Dear Robert,
“Dear Robert,” is both an homage to the pivotal 1958 photo essay “The Americans” by Robert Frank, and a contemporary documentary essay on present-day America. From 2020-2022, Amy followed Frank’s 10,000-mile route around America to produce an incisive look at the cultural, racial, economic, and political issues that are defining the landscape of the United States. The resulting work creates a dialog between present and past. Each of the 83 photos in “Dear Robert,” is a response to one of Frank’s 83 photos. This encourages the viewer to volley back and forth between the two bodies of work, challenging us to consider how history, economics, race, politics, gender and point of view have shaped of the most influential nations in the world.
This work was featured in The Washington Post Magazine's 2022 photography issue, The Photo Issue: The Real Americana.
This work was featured in The Washington Post Magazine's 2022 photography issue, The Photo Issue: The Real Americana.
dear robert,
I went looking for you.
For the man with the cross on the shore of the Mississippi,
the cowboy on the New York City corner, the boys in the back of the car at the Motorama.
"The sad poem" you sucked straight out of America.
"Hold still," I say, you move.
I went to St. Helena, Santa Fe, Detroit,
to the hotel window, the St. Francis statue, the top of the hill in San Francisco.
I photographed the trolley.
"You can't hold on to what isn't yours,"
a woman says as she looks into my camera in New Orleans.
"No one is yours."
For the man with the cross on the shore of the Mississippi,
the cowboy on the New York City corner, the boys in the back of the car at the Motorama.
"The sad poem" you sucked straight out of America.
"Hold still," I say, you move.
I went to St. Helena, Santa Fe, Detroit,
to the hotel window, the St. Francis statue, the top of the hill in San Francisco.
I photographed the trolley.
"You can't hold on to what isn't yours,"
a woman says as she looks into my camera in New Orleans.
"No one is yours."
dear robert,
Sometimes I steer off course.
I trace my finger over the dotted line - scenic route - or the bend in the road,
the signpost that tells me to make a sharp turn.
My finger lands on Jamestown and I find my car headed in that direction, a few hours off the map.
I never pull into the first English settlement as they say, but I photograph the land surrounding it.
The water. It is beautiful.
I imagine what that beginning looked like and I can see it in front of me.
Later I look up Native American origin stories and I learn the Navajo believed that their ancestors came from the ground.
Up through caves in the earth.
Some things I know I will never find.
I look at the ground beneath my feet,
I remember Manny, the Native American I met in South Dakota who sang for me,
a song about his grandfather,
something like a wail.
I trace my finger over the dotted line - scenic route - or the bend in the road,
the signpost that tells me to make a sharp turn.
My finger lands on Jamestown and I find my car headed in that direction, a few hours off the map.
I never pull into the first English settlement as they say, but I photograph the land surrounding it.
The water. It is beautiful.
I imagine what that beginning looked like and I can see it in front of me.
Later I look up Native American origin stories and I learn the Navajo believed that their ancestors came from the ground.
Up through caves in the earth.
Some things I know I will never find.
I look at the ground beneath my feet,
I remember Manny, the Native American I met in South Dakota who sang for me,
a song about his grandfather,
something like a wail.
DEAR RObert,
I ran up a hill in Butte and grabbed your three crosses right off it.
I went to your hotel window and took that image too.
Call me a robber. Or a revisionist.
"Can you show me to The Robert Frank room?" I ask.
"You stand in a long line," the manager says,
pushing the elevator button to the top of the Hotel Finlen.
Wherever I go, you're there.
In the American flag tossed on a dusty pickup, the gaggle of men guffawing around a table.
"Ich bin ein Amerikaner,"
you said on the day you became a citizen.
"I am an American."
I think about this as I walk up to the Butte hotel window,
as I drive around and around the country of my birth.
I say it to myself as I take out my camera, this prism, and spin it in my hands,
aiming it out onto that vast American skyline,
looking for the last bit of light.
I went to your hotel window and took that image too.
Call me a robber. Or a revisionist.
"Can you show me to The Robert Frank room?" I ask.
"You stand in a long line," the manager says,
pushing the elevator button to the top of the Hotel Finlen.
Wherever I go, you're there.
In the American flag tossed on a dusty pickup, the gaggle of men guffawing around a table.
"Ich bin ein Amerikaner,"
you said on the day you became a citizen.
"I am an American."
I think about this as I walk up to the Butte hotel window,
as I drive around and around the country of my birth.
I say it to myself as I take out my camera, this prism, and spin it in my hands,
aiming it out onto that vast American skyline,
looking for the last bit of light.