Bill Jay (1940—2009)
May 14th, 2009
In 1988, I was an 18 year-old BFA Photography major at Arizona State University, in Tempe, AZ. Bill Jay and Bill Jenkins had both thrown lit matches into the straw of my Iowa farm-boy mind that year. My childhood understandings of images and the potency of pictures were simply burned up in a semester or two under their impassioned tutelage.
In bi-weekly photo history lectures, Bill Jay, the archetypal story-telling scholar, was excitedly describing for us how early practitioners of photography were either falling off cliffs atop their glass-plate-laden mules, or accidentally poisoning themselves with gun cotton and ether under the ferocious heat and humidity of canvas tents which served as their field darkrooms.
20 years after I first met him, Bill Jay has passed away. In September of 2007, I spent half a day with Bill at his condo in MIssion Beach, CA (just outside San Diego) interviewing and photographing him for PDN magazine (which can be read here). I also had great fun going with him to the Infinity Awards in May of 2008 (which I blogged about here) where, true to self, he delivered a rather cranky but poignant assessment of the “state of photography.”
The night before the awards, Mary Virginia Swanson (who has just posted a wonderful entry on her blog here), Denise Wolff and I sat with him at Good Burgers in mid-town Manhattan, listening to him describe his recently purchased plots of land in Costa Rica, where he was going to happily live out his days, mere yards from “the most beautiful strip of beach” you can imagine. Maria, at the local cantina had promised to teach him Spanish, and his daughters would periodically visit, he told us. It appears that he has done just that, passing in his sleep this past Tuesday.
During that New York trip, and before, during my time with him in Mission Beach, Bill emphatically stated, “I’m done. I have no more to say.” Photography, as he knew it, was dead. But it was the community around him that had changed, and had truly “passed on”, in a very real sense. When Bill received the Infinity Award, it had been 50 years exactly since his first published piece. He felt a sense of completeness—or at least he stated as much—having reached that marker. It seemed like a good time to sell everything and move to a hut on a beach. He seems to have been exactly where he wanted to be, and that’s not a bad thing.
Visit Bill Jay on Photography for dozens of his articles and photographs of photographers.
August 12th, 2009 at 7:06 am
have many people posted their memories of Bill at this site? I believe I did, but don’t know if you got it.
October 1st, 2009 at 9:14 am
Like Bill Jay, I fell in love at first sight with Cangrejal – the northern part of Playa Samara in Guanacaste. We were neighbors, the mutual friend of a concrete contractor from Dover named Jason. Jason called Bill his best friend and they spent quite a great deal of time together. I owe Jason a debt of gratitude for introducing me to Bill.
I didn’t know who he was until later but I was a self taught student of the history of photography. When Bill showed me his book, I saw in the pages within all the greatest photographers of the 20th Century. Among them was Mary Ellen Mark whom I have admired now for decades. We talked about her some and he, to was a great admirer of her work. Coincidentally, at the time I was reading Son of the Circus by John Irving. If you read the authors introduction, he says it was inspired by Ms. Mark’s work on the small circuses of India. I lent it to him when I was through in late April and I believe it was one of the last books Bill read before he left us.
I am an environmental planner from Boston. I left the States disgusted with Bush and his legacy. Bill and I had that in common. He used to tell me how outraged he was that his tax dollars went to support torture. I’m sure if you knew him, this was no secret. He told me he used to speak up at faculty meetings in spite of resistance from the administration. Bless him! Silence is the voice of complicity. Those of us who have raised our voices have paid a price. May he rest in peace.
Thank you for writing your comment. I left Cangrejal after 8 months with a bitter taste in my mouth. Reading your piece about Bill reminded of the better parts of it. If you go, you will truly find a tropical paradise. Like many places that fit the description, it has an opposite side. Please contact me if you plan to go. Best Regards, HW Harts’horn