Portrait of a friend and mentor
The artist Richard Davis started his work-life in Pittsburg’s PAs foundries. He made his way to Carnegie Melon University dreaming of designing cars, but instead of Detroit after college, he headed to New York City. It was the late 60s. The “art scene” was calling. Early on he hung out at Millbrook with Timothy Leary and friends. His first studio was next to the Fillmore East, and he photographed the likes of Jimi Hendrix (with either Richard’s cat or Jimi’s, can’t remember whose; great photo nonetheless) and sculptor John Chamberlain with whom he became life-long friends. He loved his fly fishing, his beer, his coffee, and cigarettes (until he quit smoking; didn’t we all?). While breaking into the fashion business, he became a multidisciplinary artist and craftsman, all the while observing, taking notes, and making art on his off days. The world of fashion worked for him until he’d had enough of it. It was around the year 2000 when he finally hunkered down with the love of his life, the artist Pam Erickson and their two kids, and finally made art a full-time endeavor. Until he died on November 1, 2012. Hard to think it was that long ago. So much created, so much to finish. The gods have some explaining to do.
Richard was the most comfortable-in-his-skin man I’ve ever met. Serenely self-confident, a great listener, never bragged. He took no bullshit, called out anyone when saying something inauthentic or unkind - in his charming pull-no-punches way. He was a mensch, and he was generous. Much of my interest in art outside photography expanded with Davis. He was a great mentor, encouraged my photography, gave me keys to the studio and access to his darkroom. Of the over 100 photographers I assisted during my apprentice years, Richard was the last. The gig that got me out of assisting came from him. An old art director buddy Ed McGloin called one afternoon, and asked Richard if he’d be interested in photographing some machines for Minolta Business Equipment; a bit outside his wheelhouse, and likely zero interest, he handed the phone over to me. And that was a gift that kept on giving for the next ten years.
Everything I learned about Richard’s colorful past I had to drag out of him, usually well after sunset at a hotel bar. I’d pull out stories of his earlier photo travels and found myself envying previous assistants for the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll adventures they shared in the 70’s. Our sometimes two weeklong location shoots, whether in the Caribbean, Mexico, the Southwest, or outer Cape Cod were an exhausting creative blast of scouting, rigging lights, chasing the sun, and keeping the camera gear dust-free. I looked forward to the early morning coffee with Richard who was up before anyone else.
The photograph above is one I took in the ‘90s at the house he built a few decades earlier in Sagaponack, NY. It was originally an old barn that had to be moved across a potato field to the plot he had purchased. We sat after breakfast on the veranda just outside the Architectural Digest worthy kitchen - I was shooting handheld with my Rolleiflex. A Rollei is a twin lens analog camera, one lens on top for viewing, one below it with the shutter mechanism to expose the film. When objects are as close to the camera as this coffee mug, there’s a parallax effect. What you see, you’re not going to get. It’s like the shift you see when looking at an object close-up with one eye at a time. I could see most of Richard’s face above the cup in the viewfinder, but I liked it when he was cut off a bit. So, I asked Richard to make a visual note of the position of the upper “viewfinder” lens, and then tell me how much to raise the camera so the lower “exposure” lens would be in the same spot. Click.
The first picture below is of Pam and Richard prepping wardrobe for a post-apocalyptic scene in the dunes in eastern Long Island.
The next image is a polaroid test-shot I took of Richard on a shoot for Saks Fifth Avenue in Manzanillo, Mexico in the mid 80s. The resort Las Hadas (made famous in Dudley Moore’s movie “10”), our location for the shoot, and where we stayed, is in the background. It’s quintessential Richard in his element, a captain of his art.
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