Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 274

“My mom left him for my piano teacher. He came to me crying, and...

“My mom left him for my piano teacher. He came to me crying, and I wasn’t very sympathetic, because I think I felt resentful of the pressure he was putting on me. I was a teenager so I wanted to cry on his shoulder, not the other way around.”

"My mother became a blind invalid after my brother and sister...

"My mother became a blind invalid after my brother and sister died, and I had to care for her every day for 27 years. She died in April, and I’m trying to be a new me. In the last two weeks, I went to the opera twice, the Philharmonic twice, and Carnegie Hall three times."

THE GREAT HONY ART MYSTERY:Forgive the sensational title, but I...

THE GREAT HONY ART MYSTERY:

Forgive the sensational title, but I don’t think I’ll get a chance to use it again, so I had to take advantage of the opportunity. Nearly two weeks ago, I posted this picture of Dwight Williams, an artist that I discovered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the caption, Dwight discussed his struggles as an artist. The comment section was initially supportive, but later turned quite divisive, as allegations began to emerge that Dwight was a fraud. People claimed that Dwight merely pretended to work on finished, copied prints, only to sell them as originals. Another person claimed to have purchased Dwight’s work, used an eraser on it, and discovered that it was a “shaded over print.” Other people posted photos they’d taken of Dwight, several years apart, working on what appeared to be a finished version of the same work. Lastly, some employees at the Met chimed in, claiming it was “common knowledge” among longtime employees that Dwight sold finished, fraudulent prints to unsuspecting buyers, while claiming they were originals.

But to complicate matters, there was also evidence in Dwight’s favor. Before taking his photo, or even telling him about Humans of New York, I’d offered to purchase the print he was working on for $400. Dwight had refused, explaining that the work was “not yet finished.” Additionally, a few commenters claimed that they had worked with Dwight, and had seen him create a piece from start to finish. Others claimed to know him personally, and vouched for his talent and skill.

In light of these conflicting reports, I considered the idea of revisiting Dwight, and presenting him with these accusations, but I decided against it. As with every subject who appears on HONY, Dwight’s story was presented as he told it. There are plenty of sites that trade in “embarrassing” and “exposing” people, and I didn’t feel a desire to go down that path in a ruthless search for “The Truth.” But when Dwight emailed me a few days ago, inviting me to investigate further, I took him up on the offer. In describing what I found, I will couple my own observations with quotes from a statement that Dwight gave me, which is copied in full in the comments.

Dwight begins his process with what he calls “ghost images,” or inochromes, which are extremely faint reproductions of Dwight’s original work. (Documentation of these can be found in the comments). As he explains, “the images are so light that at least half or more of the details are invisible and must be drawn again.” Dwight does this because, given the time he puts into each drawing, it is “economically infeasible” to create each work new. He spends 2-3 days adding details to the original ghost images, which, when completed, “have more realism, skill, and detail than even the original drawing from which they were taken.”

Dwight says he is “not guiltless.” Dwight acknowledges that he tells prospective buyers that he creates his work “from scratch.” He makes this claim because he believes the creation of an ionochrome to be part of an original, complete process. But Dwight acknowledges that this “technical truth” may have created a false impression with some buyers. However, he asks that those who have previously purchased his works to please treasure them in the knowledge that he labored greatly to render each and every one of them in as much detail as possible.

“I’ve played at nightclubs and concerts all across the...

“I’ve played at nightclubs and concerts all across the Caribbean. I’m only doing this job for survival. I came to America to be famous.”

“I never got close to my father. We had routines, but not...

“I never got close to my father. We had routines, but not conversations. I think the only way he knew how to express love was to work hard. During the last year of his life, when he was really sick, he played solitaire in his office for six hours a day. My main memory of him is his silhouette reflecting off the wall of the corridor by the light of his computer screen.”

“Stanley was a year ahead of me growing up. I met him while...

“Stanley was a year ahead of me growing up. I met him while riding the bus to kindergarten. Here was this older kid who had so much energy and didn’t seem to be afraid of the teachers. All through school he was one step ahead of me. And he always pushed me one step further. We did a lot of drugs together. We did odd jobs together. I remember one time we made 900 paper crepe flowers for a toy company on 23rd and 5th. But then our lives went two different directions. He dropped out of high school and went to California. The first time he came back, we camped in my backyard and smoked cigarettes all night, and he told me all these stories about the hustling he would do. One of his new best friends was Little Joe, from Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on The Wild Side,’ you know: ‘Little Joe never once gave it away / Everybody had to pay and pay.’ Well, Stanley learned to hustle from Little Joe, and I lost touch with him. We reconnected every few years. After one particularly long period of silence, I tracked him down through his sister, and found him on a chain gang in Sarasota, Florida. He’d been sentenced to 18.5 years for drug smuggling. He got Hepatitis C during his time in prison, and seven months after he was released, he died. I spoke to him a few hours before he passed away. He couldn’t talk, but his sister put his phone up to his ear, and I just told him I loved him.”

“My friend Stanley passed away recently. We grew up together....

“My friend Stanley passed away recently. We grew up together. Something about losing a person who was an essential part of your childhood makes you realize your own vulnerability. Both my parents had passed away already, but that seemed like the natural order of things. After Stanley died, I was telling my daughter stories about the two of us growing up, and I felt how old I seemed in her eyes, and I really felt vulnerable.”

"They’ve started firing people. I think my time is coming...

"They’ve started firing people. I think my time is coming soon. Once you build the pyramids for them, they want to run the pyramids as cheaply as possible."

“My mother passed away when I was very young, and my father...

“My mother passed away when I was very young, and my father passed away when I was eight. I don’t remember my mother, and I only remember little things about my father. He always wore a three-piece suit. He was a florist, so we always had flowers in the house. But everything else, I had to learn from people who knew him. They’d tell me that he loved baseball. They’d tell me he loved color. All the things they told me seemed very bland and abstract. So I was forced to fill in the gaps with my imagination. Then one day, when I was much older, my cousin told me: ‘You are just like Herman, you know. You have the same sensitivity and humor. He’d be so proud of you.’ And it was the greatest compliment I’d ever received in my life. It made me very emotional, because I felt for the first time that I had the approval of my father, and it made me realize that I’d needed that approval.”

"I said ‘yes’ too much when people asked me to do...

"I said ‘yes’ too much when people asked me to do something for them. So now they don’t even ask. They just tell me to do something for them."