* * *

[continued]

The stuff that bothers historians, the official guardians of posterity, is supposedly less intimate. They simply want to "get at" the past in any way they can. Peter has left them an invaluable resource, whatever his private purpose. Hordes of future graduate students might extract meaning from his photographs ("the visual text") like giddy Forty-niners.

They might count the people; sort them by ages, genders, and statures; note the uniformity of their complexions, and the patterns in their postures. Men and women, for example, trade brazen and coy stances, sucked-in guts and canted heads, while children, new to such subtleties, stare blankly into the lens. You could not ask for a better sample of Midwestern, smalltown, summer-weekend fashion: gingham dresses and blue jeans, chore boots and jogging shoes, seed-company caps and message-laden T-shirts. Curators in the next century might well use "Oxford '84" to justify collecting strollers, guitars, baseball mitts, school bags, and beer cans.

Scholars of a more scientific bent could use the photographs to reconstruct public health and social structure. Children, for example, stand straighter and taller than grandparents raised on more limited local produce. Eye glasses and walkers are common among the aged and athletic gear among the young. (It is easy to see that weight loss has not been as universal an American fixation as the popular press might suggest.) With a little documentary material -- a directory or two, party and church membership lists, maybe some K-Mart and Sears advertisements -- analysts could learn to see, as the locals do, that each class and clan has a characteristic look.

"Oxford '84" could be of special interest to art historians. They might use it to mark a stage in the evolution of documentary photography or institutionalized art. Independent entrepeneurs, like the artists who struggled before the F.S.A. or W.P.A., could rarely afford such an undertaking. The marketing and distributions systems prohibit it. But with funds from a state arts council and a university salary, Peter is able to craft a gift for his public. Indirectly, at least, they paid for it "on spec." Of course, Peter hoped they would be appreciative, but only the Arts Council had to worry about it.

Critics might emphasize the more formulaic "art look" of the photographs. Granted, like Uncle Harry and the Sears Studio, Peter centered each subject in the frame. But he used black-and-white film. The background was not a swing set or a scene from the Rockies but an old tarp. With minimal lighting and long exposures Peter left shadows and motion that would be considered defects in a commercial portrait. The repetition of simple, geometric images in the composite is a modern art convention. It is not surprising, then, that more galleries than archives have been interested in displaying the work.

But Peter did not have scholarship or criticism in mind.

I remember him in the darkroom one day, toying with the order of the negatives for a composite he would give to the town. He started talking about "balance" and "rhythm" in a sequence but then stopped: "What the hell. They won't give a shit, and in a way I can see their point." He could worry about that stuff in future editions or in what he half-jokingly calls his "regular" or "real art."

Yet too, with the benefit of Peter's commentary, we can see that he was not just taking a break from art or Iowa City. The project could not have been done as it was without the University or the art world. Although the photographs may look tangential, they follow main lines of his professional career. Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, teachers, and colleagues look over his shoulder. Images of 1930s migrants, Wegman's dog, old photos, drawings, and constructions hover over the work. Ventures into unknown territory are not flights from his craft but a regular part of it. As an undergraduate he studied sociology; as a graduate student, fine arts. His early work was representational; his later work abstract. It is only natural that he would use the Oxford project to explore the change.

But in an art world, especially one so insulated from the market place, the line between craft and personal expression can be very thin. The project was for Oxford, but Peter was also making deeply personal history. Looking over his shoulder, next to (or maybe even in front of) Paul Strand, is Peter's mother, his father, cousins, and neighbors. Private images of 1960s marches, Medgar Evers, and body counts face Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan. Peering from behind all those gingham dresses and faded jeans is the ghost of a dead friend.

I cannot help feeling a little sorry for Peter. The feeling hauntingly resembles my own self-indulgence. With others of our generation, we often ache like weary veterans, if not from The War or discrimination than from futile movements to stop the madness. About the time Peter moved from New York to his Iowa farm, I moved from Rizzo's Philadelphia to smalltown Maine. There we hoped to heal or at least forget our wounds. But they still fester, and many of us cannot forget.

I remember the long drive from my house to Oxford on Memorial Day, 1984, worrying for Peter. It was to be the deciding day of the project. He could not understand why so few people had come to pose. It was such a great idea. But with Memorial festivities downtown and more aggressive support pledged by town notables, surely (we all prayed) they would come flocking in . . . if the weather held up.

As the temperature dropped and rain began to pelt the windshield, my worries increased. I stopped at a store near town to check what was happening: "Oh yeah, the parade has been cancelled. Some people may just drive out to the cemetery." Oh, God!! I readied for the worst, rehearsing soothing speeches as I turned into Main Street.

There was a line of people standing in the drizzle in front of Peter's makeshift studio. It could not be all that bad. In fact, it was wonderful. Most of the town was across the street whooping-it-up at the American Legion Hall. Post Officers were grabbing whole families and dragging them over to pose. Peter was overjoyed and exhausted, cranking out forty or fifty shots an hour. His arm was killing him just from loading and unloading film holders.

At noon we demanded a break to eat some chicken fried by the Auxiliary and to relax over a beer with friends. People started buying Buds for us faster than an ordinary human could open the cans. "This is a drinking town," they boasted. "A goddamned good time," Oxford-style.

Since I had been standing, talking, and listening all day, I eventually left my beers stacked on the bar to sit in a corner, rest, and work on my notes. I paused to look around and eavesdrop. Surrounding me were ruddy Iowans in Sup-hose and military garb, cursing, back-slapping, and above all getting drunk. Housewives, huddled at tables, nervously looked on as their kids wrestled under the chairs. It finally occurred to me: "What are two Jewish long-hairs from the East Coast doing in a place like this?"

I whispered something about it to Peter who chuckled and went back to his conversation. Soon he was dragged out the door with a crowd to return to work, and I filled his place at the bar. More beers piled up.

Most of the time I chatted with a man I'll call "Jim." He forgave my taking notes as we exchanged bawdy hometown tales. Every few minutes I would ask him to wait while I caught up. But as I wrote, I noticed that neighbor after neighbor came up, hugged Jim's shoulders, looked him straight in the eye, and softly said, "You know we're all with you today." Jim would look down at his beer a little sadly and say, "Thanks. Hey, I'm okay. We have to look to the future, you know."

How could I have forgotten? That morning in the cemetery Jim had walked by the grave of a son who died in a car wreck just weeks ago. Of course, I was not expected to know or to say anything. We were supposed to be having a goddamned good time. But I felt sad and more than a little ashamed. Down-home folks have good times but also complex lives and wounds of their own.

Right then at the bar, I took some of Jim's words (mainly things he said as he shifted from receiving comfort to talking with me) and edited them into a single paragraph. I read it back to him and a few others who paused to listen.

"That Peter is something, I tell you. He moved here from New York, you know. But I don't think he'll ever go back. He likes it in Oxford! Really!! . . . Just having fun . . . We've got him about wore out, working like a peach orchard boar. But hey -- that's what it's all about. You know, if you're sick here, someone will take care of you . . . and . . . then again, if you're an ass hole, forget it!"

"That's right!," they said and laughed, "You've got it!"

In the end I am not sure anyone of us entirely got "it," the real Oxford '84. But Peter, the townsfolk, and I did our best. Through the project we came to know and care for each other. We learned to see parts of ourselves, new memories, and old dreams in Peter's gift to posterity -- "a little slice of history" we made together.