Between 1971 and 1975, while attending classes at The School of the
Art Institute of Chicago, I worked as a bartender at a neighborhood bar
on the south side of Chicago called George Brown’s. Located in a
Polish/Ukrainian community south on Halsted Street, it was surrounded by
steel mills and factories and seemed to be the place to go after work
for a shot and a beer, for dances on the weekends, wedding receptions,
funeral parties, retirements, showers, reunions, etc. Every Saturday
night, members of the Polish Legion would meet there to relive the
Second World War, listen to Glen Miller and the Andrew Sisters on the
juke box, and would try to put puzzle pieces of understanding together
from each other’s stories and adventures. They would come into the
light of the bar from the shadows at the edge of the dance floor, like
great orators, into the spotlight of the stage, to present a dialogue
that might define the closest things wrapping the heart of their lives.
My mother had grown up in this neighborhood, and she and my father had
their wedding reception there. I grew up surrounded by these people,
and I loved to listen to their stories, which would often touch on my
own life and family history.
There are 100, 11”x7” prints on selenium toned, Agfa Portriga Rapid
in this series that I printed in the Art Institute of Chicago darkrooms
between 1971 and 1975. In 1973 Time Life published the first in their
series of Photography Year books, and printed 9 of these photos in the
“New Discoveries” section of this first edition.
