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Stacy J Platt

@sjplatt

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is a Colorado sun-worshiper. I write, teach & try to make sense of my world by making photos. aka @the.space_in_between

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I haven't posted about this because I haven't wanted it to be true. It's another part of what I understood as my world falling away, and it just gets to be too much, too overwhelming, too much loss.

The bestest bestest boy has passed. We adopted Beauregard when I was 6 months pregnant with Evie. My rational was we could get a dog then, integrate him into our lives before she was born, or wait until we had a five-year-old. It was the right choice. While training a prey drive out of him to not devour our cats was a thing that needed doing, he was an amazing family dog from the start. Loyal, protective, sensitive, sweet. He always knew and responded to the emotional weather in the room, and when there were fights or tension—which in the last few years was often—he would pace between us, checking in on each of us with concern and worry.

I will miss his sweet nature, his flopping over to show me his belly for pettings, the sound of his claws clicking on the hardwood floors as he went through the house looking for us, always wanting to put us three in the same room. Pack dog. The pack is all dispersed now, and sweetness feels in short supply.

For everyone that knew him, he had a butt wiggle and a doggy grin for them. He always wanted to do the most fun thing. I will miss him forever. by @sjplatt

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4 days ago

A week in the Southlands. I hadn’t been back to the city where I did my growin’ up for over 8 years. I forgot and was refamiliarized with how when driving on the interstate you are hugged by sentinels of green, kudzu-covered flora and fauna, how the moist air feels on skin and in lungs, what regularly seeing large bodies of water does to the animal part of my brain/heart (it makes it sing), and how much I miss it and most of all the relationships with friends I have known—and luckily still know—for so long.

Grateful for the time and the kinds of emotional releases I got to experience (Wu-Tang! Mom’s final resting place. Unexpected tears at lunch recounting moments in the many in-between years when I couldn’t run to my friend when things were Really Hard). Wistful that it was so brief. Happy to be returning to the life I’m rebuilding, and the people who are a part of that rebuilding. by @sjplatt

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11 days ago

Spent the morning with my mom. There was a lot to catch up on. Dragonflies flitted around me during my time on that hill, which I’ve always thought of as her spirit animal. That was nice to experience. by @sjplatt

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12 days ago

Due to the overwhelming generosity of friends, bucket list achievement of front row seats at a worthy show unlocked. Charlotte, NC with my friend Kristina—a friendship that spans multiple lifetimes of selves going back multiple decades—and the amazing ruckus of the Wu-Tang Clan! So much effing fun. by @sjplatt

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13 days ago

Shedding some psychic weight.
#divorcehair by @sjplatt

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a month ago

More from the Civil War that wasn't, but was, but still is.

I made these photos in 2001 and they confound me more now than they did when I looked through the viewfinder to see what I'm showing you now.

What is there to say about grown ass men and women that pretend the South rises again and again on the weekends when the weather is nice? What is it when teaching children to use bayonets is considered wholesome education? There is a kind of observed holiness to these spectacles that I could never quite wrap my mind around, but I see it in the faces of those who are clapping for the performance of "bringing history to life."

There is doubtless more to say about looking back at work from 25 years ago in light of what one knows of themselves and the world now, but I am a little agog just in the looking at what I looked at back then. by @sjplatt

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2 months ago

It is incredible to me that I ever made these photos, and they read so differently to me now then when I first saw them, because what I understand of America and race and the inclination of folks to want to believe a "good" version of the very worst of our collective history has changed.

There was no Civil War in Menomonee Falls, WI. But the reenactors that I met there sure wish there had been. And that it had been populated with confederates. 1/2 as these are just the verticals. by @sjplatt

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2 months ago

The morning of my second divorce
my daughter threw up
before the virtual hearing with the
magistrate

I watched my still-husband's eyes
move towards the sky when asked if
he believed our marriage to be completely and
irretrievably broken
I wondered if he was thinking for a moment whether
or not that was true
but more likely the look was about the imprecision of language
its inability to hold all the ambiguity of whatever this union had become
It's something I appreciated about him
It's a value I share

9:20 am
I think it was pronounced then.

We laughed after the judge left the call because we couldn't figure out how to absent
ourselves
both of us pushing buttons trying to get out
but neither of them being one another's any more.

I texted him after:
"Small thing. But does she know this
was today?"
three thinking dots
...
No.
I'll tell her as needed.
Not this second.
the three thinking dots continued
...
then reconsidered.

That was all. That was that.

I cried a little.
Watched a video of our daughter
playing in the rain on a summer day
seven years earlier
running towards the double rainbow
that always appeared outside our front door whenever it rained while the sun shone.

I lit some incense
palo santo
cleaned the floor.
Noted that both of my marriages occurred on an odd day
wondered if both divorces occurred on even days, like today is.
Listened to a play list with Tori Amos
and Aimee Mann
ate a cardamon bun for breakfast

Grateful for the phone call from my friend this morning, before the hearing
she had been at both weddings
and there for me through both divorces.
Phoning from Bucharest

I did a google image search yesterday
to see what it looked like
where she was.

Thinking of my life moving forward
unknown and uncertain for now
in my rented apartment, watching the mountain
with the north american aerospace defense command inside of it
Listening now to Neko Case
I wish I was the moon tonight. by @sjplatt

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3 months ago

I finished writing something that I’ve been thinking about for over twenty years. It needed the breathing room and to oxidize until this moment in my life. Third installment on The Art of the Loss of Love (series begun in 2004), this one on Nobuyoshi Araki and his later life work, Love on the Left Eye.

Link in bio. by @sjplatt

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4 months ago

March was the Eight of Cups.

April was The Devil.

May is the Ten of Swords.

This spring, ya’ll. Harder than any winter I’ve lived through.

It has been grief and loss and rage and exhaustion and so much sadness.

But it has also been discovery and joy and peace and healing and new love.

Tomorrow is a Big Hard Day. Think good thoughts of and for me, if you can. by @sjplatt

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5 months ago

All photographs lie, I tell my students. And we are all unreliable narrators.

Tonight my Advanced Photo students are having a pop-up exhibition of their semester-long personal photography projects. This has been quite a semester in all ways good and trying and I/we would all be so grateful if you could make it this May Day/The People's Day.

Unreliable Narrator
618 Garden of the Gods Rd 80907
(The Packaging Express)
4:30pm—7:30pm

food and drinks will be served. by @sjplatt

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5 months ago

Everything and everyone leaves/goes. Sometimes it can feel like it’s happening all at once. Pina, P-nort, Ninny, Ninny-nins: you were the snuggliest, sweetest, yowliest baby cat that ever babied. I’m sorry the last month was so rough for you. Rough for me too, babe. 2010-2026. RIP little one. by @sjplatt

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6 months ago