Shaping lakefront detritus into art
What some consider junk, Soss collects and photographs
had found on Chicago beaches and he realized, “It wasn’t just empty beaches in Michigan or beaches in places like the Bahamas that held these things. They were here in the city.”
So, seven years ago he began to hit the beaches with regularity and purpose. Divorced with two grown children, Soss is an early riser and ardent bicyclist, habits that lend themselves nicely to beachcombing. The items he found he brought home, arranged in some pattern on top of a table, took a photo with his iPhone and sent it to his sister with this caption: “Like finding money on the street.”
For two years, he shared photos only with his sister. But as his photography and design skills matured, she urged him to begin posting the photos on Facebook and Instagram. There are now more than a thousand of them, compelling, mysterious, some beautiful and all provocative. What other people might consider junk, Soss finds art, a philosophy captured in a note he found on the beach. It was from a Chinese fortune cookie: “Finding exotic uses for what others ignore will make your special fortune.”
Once a photo is taken and posted, he dismantles the arrangement, stores what he considers its good pieces, tosses a bunch of others and recycles the rest.
“The items do make my mind wander, concocting fictional stories about where they came from, who may have owned them, how did they get in the lake,” he says. “It is not so much that they represent a puzzle. It’s really as if these things are waiting for me to put them together.”
This relatively private pursuit goes public with the art exhibit “On the Beach,” opening Friday at The Dime, a gallery at 1513 N. Western Ave. It was more than two years ago that gallery owner Tony Fitzpatrick suggested this show. Soss scoffed, thinking the idea to be “ridiculous. I was never doing this for appreciation or recognition.” But Fitzpatrick, a longtime Soss friend and a fan of his internet postings, is an energetically persuasive man and now Soss feels excited about the show, which will include some 40 of his photos mounted handsomely on pieces of aluminum in 16 inches by 16 inches, 12 by 12 and 8 by 8. These photos are modestly priced (at $300 to $500) and the show will run through Feb. 1.
Soss does not consider himself an artist. He works as the vice president of marketing and advertising for Jam Productions, the venerable (almost 50 years old) concert and special events producer. Except for a short interlude, Soss has worked at Jam since starting as a college intern while earning his B.A. from Columbia College.
“For John music has always been about much more than commerce,” says my colleague Greg Kot, Tribune’s popular music critic. “He was always deeply invested in art and music, a connoisseur of everything from maverick country artist Jimmie Dale Gilmore to handmade Christmas cards, and the beauty they embrace, the empathy they inspire. He may work in the music industry, but he’s not an ‘industry’ guy.”
Soss has many friends and interests. A personable and contemplative man, he has collaborated on writing songs. He collects Christmas music and was for some years a Friday night regular patron of the Green Mill. He loves to visit flea markets. Travel is another frequent activity and one room in his house is covered with maps of the places he has been.
He also writes, as he did for the Tribune a decade ago. Though those stories — many about his then young, now grown, son and daughter from a marriage that ended in divorce — were quite good, they barely hinted at his lyrical way with words. Here is an example, part of a speech he gave at a memorial service: “An old friend pointed out that we all pick up marks throughout our life, scars, and they decorate us until we pass from this life. This I now know to be true. We’re also marked, indelibly, by the deep connections we make with our fellow travelers.”
He travels to the beach with a shoulder bag to store his finds. Some days it bulges.
“I don’t go out every single day but when I go out there has not been one day that I didn’t find a number of things to bring home and photograph,’’ he says. “Each beach has its own personality.”
He has his favorites, but he is understandably proprietary, refusing to give precise names or locations lest “I start to attract people curious about what I’m doing and following me around.” He has wandered other shorelines, from Milwaukee in Wisconsin to South Haven in Michigan, but his feet most often walk the beaches in Chicago.
For the last two years, many of his walks were in the company of his girlfriend, a Chicago public school special education teacher who died in August.
Two months after her death, Soss discovered a note that she had written to him but never delivered: “I’ve seen you work your way along the shoreline, choosing some pieces and discarding others. You keep the ones that have been frosted and smoothed and toss the shiny ones back. The more they’ve been tumbled and churned and buffeted against the beach, the more beautiful and interesting they become. They take on new and unexpected forms as they’re shaped by raging storms and polished by gentle waves. I learned this from you, and what is true for beach glass is true for people too.”