My two daughters interview me for StoryCorps (January 23, 2021)

J. Schiele and K. Downey talk with their father, Skip Schiel, about what led him to move to Boston in the 1960s, his activism during the Vietnam War, his interest in cooperative living, and his work as a photographer and filmmaker.

—StoryCorps

This is one of about 7 interviews, partly organized chronologically, only one on StoryCorps, that my daughters have conducted with me in 2021. Because of privacy issues, presently the interview is private. If you wish to listen, please write me at skipschiel@gmail.com for a link. Eventually, I hope to restore public access.

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  J (L), Skip, K, 2000 c.

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  J, Skip, K, along the Charles River, 2009, photo by Lynn Bratley

The photographer’s family, spanning a 40 year period—and growing. The theme is change and growth, of both individual family members and the family itself. People age, die, and are born—or reborn. Relationships change, expanding and contracting the notion of family. Skip Schiel began this project when the family first formed—children born, illness, death—not knowing then he would continue the recording. The series is a chronology of recent events, a family, made from within the family, with all the liberties and dangers that carries. He freely and only with permission uses photos by others, especially from his two daughters. He observes, describes, and, by this, hopes to show what this particular family is. (Added to my Teeksa photo site on September 26, 2001, revised August 15, 2007, but not kept current.)

Someday we will regard our children not as creatures to manipulate or to change but rather as messengers from a world we once deeply knew, but which we have long since forgotten, who can reveal to us more about the true secrets of life, and also our own lives, than our parents were ever able to.

—Alice Miller