THE CREATION

OLD JOY is in some ways the story of collaboration between three artists: photographer Justine Kurland, writer Jon Raymond, and filmmaker Kelly Reichardt.

The short story was originally conceived as a collaboration between Jon Raymond and Justine Kurland for Artspace Books, a forum for partnerships between visual artists and writers ñ previous Artspace books have included authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Dennis Cooper, and Rick Moody, and visual artists such as Nan Goldin, Gregory Crewdson, and Matthew Ritchie. Having read Raymond's novel, THE HALF-LIFE, and sympathizing with its lyrical depiction of the American landscape and its treatment of the legacy of 60s utopian communities, Justine Kurland invited him to participate in the collaboration.

Raymond produced a story inspired by Kurland's most recent body of images, featuring burned forests and naked men and women in natural tableaux. "One thing I've always responded to in her work," Raymond says, "is the peculiarly American spirituality it participates in—this vaguely Biblical quality mixed with a pronounced animism. Her landscapes could be a Garden of Eden or a Romantic 'wilderness of the soul.' Her naked figures could be Old Testament heroes, or transcendentalists, or hippies. I figured a good accompaniment should have these kinds of resonances. I ended up doing what I think of as a kind of contemporary Cain and Abel story. Or a Cain and Abel story in reverse. Two estranged brothers traveling back into a primeval garden and reuniting." Kelly Reichardt, another artist interested in depictions of the American landscape and narratives of the road, read the story in the summer of 2004, and saw in it the template for a meditative, naturalist cinematic project. Also, she recognized a starring role for her dog, Lucy. Reichardt and Raymond proceeded to adapt the story, adding a character and a few scenes, but largely retaining the piece's subtle emotional pivots, forest setting, and much of the original dialogue.