ABSTRACT
I have often had the thought that seeing – not English – is my first language. Becoming a photographer, and even a psychoanalyst, has been rooted in this primary capacity to know and relate to the world, and images were my first vocabulary. I can still picture the view out the window looking onto the firehouse across the street from my first childhood home. A small bookcase that my father built I can readily visualize, with its graduated steps on one side that I could sit upon and the shelves containing my and my sister’s books and toys. Although never formally trained and not especially talented, I have sketched and drawn the world since my early childhood. I stuttered as a boy and saw a speech therapist in elementary school. The part of the speech therapy I most remember is looking at myself in the mirror, practicing exercises of using my tongue to try to touch my nose, then my chin, and then forming it into a hot dog roll. These evocative images connect me to the visual and sensual parts of my childhood, the shame of having trouble speaking, and the shy gratitude to that now anonymous speech therapist for helping me learn to communicate more comfortably.
