Creative: Twelve Kinds of Silence

Nick is fearless and the rest of us need to pay attention. Not to mention he’s willing to throw down the gauntlet. “Can’t stop, won’t stop.” This package was the sleeper cell of book packages. I open it innocently, thinking it would reveal a single publication. But no, not quite. Inside, layered like the 1980s, seven-layer dip were three individual publications all with the same family name (Tauro) but all with distinct personalities.

Nick Tauro Jr. has a day job but it blends with his creator side as well as anyone I know. And he works at it. If you are new to putting your work in print do NOT be intimidated or put off by something like this. Nick’s work life and creative lives are one and the same because he works at it. He puts the time in. Not just the time to make the work but to finalize it with ink and paper. These publications are thoughtful and tick the boxes of the technical and the ethereal.

Twelve Kinds of Silence details two things. The bosque of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque but also the reality of what happens when someone lands a Half Frame camera.(The bosque is on fire as of yesterday morning.) For those of you in the know, you might be having visions of the Yashica Samurai or some equally illustrious. For those of you wondering “What is the HELL is a half-frame camera?” just think seventy-two. That is the number of frames per roll, hence the “half-frame.” When thirty-six just feels like giving up, well, lock and load the half-frame and tilt that selector switch to full-auto.

This book/zine works for me. I like the simple yet telling type treatment, and the book helps me wrap my head around the space that is the bosque. The idea being, that Nick would enter this place and then walk until the roll was complete. A mediation of sorts. What works about the half-frame is the sea of images that blend to form one. Stare long enough and a range of things emerge. One glance and the page feels cold and dark. Glance again and a ray of warmth emerges. And the book/zine is simple, small, and just enough. The design provides but does so through restraint. A lesson for all of us.

I’ve featured Nick many times on this site and will continue to do so because I like him, I like his work and he keeps sending me things! He makes me want to make. Like a tap on my shoulder saying “Hey, keep going.”