Book of the Week: A Pick by Christian Michael Filardo

Book of the Week Book of the Week: A Pick by Christian Michael Filardo Christian Michael Filardo selects Rock Salt by Ewan Telford as Book of the Week.

Rock Salt. By Ewan Telford. Deadbeat Club, 2016.

Christian Michael Filardo selects Rock Salt by Ewan Telford from Deadbeat Club as Book of the Week.

"With the Earth on crutches and the mines empty, towns that were once economic hubs transform into transient afterthoughts. Populations’ spike and decline, minerals move man across the continent and man moves minerals around the globe, occupying space while displacing the very ground you and I stand on. A mine can become a local void, a dried up wishing well, an emotional and economic anvil.

When I was 23 there were talks of the copper mine in the town where my folk’s live re-opening with salaries starting at about 120k a year for those willing to risk their lives descending into Earth for the orange colored rock that makes my home state famous. For a brief moment, I was tempted by the quick stacks, the easy fortune, the slice of heaven in exchange for working in hell; the concept isn’t foreign but a polished version of the American dream.

In Ewan Telford’s book Rock Salt I’m reminded of my time amongst the dust and creosote. What’s so compelling to me about Telford’s photographs is their talismanic quality. A young boy stands at the base of a mountain in an Iron Man costume, a bingo hall transforms into a time capsule, the Christian cross omnipresent, skid marks bleach in the sun silently telling their story. What do you do with a chair if there is no one to sit in it? What good is an empty hole?

There is no horizon underground, just dirt, bones, rock, and dreams. Dreams cradled in the arms of forgotten industry, real estate collapse, and economic downturn. Nothing will fill the mines but their own collapse. Telford tells a story that is long overdue and he does it with compassion and openness. Rock Salt feels honest and honed. Telford feels more like a gunslinger than a photographer and that’s fine with me."—Christian Michael Filardo

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Rock Salt. By Ewan Telford. Deadbeat Club, 2016.

Rock Salt. By Ewan Telford. Deadbeat Club, 2016.

Christian Michael Filardo is a photographer and composer living and working in Santa Fe, NM. Filardo has worked for VICE Magazine, Believer Magazine, the Phoenix New Times, and is the shipping manager at photo-eye Bookstore. He is a recent recipient of an honorarium in new music from Oberlin College’s Modern Music Guild. Filardo’s first book, Say My Last Name Softly, a collaboration with Marie Claire Bryant, was released in April 2016 on Holy Page Records.


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