2024 11 08
Majestic Theater. Past its prime. Streator, Illinois. November, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
There’s this thing that happens when you (or, me, I should clarify) walk into any bar in rural Illinois. It’s the stereotypical record scratch you see on television. An instantaneous recognition from everyone inside that an outsider has entered. Things go quiet for a brief moment, which can feel like eternity depending on your level of anxiety, as you make your way inside, assessing which seat might be least awkward to claim for yourself.
My goal is to eventually embody a presence that goes largely unnoticed in these situations. Currently, my city-slicker outsider vibe is far too strong to go unnoticed, which is a bit unfortunate because I take blending in to my environment very seriously. I’ve long thought observation to be one of, if not my most important strengths. I can use it to my advantage in my pursuits of photography, and now writing.
A week ago I drove down south with Lincoln, Illinois in my crosshairs. I spent the day wandering and photographing various towns along the way. It’s endlessly remarkable to me how many towns exist which feel completely lost to time.
Two larger takeaways occurred to me on this day:
One: my still-vaguely defined “Illinois Project” photobook was the main motivator for this trip. I haven’t been putting enough time into it and I’ve hit some snags in the process. I’m finding much of the work I’ve made has been too wide. Landscapes, mostly, devoid of people and any intimacy. One goal on this specific day was to involve humans in my work. The challenge was finding people — any people. There just aren’t many people out here wandering these towns and rural places, meaning the images I have forming in my head would likely require me to “produce” them by bringing people along with me. I’m not sure this is the route I want to take. Perhaps, I should lean into the desolation and capture a more true-to-life portrait of a place? The worry is that much like these empty towns themselves, most people will not be interested in seeing this work, and that’s the opposite of my goal. I want people to see the beauty in these places, and therefore I’m thinking I should instead begin to share the work more widely as I make it, instead of squirreling it away on hard drives for some hypothetical future date when I will do a show or release a book.
My inbox helped me come to this conclusion after getting another gem of a piece from Meaghan Garvey’s substack Scary Cool Sad Goodbye, in which she so beautifully captures the spirit of the Midwest through her adventures. Now, I’m thinking a more ongoing web presence, in some form, is a better way to go about this project, as I learn what this project even is. Ill Wandering.
Two: I have a vision in my head of a Plan For a New Illinois. This plan, while likely an impossible pipe dream, would see massive resources and money directed at Central Illinois with the goal of increasing the region’s population to three times what it is now, at roughly 2 million people. Perhaps I will post the Plan here for my tens of readers to check out! Maybe one of y’all knows the governor and can send it along to him. While it’s clear Illinois is broken in many ways, it also gets a lot of over-dramatic hate tossed its way. That said, I’m not sure an influx of more people is the fix we need. Places like Austin, Texas largely lose what made them great, as a glut of tech money and influence bros move in and completely change the dynamic of the place.
This week’s election has muddied my vision as well. I get frustrated seeing places that are so clearly past their prime, and my instinct is to shine a light on them and figure out ways to help them prosper once again. But now, I’m not sure more people or more attention is what these places want. It’s likely the exact opposite (worth exploring in this project of mine, perhaps!).
-Clayton
