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they're wacky and wild and dark sometimes. But people want to go there sometimes. Make the art evocative—to me. And those people who come are the people I want to see."
[PART III, in which martinis are shaken and plans are laid to make a VW van into a chick magnet.]
On opening night it is discovered that Annie Leibovitz's hyped exhibition is also opening a few blocks away. Garlington is completely exhausted, breaking down, almost tearful, fearing no one is going to
attend. Immediately changing gears, his posse scoops him up, protecting a dearly loved child. The members of the group know exactly how to care for their leader. They dial down the chaos, manage the details, and give Garlington the creative
quiet he needs. It becomes touchingly evident why they've come.
As friends, family, and a sizable crowd fill the Steven Cohen Gallery, the photo- grapher is over an hour late. Garlington decided he didn't want this to be a wine and cheese opening. ("Shit, it's gotta be martinis—shaken!" he says.) When he finally arrives with shaker in hand, he is in fine form: charming, charismatic, humble.
The crowd's attention then turns away from the photographer and begins to focus on the faces coming out of the portraits on the walls. This is why we are here after all.
And then, of course, hours later Garlington is a drunken hooligan again. Before he passes out, he hollers across the motel room party at me, "It's my two heads again. They work symbiotically. I just believe in this so much."
Days later, back at Spinder Photographic, life accelerates. Garlington will soon be off to China to photograph the textile work- ers. When he returns he will begin prep- aration for his third annual cross-country "Photo Car" trek to take new photos.
"It's gonna be a Volkswagen van this time, covered in photographs, I'm gonna have a writer, a musician, and an actor with me. I'll start in Arizona—in the caves with those musicians who play to the stalactites; next day we do the bee- keepers, and then we go to the drag queens, then we go to the meatpackers. Every day a new, interesting take on the American worker. It keeps me grounded. Also, the van will bring people to it; you know, chicks. I didn't say that."
And then of course there's the book. After struggling for the perfect name for it, and even calling me for suggestions, he has decided on Portraits from the Belly of the Whale. He asks me what I think it means. I look through his portraits of the amputees, the Dairy Queen girls, the half-naked women in swamps, all evoking Mike Garlington's slightly twisted Americana.
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