The other day I received an interesting email from my grandmother in response to my recent darkroom post. It began: “I just read your web site and was interested to learn about your development of a darkroom.  We had a darkroom in our back basement in the 1960's.” In fact, as I told her later, my father recently gave me the very enlarger he and my grandfather used years ago. While not new information, her email reminded me unexpectedly of the art school cliché, “you don't create art in a vacuum.”

While I typically heard that phrase in the context of reading ArtForum and visiting New York regularly, this time I thought of it differently. I envisioned my grandfather, much younger than I ever knew him, tucked away in the back basement with duct tape sealing out the light. So he crept down to the basement darkroom, too, latching the door behind him and making prints in solitude under the red-orange glow of the safelight.

I wonder about this darkroom and what he developed down there. Did he just love the darkroom process? Was making your own photos more common back then? Or did I just get a glimpse into another branch of the visual artists in our family?

I also remember, during my time studying painting in college, when my little sister said she “wanted to be an artist just like [me and our father].” At first I took offense, as if she had taken away some of the individuality of choosing your own path. However, a few years later I appreciate the interconnectedness of it all. Maybe she will become a painter, maybe she won't. Maybe she will become a world-class musician, accomplishing everything I ever wanted. Maybe she won't.

Before I start sounding like that Baz Luhrmann recording, let me get back to the point. Despite all my efforts as a youth to be unique and different, distanced and indecipherable, now I value sharing common ground with my relatives. My work doesn't always need to be out in left field. At times, it can be a legacy, a process I share with those before me.