Credits
Kwamena Blankson, Writer
When I started this project, I knew that I wanted to somehow record these narratives that kept running through my head. I had a long conversation with a mental health advocate and fiction writer named Kwamena Blankson. Kwamena spends most of his days in a mental hospital, advocating on behalf of patients. In our conversations, we discovered that we both "heard" the voices of characters in similar ways - me with the people in my paintings, Kwamena with the characters in his writing. I told him about the Vespers, and that conversation was the birth of the project. We would talk over the phone, and I would tell him what I had heard, and sometime later, he would transform these conversations into written narratives and poems. The Vesper Project includes many pieces of writing - after the masterful editing of Stella Maria Baer, we've attempted to tell the story of this family's life through seven documents. Ultimately, I think this will be a book, where we will include more documents and spend more time with the historical nuances in the narrative.
Stella Maria Baer, Editor and Studio Assistant
Rick Lacey, Studio Assistant
Horacio Marquinez, Film Cinematography
Luke Hanscom, Photography
Mena Henry, Project managing and architectural assistance
Seth Reese, Wrote and performed music for the film
Phyllis Anscombe, Read poetry in the film
I would also like to thank all the folks at Friedman Benda.