Catalog Description of 

The Place Where I Will Die

Digital Edition

by
Michael Andrews

 

The  Sierra National Forest just outside the Southeast corner of Yosemite, about 25 to 35 miles Northeast of Bass Lake   

A family history from 1930 to 2001: portraits, forest, stones, lakes, flowers, landscapes, streams.

 

82 13x19 inch pages on 100% rag, archival paper & 48 pigment prints, sewn or loose leaf in linen binding with cover image in recessed window. The standard slipcase is made of various woods: Pine, Fir, Redwood, Cedar, Poplar For an additional $100.00  Oak, Mahogany or Maple may be ordered. For an additional $150.00 Rosewood, Teak, Walnut, Cherry, Padouk or Cocobolo may be ordered. The window is clear lucite. Individual prints are available in various sizes.

The title of this book is taken from a line in a poem entitled For The Old Man, dedicated to my father. The poems, and this series of photographs, is a portrait of an area in the Sierra National Forest, near Yosemite. It used to be known as the John Muir National forest, but is now called the Ansel Adams, who, I am sure never set foot in it. My father, and his father before him made yearly visits to this location, and I have also made the same yearly pilgrimage since the age of three. I have been photographing and writing poems about it for forty years.

It is one of the most beautiful wilderness areas on earth. It is also a place which holds a deep spiritual meaning for me and for those close to me.

There are campgrounds which we have occupied for years, suddenly plowed into bare dust. There is a lake named Jackass, and a mountain named Madera Peak. There is sudden snow, and the wind in the pine. There are mushrooms the size of basketballs and moss so green it glows.

From 1973 on it has been repeatedly raped and permanently destroyed by the logging and forestry industries. A place that I thought was eternal was dying before I was middle-aged. My children, and their children will never see it as I saw it. For me, such degradation of the earth is a kind of death; all things, especially great beauty, are mortal.

Shortly after returning from the Nam, Flo and I walked to one of the old campsites. It is by a small stream, the West fork of the Portuguese, near a flat rock which the Indians had used as a camp. When we were kids, my brother Rick and I used to hunt for arrowheads in the cracks. But now, everything was cut to the ground. I could find no familiar landmarks. They cut a road through both Indian camps and littered the ground with the refuse of dead trees. The loggers had learned to camouflage the extent of their destruction by leaving narrow stands of trees to block the sight of the next patch of devastation. But the patches went on and on and on.

That day, when I saw that one of the most ancient and dense parts of the forest had been turned into desert, I died the little death. I had outlived the forest, a place that was, in my imagination, ancient and eternal. That day was the very first day that I felt old.

This is the place where I will die no matter where I die.