Front Cover of Centennial Celebration for
Union United Methodist Church, South End, Boston
A.M.E.N.
Coming from African American Protestant Church roots, the letters A.M.E.N. call to mind the hands of my grandmother and her friends clapping together, the dark, veined hands of many Black people who brought their joy and pain through the doors of store fronts, large brick Gothic buildings, and modest wooden structures, to bow their heads, sing out load, have a silent cry and take their problems to the Lord.
From humble beginnings in working class Detroit, to Los Angeles, New York, and Boston, I look at these letters through new eyes, as an invitation into seeing the environs of the city in which I live more closely or more broadly, whatever it entails. Like the photographic dictionary of the grand, sprawling metropolis Mexico City -- ABC DF: Graphic Dictionary of Mexico City -- I will use the Spanish and English alphabet each week to examine the experience of the city more deeply. I use the term "city" to broadly mean those places literally, figuratively and imaginatively that surround Boston Metro, including the environs of Cambridge and surrounding areas as well.
"A"
America:
Boston Common
Freedom Trail
Faneuil Hall
African American History Museum
Union United Methodist Church and the Jazz Series "All Blues" by Angela Counts, honoring Boston Native Jimmy Slyde (2008)
Harriet Tubman Park, South End Boston
Excerpt from work in progress -- "Steppin" by Angela Counts
"M"
Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Morte/Death
Movie. I shot my first super 8 film on location in the cemetery. The following is a photo taken on my location scout. In the Garden: Silent Movie on Vimeo
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| "Althea Path, Mt. Auburn Cemetery" Photo: Angela M. Counts |
"E"
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| "The Way to Work" Photo: Angela M. Counts |
The Emerald Necklace. The parks that run through the city of Boston, designed by Frederick J. Olmstead. The iconic landscape artist who designed Central Park in New York is an obsession of mine. I learned about Olmstead while reading The White City, a fictionalized account of the Chicago's World Fair in the late 1800s. It tells of Olmstead's massive design of the park that housed the fair and a parrallel tale of a true life serial killer.
The J.P. Pond and surrounding park is a park of the Emerald Necklace. The photo above was from my car window during the two winters that I drove through Jamaica Plain, past the Pond on my way to work. I was struck by how the Pond changed with the seasons and imagined how it must have undergone changes throughout the centuries.
"N"
Nor'ester
Neighborhood
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| "Looking Out Her Window" Photo: Angela M. Counts |
This is a view outside of my window. The storms are unrelenting and at times create a blanket of quiet on the city. I look out and see art in the snow and the world outside. According to Wikipedia: A nor'easter is a type of macro-scale storm along the East Coast of the United States and Atlantic Canada, so named because the storm travels to the northeast from the south and the winds come from the northeast.
