Nixon - Much Loved

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my family, for their love and patience. In order of appearance: my mother, Pauline; my sisters, Mandy and Kathy; my brother, Adam; my wife, Lorraine; and my children, Pearl and Calum.

Also to my best friend and fellow photographer, Mark Griffin, whose support and encouragement over the years have made what can be at times a lonely occupation full of fun and mischief.

And to all those who brought or sent me their precious teds to be photographed and who shared their personal stories and memories with such openness and honesty.

Editor: David Cashion
Designer: Deb Wood
Production Manager: Anet Sirna-Bruder

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013936015
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1012-4
Copyright 2013 by Mark Nixon

Published in 2013 by Abrams Image, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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CONTENTS

WHO KNEW?

Much Loved started as a very simple idea: to photograph some loved to bits teddy bears for an exhibition in my studio, which happily has a gallery space.

I got the idea from watching my son, Calum. I was struck by how attached he was to his Peter Rabbit, the way he squeezed it with delight when he was excited, the way he buried his nose in it while sucking his thumb, and how he just had to sleep with Peter every night. I vaguely remembered having similar childhood feelings about my own Panda.

The photographer I admire the most is Irving Penn. His portrait work, from the 1940s and 1950s especially, made me want to become a photographer. With his still-life work, I loved the alchemy of his Street Material series, how he could take pieces of trash and cigarette butts off the street, photograph them, and turn them into works of art. The idea of making an everyday object, something so familiar that its invisible, become visible again appealed to me.

So, I put the call out for people to bring in their much-loved teddiesthe more loved, unwashed, and falling apart the betterto be photographed. I expected it to be mostly children, but it soon became apparent that the idea appealed very much to adults, and that many of them were still very attached to their teddies. It was as though they had been keeping a long-held secret and could finally tell someone what their teddies really meant to them.

Their strength of feeling took me by surprise. While waiting, they would tell some usually funny story about their teddy (how they had nearly lost it at some stage was a common theme), or would speak emotionally about what it meant to them. So the stories and memories became integral to the photographs, adding significance to them and bringing them to life.

One of these people, who had studied psychology, told me about the transitional object and later e-mailed me a link to some papers written on the subject. From what I understand, a transitional object is a teddy or a soft toy that is used as a kind of stepping stone in the separation of the baby from the mother. It is the first object apart from the mother that the baby becomes attached to, their first possession, and whether a child has something like this or not may affect them in later life. The adults who came to me with their teddies would certainly attest to the positive benefits of having had a transitional object.

When I sat down to write the press release for the Much Loved exhibition, I couldnt quite put into words the feelings I had about it, these vague childhood memories and emotions. But before I knew it, I had written a poem, which came as quite a surprise to me, since I had never written poetry, nor had I read any since I was in school.

The exhibition launch went very well, and once it had opened I uploaded the images from it to my website, along with their related stories, and thats when the real fun began.

Within a month, the website had received more than 1.5 million hits; within three months, over 4.5 million. It was featured on news feeds and blogs all over the world, from China to Peru, Iceland to Argentina, America to Russia, and all over Europe. Then some magazines published features on it, and finally, just as I was starting to think it might make a good book, a few publishers got in touch with me. It seemed like almost every day there was something new and exciting happening with it.

When David Cashion from Abrams first e-mailed me, I knew that he would be the one to publish this book. All he said was, Dear Mark, Everyone here at Abrams Books has fallen in love with your series, Much Loved. Would you consider turning this project into a book?

And so, here it is.

Mark Nixon

Much Loved

When everything was unknown, they were there.

Where anything could happen, they were there.

These repositories of hugs, of fears, of hopes, of tears, of snots and smears.

Alone at night, they were the comforters, when monsters lurked in darkened corners, when raised voices muffled through floors and walls.

These silent witnesses, these constant companions, defenders of innocence.

Their touch, yes, but their smell, that instantly calming, all embalming musk, unique to each, soothing and smoothing the journey from consciousness to un, from purity to im, from infancy to adult-terre.

Sworn to secrecy, unconditionally there, unjudgmentally fair and almost always a bear.

MN

Peter Rabbit

AGE: 10

HEIGHT: 16"

BELONGS TO: CALUM NIXON

Peter Rabbit was the inspiration for this project.

Calums ninety-nine-year-old great-grandmother, Eva, bought Peter for Calum when he was born and Calum has slept with him every night ever since.

Scores of teddies and soft toys now reside in black sacks in the attic, but Great-Granny knew what she was doing: Peter stuck.

Gregs Bear

AGE: UNKNOWN

HEIGHT: 4"

BELONGS TO: BONO AND ALI HEWSON

Ali Hewson wrote: This little bear is a memory of one of the most incredible men in my life. Greg Carroll became a great friend to me and Bono in the early 1980s. In 1986 he died at the age of twenty-six in a motor accident in Dublin, and he left a giant hole in our lives. Greg was a Mori, and at his tangi, the traditional Mori funeral rite, a mate of his handed us this one-eared teddy bear. It was Gregs, and it has been with us ever since a fragment of Gregs reality, gone but never forgotten.

U2s One Tree Hill was written for Greg and all the great men and women whose river reaches the sea too quickly. Gregs teddy smiles when his good ear hears it played.