University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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The Graham Nash Opening 22 Nash Speaks I ' m very excited. It ' s nice to be able to show all these photographs. For so long they were in my basement. A lot of my life is dedicated to the music and I don ' t really have a lot of time to enjoy the pieces I ' ve been collecting over the years. A photograph is totally useless if it ' s in a drawer. It has to have somebody look at it for it to come to life. It ' s exciting. It ' s exciting to stand in the middle of it all and just look around. I remember a lot of emotional experiences going through, choosing the pictures — not only choosing them when I first saw them, or when I first bought them for the collection, but also going through the entire collection and choosing the ones I wanted to go in the exhibit, because this only represents 25 per cent of what I have. For many years I ' ve always felt that I was an artist and not necessarily a musician. Music is only a part of my life. It ' s a big part, obviously — the part that people know most. But it is only a small part of my life, I intend to share these photographs with people and if I make a name other than a musical name, then that ' s fine. If I don ' t, that ' s fine too. My ego is well satisfied by 20 years of rock and roll. I don ' t need to make a name anywhere else, but it ' s nice these pictures can be seen. To me, photographs are little pieces of emotion all wrapped up, and if you want to see them, they are there. I think that art is anything that you are confronted with that moves you physically, emotion- ally, spiritually or intellectually. Any- thing is art that if someone says, What the hell. Wow!, My God! That ' s art. If you look at something and it doesn ' t reach you, then it is not art. The great power of photography is in how it moves you. You can learn a lot about yourself. If I show you a Weejee photograph or a Diane Arbus photograph and you are not moved, then I know something about you. I like photojournalism. It ' s very close to my songs. I ' m trying to make a little map through this insane life for myself by putting my feeling down. I ' m trying to reach people and make them less lonely. For instance, if I write Lady of the Island, or Teach your Children, I hope that somebody listens to that and can say, I know exactly what he ' s saying. I was there myself. I want people to get involved in trying to respond to what I ' m doing. I ' m sure that everyting that happens to me happens to you. I ' m sure that you get just as pissed off as I do and you get as upset as I do about Beirut and Biafra and you

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As I walked through the gallery glancing at the photographs displayed on the walls, I realized that it would be all over in a few hours. I briefed the security guards about the tickets and waited until the doors were opened. The opening remains a blur of people, noise and cham- pagne. What remains clear to me was my astonishment when Nash walked in the door. The enthusiastic photography collector I knew was a rock star in their eyes. Later that evening I apologized to Graham for the crowding. Hey, this is nothing. I ' m used to having people tear my clothes off. Everyone ' s great here. Graham was right. People approached him, genuinely interested in his photo- graphy collection, to thank him for bringing it to de Saisset. Graham said in his KSCU interview that he was used to being praised for his music, but it was a new experience for him to hear it for his collection. As the gallery was closing one couple was trying to view a photograph in semi-darkness. Graham rushed up and asked them what they were doing. After they told him he exclaimed, This is what it ' s all about; to think you were trying to see the photograph»in the dark! After the gallery closed, I led a small army of staff members in search of champagne glasses that, inevitably, found their way into antique Chinese vases, beneath grinning cupids, and amidst potted ferns. The sticky floor was mopped twice and a final security check was made. The lights went out. The double doors clicked shut. I felt I had left a part of myself there, taking with me the knowledge and strength I acquired through my experi- ences at de Saisset. ' ' This is what it ' s all about. To think that you were trying to see the photograph in the dark! ' ' -Nash 21

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7 try to uncover people ' s emotions that they have overlooked in themselves. ' ' get just as angry. 1 tigure that everyone is the same as me. Everyone is human. I try to uncover people ' s emotions that they have overlooked in themselves. That ' s what a great part of photography is. You can uncover emotions in yourself that you thought you may have buried for awhile. We do tend to armor ourselves aqainst it all. Travelling around the country playing in a rock and roll band gives you lots of opportunities to go to the little funky junk store that no one goes to. If you go to a photo gallery, they ' re waiting for you. They know it all. I get more pleasure out of discovering a master photograph in the most unlikely places than I do acquiring it from a reputable dealer. It ' s far more encouraging to me to find those things and bring them to life out of the dusty attics. I get more joy out of finding it amongst piles of shit and dust. I could spend hours in the junk and second hand stores. I get a great deal of pleasure out of finding beautiful images. I don ' t know what motivates any artist to create. I know what motivates me, and that ' s my big mouth. I see things and experience things and I have to say something about it. I ' m not just saying it to get it out of my own system, but songs like Chicago and Ohio — Neil (Young) reads about four people getting killed in Ohio and he sits down and writes a song because that ' s his only way of attacking that madness. He can ' t go to the Senate, because that ' s a slow process. The great thing about the music business is that you can do it now. When those kids got killed in Ohio, Neil wrote the song that very same day, we went in the studio the next day and recorded it and had it out on the streets as a record in ten days. That is a very powerful position to be in. We don ' t have to wait for your letter of complaint to go to the Ministry of blah blah blah. We can do it now. I like being able to have some say as to what goes on. People can react however they want, though. The collection is only how I react. There are people who aren ' t going to like any of it and there are people who are going to like all of it. But I maintain that there is no way you can look at this entire collection and not come away feeling something and knowing something dif- ferent about yourself. Some people are going to react differently. People are going to say, Hey, that Eugene Smith is crooked on the wall! But I ' m not even seeing if it ' s crooked. I ' m just seeing the image. There are people who will just see the mechanical part of it rather than the emotion or images. I ' m only interested in the person who walks in and sees a Weejee and says, Holy Fuck! Did he really do this? They are the people I ' m interested in. 23