A Kind of History. Millerton, New York 1971-1991

For twenty years, Mark Goodman photographed the children and young adults of Millerton, New York, a project that is about discovering who you are, from both sides of the camera. Goodman's project defines a different kind of documentary, one that is non-linear, affectionate, and above all, about the love of making pictures. This is the first major monograph of the artist's work.

In these photographs, we see a wide range of people and places, all found within the confines of this one small town, from individual portraits to relationships between the children, their friends, siblings, parents and teachers. The final sequence juxtaposes portraits of individuals taken several years apart; in one a baby becomes a young girl and then a young adult; in another a teenage boy and his dog age and change over sixteen years yet remain together, lifelong friends.

The autobiographical text tells how Goodman first came to Millerton (as a student at nearby Apeiron Workshops) and his early weeks of photographing, walking the towns streets, getting to know the inhabitants, and more importantly, letting them get to know him. He tells of life at Apeirona post-hippie community (if not exactly a commune) for people who thought of themselves as aspiring artists with cameras and those who wished to hang out with them. And he generously tells of his own life in and out of Millerton: why he went there, why he stayed, and why he, finally, left. Its a familiar journey, if rarely told with such modest candor, one that reveals the combination of questioning and commitment that marks a passionate investigation into a life, a place, and its people.

The text is amply illustrated with views of the town, of Apeiron, family album snapshots, and with remarkable historical photographs from the nineteenth and early twentieth century.