Artists often show us a different way of seeing the world and sometimes challenge us to consider another view. Artists in Action is a social awareness project involving writers and artists who have their own perceptions of the word 'lost' and what it means to them. If you would like your art or writing about lost or 'missing, missing persons' to be featured here, we invite you to email us a link to your work and a description for consideration.

"Help Me Rhonda"

Written by Marquita Plomer (c) 2009

Photograph (c) Jeremy Sykes

The message of Susan Sontag’s essay, “Regarding the Pain of Others”, reverberated in my thoughts as I looked at the images that Jeremy Sykes had created for his exhibit at Camera/Arts Gallery in East Sacramento. The resonating thought for me was the “obligation of conscience” that she so eloquently articulated.

All of the images are framed directly onto debris that Jeremy has collected from our streets and byways. Old signs, pieces of metal and wood fencing, wire mesh, plastic grating and other bits of sizable pieces of junk whose origin is unknown. Not unlike the people whose images adorn this debris.

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They are people we overlook and dismiss in our daily observances as homeless street people. They are our social debris and they are the bits of lives that peer through tatters of plastic and dirt clinging to whatever allows them to hold onto a survival of the most limited form in our society. They are a “normal” part of our urban environment and that is their curse of invisibility.

Jeremy Sykes’ portraits of homeless people are hyper-realistic views of pain, agony and suffering. They show a range of emotion from joy and acceptance to absolute despair. He explains that there is not a single image taken without the subject’s permission and in all cases he was within touching distance of the subjects as he photographed them.

They are aware of his presence and they are transparent in their trust of him. He identifies with this population due to an experience of being homeless himself as a teenager. He is attempting to humanize their stories of circumstances and consequences and of cause and effect by giving them a voice through his photographic narrative.

“Help me Rhonda” is the title of one of the images that I find particularly compelling. Jeremy told me that one day last September he was standing outside the K Street Cathedral taking pictures of some other people, when he was summoned by a woman standing in a doorway across the street.

She told him that she had recently left jail, where she claimed to have been abused. She told Jeremy, she was a heroin addict and showed him her track marks. Rhonda told him that she did not want this life and that she hoped he would use her image to make others aware of her circumstances in the hope that others would see her and maybe help those like her. She put herself out there, completely trusting Jeremy’s demeanor as a serious and compassionate young man; someone she had sized up with her considerable street smarts and determined, he would not harm her or exploit her image. He calls her his photographic angel. His meaning is clear to me.

The woman is captured in 3/4 view, her head is turned upwards and to the right in a 3/4 profile. Her gaze does not look focused on anything in particular, but her eyes are brimming with tears. The body posture is one of surrender and loss. Her arms are cropped out of the frame with no hands showing, which only adds to the impression of her powerlessness. If one were to distill the elements of form you would see a cross in the shape of Rhonda. She is the resilient earthbound angel, who has spoken for those who cannot ask for help. She is covered in grime, wearing a hand me down blue long sleeved shirt and knotted darker blue sweater around her neck and shoulders. Blue is her experience. She is beautiful and she is the messenger, the voice and the conscience of this art project. She refused the money that Jeremy offered at the conclusion of his time with her. That is her purity of intention and her strength of spirit. It speaks to me.

She alone has given Jeremy and ultimately the viewer an offering and a plea. It is our obligation to act on her message for others and on her behalf. Rhonda has lifted the veil of invisibility just enough to allow us to effect her world in a positive and meaningful way, if we choose to act on our “obligation of conscience”.

She gives us our gift of conscience delivered as a paper artifact on a piece of urban debris. Rhonda’s providence directed her to summon Jeremy that day and in the moments that followed, she permitted the unyielding and unforgiving camera to show her heart and her tears. Here she represents the consequences of her life in as much as she has shared.

In her addiction and despair, she reaches out to help others and to haunt our thoughts with her need and sorrow. Who of us is worthy of her humanity? Who of us will help Rhonda now?

Written by: Marquita Plomer Copyright 2006-2009