated from its present winter season in the “yooper” long white. in the past I have worked almost exclusively with black-and-white film. however in this brave new 04 and counting, I hope to add sustantially to a growing inventory of serious and solid color digital photographs.

t.k. splake