new orleans
1980-1982
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Platform off the coast of Louisiana, as well as recent efforts to renew offshore drilling on the coast of my new home state of California, have given me the opportunity to look back on those days. With the U.S. economy clearly in a recession, one in which the priority to generate jobs for the millions of unemployed appears to outweigh dearly held environmental concerns, there are calls for renewed oil drilling in the Gulf and off the coasts of California. It’s difficult to gauge a proper balance going forward. When in the field, I saw drilling much like locals, as a cultural romance with the sea – and what can be better than having riches right in our backyard, to provide good jobs and secure futures?
My time as a galley hand aboard Union IE 276 in the Gulf of Mexico was one of the more memorable experiences of my life. It was the first oilrig I was assigned. Two subsequent summers of working for the food service in Houma, LA would follow. It was an adventure to fly atop the water aboard converted Vietnam-era helicopters to our barracks on the horizon - or shuttle back and forth in stout crew boats whose captains sought to outrun late summer storms. Departing from ports on the outskirts of Texas, Florida, Mississippi, or Louisiana was like exchanging a land-based city for a sea-based community.
The Gulf oil field is made up of hundreds, maybe thousands, of multi-level dwellings housing between 15-20 men, who as prospectors work literally day and night to bring their “black gold” to the surface. Journal entry -- The drilling platforms I have been assigned in the Gulf thus far are one to two hundred miles out. In every direction there is water, five to ten thousand feet deep. Out here, the sky is divided up into theaters. The clouds hang like curtains. I might see a dark rainstorm in this corner, sunshine bursting through layered diffusion here, light in pools and casting an array of colors in that corner over there, with an empty night approaching from behind me.
Rough necks and roustabouts were considered the unskilled labor of the drilling rig personnel food chain. Anything that needed to be lifted, mixed, or assembled might be delegated to either the rough neck or roustabout. Usually these were was the youngest guys on the crew, who with training, exams, and a bit more experience could eventually land skilled role. On one my first rigs, a roustabout was working with the drilling team to mix a powdered (sulfuric) acid, which goes into the hole, heating up the mud used for viscosity. Water accidently spilled into the solution and on his leg, severely burning him. These guys earned their money and slept well.
I begin a series of pencil studies to capture the variations of the light, using for reflection a cloud formation or a crew boat. My Parsons painting instructor Bill Klutz drilled into us the importance of seeing tonal patterns. I hope his teaching is captured in these pencil drawings and watercolors. Night can be equally as fascinating as daylight.
Over a three-week period, I find myself charting the movements of stars, naming a few after friends. For a young person who thought he knew so much, I learned daily out on the Gulf. Even in these small studies of boats docked off away from the rigs. Any harbor rat would know about boats subtle shift of position based on the tide flow. I had never observed this before. There were constant day-to-day marvels.
January 14 – blog post
I met Michael in the late 70's. He was one of seven roommates in a small dorm suite at Parsons School of Design. By year's end we had struck up a friendship.
He convinced me to join him for the summer working aboard oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico. This was his father's current profession, as a cook offshore and living in a coastal town in Louisiana. Michael was a talented and avid photographer. He accepted the artistry of icons like Ansel Adams, but was much more turned on by the the grid constructions and thought experiments of Duane Michals or the unglamorous characters of Diane Arbus. I was studying drawing and illustration at Parsons and was at the time unimpressed by cameras. I primarily used photography as reference material -- my favorite swipe files being in the Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street Public Library collection in Manhattan.
Michael built a darkroom in his 14th Street loft. When I needed a place to stay for a few months, I slept there. Mike would be up all night developing, enlarging, and printing negatives. He'd pace back and forth, smoking a now signature pipe, scratching his red and rough beard while studying pictures on the walls. He became a tough critic in those years. Though at times pretentiously quoting from his twin scriptures -- NPR and the New York Times -- Mike pushed me further, to think conceptually, inspiring me to make pictures using a camera. Before leaving Parsons, I took on a variety of formats and gained knowledge of the history, wandering SOHO with Michael as he distinguished between what was new and good and what had "already been done."
I was in the process this week of re-printing images and writing about those three summers working aboard oil rigs in the Gulf and our subsequent days selling home-baked pastries from a card table at the Union Square Farmers Market -- when I received the phone call of Michael's unexpected passing. Today is his birthday. I am sure he is somewhere puffing on a pipe, reading Hemingway or The Times, absorbed in the fragrance of sweet potato pie.
Happy Birthday brother! Michael Patrick Demmy 1.14.1959 - 1.10.2012
