NEWS + IMAGES + IDEAS

circa 1997, Oakland hills. © Lacey Terrell

It's a cold, rainy night. The water for pasta is boiling. I put the red, green and yellow rice noodles in and sit down on the couch. I know what is ahead of me after my meal. I eat. It's 10:15pm, just the time when everyone leaves the lab and I arrive.

My hands fumble with the key code box. I bang twice to ensure no one is looking at prints under the florescent lights, able to let me in. No response.

The lab is dark, but the sound of the fan left on in the drying room welcomes me. Time to work. I re-instill life into the damp space as I spill my belongings all over the black corduroy cushions. Light table on. Cage door open. Safe light warming up. I feel strangely at home amidst the dull chemical odor and the ambient silence interrupted only by screen printers with the dropsies on the floor above. Hypo Chek, Fix, OK. Neutol to mix 1:15, fresh and potent. Stop, good. Hypo Clear purple, dump. Mix the potions necessary and turn off the light.

It's me, alone, with the red glimmer and dripping faucets and magical sorcery of making pictures. Time is 10:59pm. I sit on the corduroy examining, planning what to do - which image will I welcome into the already over saturated world, first? Hours fly by, as my eyes adjust and neck stiffens.

1:30am: I am hungry again and thirsty. Happy for Coke and Fritos.

Raise the enlarger head, slip in the negative carrier. Lower head. Focus light on, off. Adjust time. Press go. No paper in easel. Oops. Take out paper, put in easel. Press go again. The beeps are a nice break in the thickening silence. Into the developer. Tip tip tip fiddle flick. The image emerges.

3:00am: Only four prints finished. I haven't spoken in 5 hours.

4:30am: Six prints. Do I like them? A second wind has erupted and I need more liquid. Sprite. My teeth are carpeted by a gritty sugar coated film. I look at the deserted campus watching for movements of raccoons, security guards or other vampires. No one. The rain has turned to drizzle. Back into the cave of darkness, it is now 4:43am. The minutes are expanding as my body slows down.

I print and print. In and out. Dark to light. The same routine which has been in my life for years. Once production mode kicks in, I have a day life and at the stroke of 10pm I become the darkroom troll lingering, creating, alone as the rest of the school and area sleep. I walk onto campus and say hello as others say goodnight. It is my other world - a time and place where I am free of distraction and chaos. A simple existence, my tasks are clear and reasons for procrastination limited. I can think in this quietness. I am not afraid. Well, a subtle presence of fear keeps me alert.

The birds chirp as I walk down the sidewalk to my apartment. The neighborhood sleeps. The streets are calm. The sky is turning purple. Few people are stirring, getting ready for work, as I pull down the covers. It is 6:10am. My legs are stiff, eye bags swelling. I don't think about it or the fact that I would be there, in the cave, the next night at the same time.

In the middle of the night I lurk. I like being up, others' realities are on hold as mine continues to evolve. It's as if I am the only one alive, or that I have a special knowledge or am privy to the secrets of the night. As the years go by, I sense my body resisting the all nighters. I can't bounce back quite as readily, I don't look quite as fresh the next day. It is my time, though, to prowl and ponder that which is distracted, or too timid to reveal itself, during the daylight hours of normal.

- Excerpt from impresario, MFA thesis.