Olivia Callender © “Amityville” Long Island, 2012

The same color in the evening/ It is different against the whiter sky/ This burnt orange darkens/ against the pail blue/ lightens against the dark cerulean. /

Color, relative always.

Olivia Callender © 

My brain is just a smattering of electrified tissue and it hurts. 

Olivia Callender© From the Series “The Rose is Gentrified”, Roosevelt Island 2012

I don’t want it to snow. 

Olivia Callender © “The Rose is Gentrified”, New Playground for Blackwell Park, Oct 2012

Projects on Gentrification aren’t all that new yet they seem to be rarely done by the locals themselves. I’ve been going around photographing the things that have “changed” or “stayed the same” since the summer. I’ve got plans to photograph the Goldwater hospital before they demolish it this year and also take portraits of the old and new residents. I’m not sure if I want to have statements across the photographs yet though. If you have thoughts about that let me know. 

I guess this all stems from the deep pit of bitterness I have over the loss of my childhood home. I’m trying not to be really but it’s hard. Things change I know, I know they do… It’s just hard when it doesn’t seem for the better. 

Blackwell park located behind the Blackwell town house was the largest children’s park on the island. Its layout was probably one of the best I’ve seen for a kid’s parks. We had a stone castle that stemmed out from a natural hill. It had a Merlon top that you could sit on or hide behind. It was good for water fighting and in the shade the stone got cool. We had three slides, one that curled another that was straight and narrow and a large wide one off to the side. It fit at least three kids and was long enough to play kick the climber. 

Farther back on the hill were two other structures. They were odd, like two tall and thin houses made of mettle bars and wood with pointy roofs. Pigeons would sometimes nest there in the winter, but in the summer we’d sit inside on rainy days, tiers of children from top to bottom. We hatched plans there, the leaders sitting in the rafters while others sat on the lower bar and then finally the rest on the wooden floor

But that wasn’t all. We had a monkey bar set with similar roofs on either side. You could climb up into the “attic” and sit while waiting to climb across the bars. 

There was also the tire swing set next to the monkey bars and next to another structure with a wooden bridge that swung back and forth. You could get splinters running across barefoot or you could get pinched between the gaps in the bars. Next to that was the jungle gym. The jungle gym was the courtroom of our playground life. Laws were made, children punished in the squares that made up the blue spaces we climbed over. 

The only thing left is the stone fountains in the back. They are still capable of scraping the skin off of you. The kids can still hop from one to the other but I’m not sure if their overprotective parents will let them. 

I was in college when they tore down my park, the place of so many memories. In many ways that place is essential to who I am today. I cried when my brother showed me the empty hole.

It was just as upsetting to see what they had done to it. This small, boring little playground with one slide and a rubber rock wall, it made me furious.

My rock wall was made of rock. I used to rub my calloused palms across its surface to marble the flesh down. They’re measly swing set in the back doesn’t hold a candles to the vomit inducing heavy rubber tires I had. There are no bars to climb higher, to hang off of, and to jump to your doom from. There are no monkey bars to scale across or run on top of, dangerous feet only for the brave. There is no playhouses, no strange structures to use at your imagination. 

And most of them don’t remember the freedom of running from the next great leap to the wild swing, or the unbalanced climb. They don’t remember the cool rock or the mettle burn. These children are designated to one playhouse, bare bones in its imagination, and it’s okay for them because they don’t know what it used to be like.  

But I pity the kid who doesn’t get a bunch of scraped knees, or a few good scars, and a bushel of bruises from societies cradle, the playground. 

Olivia Callender © From the series (working title) “The Rose Is Gentrified”, South Town, Oct. 2012

Better work ethic… bigger ego…

Things I need. 

Olivia Callender© “In the valley” Upstate NY, 2012

I feel like I worry about the future more than most. 

Olivia Callender© “Beauty’s Error” 2012

Had a dream I was somewhere in South America with a friendly native who was showing me the gorgeous rivers and rope bridges. My family was there acting as tourists while all I wanted to do was stay with this man by the river and take pictures of gold and green. Morgan had bought tickets for all of us for an odd future concert that happened to be there in the middle of the jungle. I didn’t want to go, it was evening sun and I didn’t want to miss the light, but as usual was made to feel uncool because I didn’t care too much about the pop icons. 

I like dreams where I take pictures. 

Olivia Callender© “Don’t let the summer end”, Poland, NY, 2012

I’m serious. I can’t stand the cold, and as much as I used to love the dreamy whitch-y months before all is in a perfect state of faked death, I don’t know if it’s worth it. Let indian summer last forever. 

Olivia Callender © Deer Park, Long Island, 2012

Surgery’s a bitch…

Olivia Callender © Makamah Beach, Long Island, NY, 2012

Other stormy beach photo. 

Portrait sesh with two of my old girls we’ll see how they turn out. 

Olivia Callender © The Sound, Long Island, Spring 2012

There’s a storm raging outside lightening and big BANGs. It makes me applaud. I’ve always liked light shows. It quells my fear. Last night I woke up to a shadowed hand that pointed at me. I didn’t scream but cried out. It slunk back underneath my bed. The universe opened up and let it back into it’s void. My eyes were open I know what I saw. The pain in my side lessens but I’m also not moving. 

Olivia Callender © Deer Park, Long Island, 2012

Late start to the day

Guilt ridden 

Olivia Callender © Deer Park, Long Island, 2012

My doctor says I have an underactive thyroid.

Symptoms of underactive thyroid:

• tiredness
• weight gain
• depression
• being sensitive to the cold
• dry skin and hair
• muscle aches
• infertility 

Everything except weight gain but whatevs…

Olivia Callender © Bush Littering, Deer Park, Spring 2012

No there is no trash can underneath all that trash. Some people are just assholes. 

Olivia Callender © Spring 2012, Forst Salonga, Long Island

The ticking of a clock I cannot find/ the silence while I work/ the white screen not as white as the butterfly behind/ I’m trapped inside I’m trapped in side/ I hate being the honey bee/ working for the queen.