Beauty and horror in the world of waste

ASeattle photographer Chris Jordan on ditching hypocrisy and embracing art.

By CHANTAL ANDERSON, Contributing Writer

Former corporate lawyer Chris Jordan gave up the Bar for the camera. Now he mixes photojournalism with digital art to comment on consumerism. Photo by Sherry Loeser

To document how our individual choices have big effects, you have photographed millions of small devices within large landscapes of waste. How have you changed throughout that process? And do you remember being in denial of your own environmental impact?
I do remember. I was in denial for many years before I went over the wall and became an artist. During all of that time, I was very much in the trance. I had bought the American Dream. I believed the idea that material wealth and happiness are synonyms. And when I was a lawyer, I had the material wealth part — I wasn’t a billionaire but I was making way more money than I’m making now — and just spending money like crazy, and I was at the same time, a deeply unhappy person. I just felt a kind of dying going on in my spirit. While all around me, I saw these artists, authors, and musicians coming through town, having exhibitions, concerts, releasing books, and I kept witnessing people really flourishing in their lives.
I hadn’t connected that my photographic work could be like this. I had been photographing for over 20 years, but it was all very aesthetic, you know, just taking pictures of pretty things, traditional photography, which is about texture and color. For me, that kind of work was more like an escape from the real world than really engaging in it.

I always had this interest in rust: in its complex color. So I would go down to the Port of Seattle and explore around the shipping containers and the rail yards and take pictures of rusted train cars and other items. I was only interested in color, in the aesthetics of it, and I took this photograph [Recycling Yard #1].

I thought it was a really cool palette of color. I made a huge print of it, I put it right here on the wall of the studio, just taped it up here because I thought it was the best color photograph that I’d ever taken, and my friends would come over — engaged photographers like Subhankar Banerjee and Phil Borges — see the photograph, and walk up to it and start talking about the waste in it and the problems surrounding American consumption. It was kind of annoying, because at the time I felt they were misinterpreting my work.

How did you get out of your job as a lawyer?
I just quit.

You just quit?
Yeah.

Did your family think you were going crazy? Or were they all for it?
My wife was really supportive, because she saw how unhappy I was, and that’s what she cared about. And lots of other people who said that they supported me actually cared about my financial security and encouraged me to keep my job. I just couldn’t do it anymore. There’s something about turning 40; you’ll see that when you get there.

Was it a dramatic day when you quit your job?
The dramatic day for me wasn’t so much when I left, it was that people kept telling me, “You know, if the art thing doesn’t work out, you can always go back to being a lawyer.” And I felt this really self-sabotaging devil on my shoulder going, “Ha! Ha! Ha! Now we can fail as an artist and go back. You’ll always have that safety.” So I went into the Washington State Bar Association, resigned from the Bar.

The people who worked there didn’t even know how to handle my situation. I just walked in and said, “I would like to resign from the Bar.” I don’t think anyone had resigned like that before. This woman went searching through file cabinets; she found this form and had me sign it. I just quickly filled it out and handed it back, and she said, “OK, that’s it.” I walked out, and I’m like (gasps) “Oh my God, what did I just do?” But that kind of forced me to—

To take this whole thing seriously, and really go with it?
Yeah, yeah.

How did you begin changing your consumer ways?
It didn’t happen overnight. I fell into the trap that I now see millions of other people falling into, which is to confuse talking about it is the same as doing [it.] The belief that if you just talk about it, and you’re all passionate about it, then you don’t have to change your behavior. And so I continued for a long time to be a rabid consumer. Buying stuff from mail-order catalogs, and you know, filling up my supermarket cart with plastic bottles of water and soda and six-packs and stuff. Only slowly but surely have I had the experience of realizing that it’s not about me going and pointing at everyone else to change their behavior. It’s what I do. If we all stand around telling each other that we have to change, then nothing’s going to happen. This came to me slowly as I began to advocate about this stuff and realized what a hypocrite I was. How can I expect anybody to change if I haven’t really fought the battle myself?

What scenes that you have witnessed have affected you most?
The experience being in the Gulf Coast was crushing. I think one of the most powerful moments for me was when I was standing on the street where the houses near the street were just littered with people’s belongings, upside-down cars, and bricks. I suddenly realized [that] there must have been a photograph I’ve seen last year that looked a lot like this. It was déjà vu. “I’ve already seen this,” I thought. “This is a war picture.”

Then I realized that there are two incredibly destructive forces happening in the world right now. There’s Hurricane Katrina, which came in and wiped out New Orleans. And there’s the U.S. military that’s over there wiping out the country of Iraq. And the result looks exactly the same. And it’s both created by us. Katrina happened because of our consumption. And the U.S. military, another destructive hurricane force halfway across the world, is over there to support our overconsumption of oil. I just felt this absolute shock of shame. I realized it’s each one of us who’s responsible. And that’s a really hard to truth to bear.

What artist or person inspires you the most as an artist and also as an environmental activist?
The artist who inspires me the most is a guitarist named Pat Metheny. I think he is one of the greatest living artists in any medium. I’ve been a huge fan of his work over the years. There’s something about the depth and complexity of his work that amazes me.

I really don’t think of myself as an activist or an advocate. My work is about something broader than that. It’s more that I’m an advocate about coming out of denial, not only in the way we treat the environment but in terms of other social justice issues as well.

You’ve said before that the theme of consumerism found you on your photographic journey to where you are now. Was there a distinctive moment when you knew this was your style, and that your art would blur the conceptual line between aesthetics and social engagement?
It’s actually been a really slow awakening. I wouldn’t say there’s been one epiphanous moment. But there have been a lot of moments when I look back and realize “God, I was so clueless” before I realized this or that.

I was at the supermarket filling up my shopping cart with plastic soda bottles four months after I had shot my plastic bottles piece and was showing it all over the world, in magazines and newspapers. I was still drinking water and sodas out of plastic bottles. I loved to drink these grapefruit sodas and would have one of those a day. I went to the supermarket to buy like seven of them a week. And I was there putting my seven bottles in the cart and I suddenly realized what a hypocrite I was being. Because I had divided my public life from my private life. I was treating those as being two separate things. I was thinking “As long as in my public life I look like I’m doing the right thing, I can actually do whatever I want in my private life,” and suddenly I wasn’t OK with that anymore.

So I put the bottles back and that was the last time I’ve drunk soda or water out of a disposable plastic bottle.