Last week, we went up to New York for the exhibition opening of Gita Lenz and the book release party for Candela Books first release, Gita Lenz: Photographs.
The reception was great. A lot of people made it out to the gallery, we sold a bunch of books and all in all it was a really good time. We had hoped to get Gita out to the show but when we visited her, it was too rough on her just moving her around the nursing home really. On Tuesday, Timothy and I visited her for about four hours and it was the most lively I had seen her in a long time. We took her outside to the garden but she was too cold in the breeze, so we moved back into the lobby. We went through the book a couple of times and Gita was pretty animated by the whole experience. Towards the end of our visit, when she seemed to be getting tired, she asked a couple of times "Who took these pictures?" She wasn't looking at the book though and was asking about the windows in front of her and the scene outside. It was a strange moment. Sort of poignant... We would repeat to her that what she was seeing was the world out side, to which she would say... "hmmm."
On Wednesday, the day of the opening, Carrie and Woody and I went back by the nursing home and had another nice visit. We only stayed maybe an hour and a half or so as she was less energetic than the day before. But she had a nice visit and we got to sit outside as the weather was maybe ten degrees warmer or so. When we left, we were sad to be heading out to her exhibition without her but the truth of it is that she wouldn't have remembered it the next day and the trip would have been too painful.
The show was great though and by the opening, several photographs had already sold. It is nice to see our effort and belief in this project is being validated a little bit. And it is very cool to see Gita begin to receive some recognition finally, long overdue as it is.
