Light 11B - Stockton CA Project

Hello Stockton,

We hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday season.
Our best wishes to all of you for a very Happy New Year in 2013!

Towards the beginning of December we posted that we would be taking a small break from this project – mostly to attend to other commitments and year-end deadlines and engagements we needed to complete in order to keep paying our studio lease, the lights on, and more; this to ensure we continue to have enough resources to do the work that is closest to our hearts.

Unfortunately, this hiatus been a little longer than we planned – it’s been a bit of a tough ending for the year with Joe having to leave the state and take care of his mom who has sadly now passed away. And a few other rough patches intervened along the way as well.

So, we just wanted to let all of you who have been supporting us that we remain committed to the Stockton Project – we’re anxious to start things up again in January.

So thanks for your help and patience.

We look forward to being back in the community, meeting and listening and recording the many good works and stories that are the Stockton we are getting to know and appreciate so much.

Christian and Joe

It’s been a little bit since we posted a Stockton Project update. Our last full day in town was well over a week ago on Saturday, October 20. We returned to follow-up on previous conversations with some of the many Stocktonians we met or made contact with through this page.

Our first stop was American Legion Park; to our eyes a place of remarkable design, nested as it is around several acres of Lake Yosemite fed by a large canal cut straight over to the San Joaquin some two miles west.

Soon, the two nearby residents we had come to meet, Lisa Jones and Rob Quaschnick, arrived. We all sat down together at a picnic table and talked for an hour or so about Stockton, the leafy street where they live just a block or so apart, and particularly about the Neighborhood Watch group they are both active in. Rob himself had started the group some twelve years ago.

It was a beautiful, sunny, fall day, still warm with just a hint of a breeze. Everything was quiet, felt calm, and relaxed.

Nonetheless, there had been trouble just a few days before – after gunplay, a car chased another down their street. The occupants of one them abandoned their vehicle it in front of a house across from Lisa’s home and ran into its backyard, from there they disappeared. After the police came things settled down.

Unlike Rob, Lisa is relatively new to her home. Rob and his wife had introduced themselves to her not long after she moved there. The three are friends but have disagreements, mostly over politics: Lisa is a democrat and a progressive; Rob and his wife are republicans and conservative.

Yet the values they share as neighbors and friends are clearly more important than their politics – they care about their city, about its schools, its quality of life – and about its future. Each holds affection for their town, its history, diverse communities, and the grit and spirit it has always seemed to have.

As Lisa and Rob discussed all these things, mutual respect shone through, along humor and civility, and values rooted in a common good.

After they had left and we had packed up we headed over to the Miracle Mile for our next appointment, it was hard not to reflect and feel a quiet optimism and sense of admiration for what we had just heard.

Our next stop: Eric Torres and the Slip Skate Shop at 3228 Pacific Avenue. We first got wind of him from several teens and young adults, so we dropped by to introduce ourselves a while back.

Eric, a Stockton native, started the shop at another location in 1997, was totally welcoming and friendly on our first visit. We spoke together for quite a while. He told us about growing up in the town, how he first got into the business, and how he had enjoyed watching his mostly youthful customers from the early days get into boarding, get good at it, inevitably grow up, only to be followed by a new crop of coming up talent, just as eager to go for it.

You would be hard-pressed to find easier going guy than Eric. He one of those persons who just plain likes people and treats them well. That said, without a hint of anger or resentment, he also mentioned that on a recent day a teenage dude had popped open the door, leaned into a display, grabbed a new board, and ran out with it.

Eric didn’t chase after him because “I didn’t know what he had…” meaning he didn’t know if the thief was armed – a very smart and well-reasoned response. It was the first time Slip Skate Shot had ever been robbed, ever – a so sad situation.

Anyway, we enjoyed our time at the shop so much we asked Eric if we could come back with our cameras and lights and spend some time making images of him in his place of business. He was nice enough to agree. So that’s what we did this time around, which was cool, because he was completely relaxed about the whole thing.

So, all in all, it was a good day for us on the Stockton Project. There is a long ways to go. We know we’re just scratching the surface so far. But we’re also getting to learn our way around and getting together with people.

It’s also a busy time of year for us, so we also know between now and January we’ll probably slow up on the project a bit before coming back strong early next year – doesn’t mean we won’t be around until then, just a little dialing back for a while.

In the meantime, we’d still love to hear from you – to get your suggestions and hear your comments. It’s all good and we appreciate it.

Christian and Joe – The Stockton Project

We are planning to engage a comprehensive photographic, multimedia, and publishing project to document and illuminate the diverse communities of Stockton, California and the many people who call it home.

With their help – indeed with your help – we hope to tell the story of Stockton from a decidedly local perspective – through its citizens and in their own words. This, because there is a strong and important role for both a spoken and written narrative if we are to create something that is as inclusive and as honest as we are capable of doing.

We expect this will take at least a year to do– probably longer. And once done, what emerges may include many elements, and exhibit, or book, or both, for example – as well as other works.

We invite and encourage you to follow our progress here.
And if you are willing, we also invite you to suggest individuals and groups – anyone, really, that you believe we should seek out in the larger community of Stockton and have a conversation with.

You can message us here and tell us whom you think we should contact, including yourself.

Or message us her with any other suggestions you might have – place we should see, things we should read; anything at all that you believe will help us do this well.

And should you choose to follow us and this project and for any reason believe we may be drifting in some unproductive way or wrong direction, then tell us that as well – we are asking for and are grateful for your guidance and support.

Below you will find the email we send July 31, 2012 to Paula Sheil at Delta Collage after reading her OpEd piece about Stockton that appeared in the New York Times on Monday of prior week. It provides some insight why we are motivated to do this project.

Thanks and best wishes, Christian and Joe