SALLY TONKIN
Buffalo Chip
The Chip is a campground and music venue that has evolved from tent camping in a cow pasture to a mini version of the Gorge. This is the story of the week-long party...from sun up to the next sun up. The work became a book called "Chip Shots."
A biker, on the way to the Chip, screams past Bear Butte, a spiritual site for local tribal people and the source of some controversy.
Bikers come from all over the world to join in the party.
Bikers display their tricked out bikes in the amphitheater of the Chip.
People sleep in tents, on the ground where they fell, in RVs and even in the back of a truck.
Showers hooked up to RVs are sometimes cold and stingy. Bathhouses for men and women sometimes add a little hot water.
That's right. They named the outhouse after Tim McGraw. Apparently, he stood them up one year.
Rule one: Always brush your beard.
Rule 2: Put your best lipstick on. This is the backwoods of Washington. This is glamping Sturgis style.
It speaks for itself...but I have to wonder why a middle aged woman was sitting at a picnic table with a coke at 9 in the morning, wearing a penis hat.
After a long night, the baristas needed a jolt of their own Joe.
People sold everything from pizza to sex toys. This woman was making bandanas and repairing leathers.
This is a tattoo you don't have to regret. The artist was doing stick on work as well as the real deal.
This couple were trying to rally for another long night.
This old biker had all of the patches, including being a veteran Hell's Angel.
This guy looked tired and pensive. Most people who stay at the Chip are tired but few are pensive.
People come from miles around to camp as a group with this guy. He's the real deal...except he's also a tech guy when he has to pay the bills.
The riggers pull the stage together for the nightly concerts.
Big trucks pull in by early afternoon and the roadies work with the Chip stage crew to get set up for the band.
Maybe a sociologist can explain this phenomenon. I don't get it. Otherwise normal women cut loose at events like this and flash their anatomy for praise and beads.
When I joked with the crew by shouting the common refrain, "Show me your...", they complied.
Bikers ride through the concert ground before the concerts. Some carry half naked girlfriends on their bikes.
I can only say that he was strange. He popped up before my camera, hoping to be photographed. I obliged him.
The night wears on.
The all American scene.
There are nothing but lines of bikes for clogging the highway and inching toward the concert venue.
There's a ramp, next to a bar, that is set up for bikers to do "burnouts." This is where you spin your tires until the rubber disintegrates.
This woman got a warm reception backstage from the band members of Styx.
Ann Wilson played mean guitar. She cut her finger on a guitar string, took a hand off from a backstage guy and kept playing with blood dripping from the guitar. She was amazing.
Fists were in the air when ZZ Top played.
Eddie Montgomery is resting his vocal cords while Troy Gentry plays in the background.
That's the name of the band -- Disturbed. Their fans were passionate.
Biker and comedian. Captain Jack has performed at the Chip for decades.
So...this was 2004. They have "evolved" to the point where they no longer have a strip show. Now the Miss Hawaiian Tropic girls have replaced Miss Buffalo Chip in the late night body contest.
Sometimes, late at night, people ride double on the bull.
Yesler Terrace
Yesler Terrace, a low income housing project in Seattle, has been around since WWII when it was constructed, in part, as housing for returning vets. It was the first integrated public housing in the country.
In 2013, the city of Seattle began updating the property in partnership with Paul Allen's Vulcan as mix use housing and business with high priced view towers next door to the new low income housing. But, there was one catch; the residents had to move out during the construction and many were relocated permanently to low income housing in other parts of the city. In the years leading up to the development, housing activists and residents tried to fight the evictions.
I received a Seattle CityArtist Grant to put a face to the debate and show just exactly who lived there.
The Inside Out Project a few of the over two hundred portraits
The Inside Out Project is a non-profit started by a French street artist named JR. Check it out online. The idea is to involve the community in a publicly displayed photo project. I worked with a local Yakima group called "I Heart Yakima" to bring the Inside Out concept to our town. We asked community members to say why they loved Yakima. And, then I spent a good part of the summer taking portraits, in the window of an empty storefront, of those people who offered their enthusiastic responses to our little town. To see what these folks had to say, go to iheartyakima.com.
