Looking After Angels
Jordan Sullivan
Published by Paradigm Publishing, 2018
17 Photographs / 14 Unique Drawings - hand-drawn by the artist into each book
First Edition / ISBN 978-1-7322746-4-8
Printed in the United States
Photgraphs, Drawings, Text, and Design by Jordan Sullivan
All photographs were made in Bushwick, Brooklyn between the Fall of 2017 and the Spring of 2018
--
Clouds made of birds drift over the rooftops of the neighborhood. Some of the last pigeon keepers in New York City live here, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Throughout the day their birds fly over the block, drawing unnameable shapes across the sky. Patterns of soul and patterns of survival. Some of the birds are the color of ash, others are the color of bright snow and apricots. Some of the birds look like longings. All of the birds are more colorful than they appear. When the birds fly it’s like watching a heartbeat, or ocean waves, and the shape of each flight pattern is different than the one that comes before and after.
Sometimes I photograph the birds from the corner of my street. Other times I photograph them from my kitchen window, but mostly I don’t photograph them at all. I just sit by the window, and I watch them fly. I imagine that somehow they will always be flying, and they are as holy as doves. I imagine someone will always be raising them, and all the things like them. Somehow, somewhere, someone will be caring for every current and every acre and everything that drifts in the air and across the sea. Somehow everything will survive, and everything imaginable will someday exist.
Jordan Sullivan
Brooklyn, NY
Spring, 2018
--
A convergence of birds
In erasing weather
Like traveling lights
How can something so distant feel this close
Ask the wind
Do I exist when no one is watching
Do I exist when I am surrounded
Did you exist before anyone knew
Can you measure the space between misunderstandings
And the distances between unnameable countries
Can we cross the geography of our memory
And climb rootless family trees
Can I hear the song of the last man who speaks a lost language
How long are the roads in eternity
How far apart are the letters of your name
How many acres make up your hidden garden
What about the gardens that don’t stop growing
And the gardens that will never grow
What about the gardens that were only imagined
And what is more real
The life that was or the life that was not
The dream life
Or life on earth
Is there a difference
Is Heaven on the ground
Will we ever know
We spend our days and nights watching animals make mistakes
Now that the ones who protected us are gone
All our gods and guardians are sick and tired
Who is watching us if the distant stars are just stars
Who will look after us if we are looking after the angels
—