Part II of the introduction to Friends, Figures and Infinites- a photographic exhibit shown in New York
City in 1963 and Newport R.I. in 1965

As a Catholic I can appreciate and accept much of the good brought in by the fresh winds of existentialism, but only when it takes its place in a hierarchy of eternal values. Otherwise the joie de vivre of Kerouac's characters in a more or less real world withdraw into the narcotic fantasies of a Burroughs.

To the new film makers, Jack Smith, Bergman, the young Poles, et al, must go most of the recent credit for turning the lens into a poet's eye. To them, also must go credit for first setting up or finding poetic situations and filming them. (The poetic situation occurs when the participants, be they actors, models or plainfolk, are consciously or unconsciously LIVING a beautiful event. This occurs to a lesser degree in "happenings".)

If you want to make beautiful and exciting creations, and you believe your art should be woven closely with your life- and every person is or can be some sort of artist- then you must continusously strive to beautify and vivify your life. My photography becomes then for me an impulse constantly triggering my life toward the beautiful, new, meaningful and fasciinating.

To show this I have divided the exhibit into three uneven parts. The first is "The Outside"- the 'objective' world of sad strangers that I often see about me, particularly in New York City. the second is "The Inside"- my world- God's own countryside, transformed by my friends and my camera into a universe playground where body and soul retreat toward Eden and approach oneness. Many of the photographs in this section are candid, and in many others, the shooting situation became in itself a meaningful and memorable event. The third part is "the Outside from the Inside", where people and things available to the gaze of most eyes become for me- without losing their own existential meaning- symbols of the wonder, majesty and mystery of God and his Creation.