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My family was living in Nairobi when I graduated from West, so the next
few years were back & forth between Africa and the States with plenty of
hitching around Europe. In the middle of my sophomore year in college
(hooray for Kalamzoo!), I almost died--that time in a car crash--for the
first of what has now been 3 times, experiences that have given me
tremendous appreciation for every day on the planet. It took me almost a
full decade to finish undergraduate school, another 5 or 6 years before I
finished law school, didn't get married until I was 46, and had my first
child when I was 55, which suggests that I am perhaps very slow to do the
things most folks do in life, or that maybe I am busy with other stuff.
Never thought about it before.
The '70's were a mixture of: living in the mountains of western Colorado
7 miles from the nearest paved road at 8900' (but also only 25 miles from
Aspen), building houses (some passive solar), growing food, raising animals
and skiing like crazy; working a few months a year for touring rock'n'roll
bands (which took me all over the world), and producing local music in
Colorado; and going to the Caribbean (diving, exploring, volunteering)
almost every Winter for nice long stretches.
The early '80's overlapped Colorado and Austin (law school; what a
sensational town); then a largely misguided opportunity took me to Los
Angeles in '84 after a several month trip to the Greek Islands, Israel and
the Sinai of Egypt to start work at a huge multi-national corporate law firm
(where my peers voted me the most likely to quit the firm first--I wasn't).
That match, of course, did not last long, but it did provide with with job
skills and plenty of interesting travels and people.
Since then, I have worked for myself, once building up a firm with a partner
employees and all, but mostly by myself and mainly in a mellow little spot
behind the house I built for myself tuck in behind a garden of succulents
and cacti.
Much to my surprise, I have found a home for 25 years in Venice Beach,
CA, a community of artists, surfers, hippies, lefties, peaceniks, and
various stranded in the sixties types of all ages with sunshine 350 days a
year that is never cold and never hot. I take time, of course, to wander to
Australia, Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Caribbean (25 islands at least),
Mexico, Europe, Turkey, Egypt, Tasmania, Micronesia, Viet Nam, Singapore,
Japan, Thailand, . . .
and months and months of exploring the American West and Southwest (by car,
truck, ski, horse, on foot, bicycle, canoe, kayak, raft).
After never once having considered marriage in all my life (I had no
concept of "forever"), when I met Ann in '97, we both knew from the first it
was right, moved in together immediately and married quickly. I stopped
working for 5 years so that we could be together, learn each other and
ourselves in each each other, develop spiritually together, and travel. Then
the stock market crashed . . . and I started working a bit again. A few
years later our little Ella was born, so I still work a bit and may for some
years to come. It's fine. I also do volunteer stuff, mainly with
Architecture for Humanity. It is very special to me.
Life has never been so good. Happy and fulfilled both apply. Even though
2 years ago I very nearly died from a staph infection that came out of
nowhere. I am always very active and robust but then one day, in a matter of
a few hours I went from perfectly healthy to fighting for my life. Month in
ICU. A number of operations. Even after I got out of the hospital I had
trouble speaking and couldn't walk for months (Now I am fine.) And so, I
cherish each day, and sometimes very consciously each exchange with a
friend. Certainly I am grateful for the the love and peace I have found in
my life. What else truly matters? |
| I graduated from West High with the lowest
academic ranking of those who were still in school. The only college which
would except me was Eau Claire State University on final probation. After a
year I transferred to UW Madison with a major in political philosophy. On my
way to classes there would always be protests about the war in Vietnam. I
would read about them the next day in the local press and wonder how they
could be so inaccurate. I took up photography to document the protests.
The first year my photos were published in Time, Newsweek and Esquire. I
figured photography was an easy way to see the world and meet interesting
people. I moved to New York and worked for Andy Warhol photographing parties
and fashion and I was also the house photographer at The Waldorf Astoria. I
quickly grew tired of photographing people who were famous for being famous
but who in most instances had contributed little or nothing to improving
society. I did have the pleasure of photographing some early Saturday Night
Live Shows and I spent some time with Muhammed Ali training in upstate New
York
I moved back to Madison and help produce an anti-war documentary "The War
at Home" which was nominated for an Academy Award. Then I went to Africa
briefly and worked for the Los Angeles Times shooting stories on locust
plagues and other things.
Returning to Madison I decided to begin to document the various
revolutions in Central America. Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Those
interested in my adventures in Guatemala may wish to read "Bird of Life Bird
of Death" By Jonathan Evan Maslow and published by Simon and Schuster. At
about the same time I worked with Francis Ford Coppola on some Jerry Brown
for President stuff. Once I returned from various revolutions intact New
York photo agencies started distributing my work world wide and I had soon
published around the world.
Much of my work including covers from Beirut appeared in US News and
World Report. I also worked on a MacArthur funded project documenting CIA
involvement in death squad activities in El salvador. I did ten years of war
photography. Lebanon, and Afghanistan, were probably the most exotic, there
are a few pictures from these places on my web site
www.michaelkienitz.com. I traveled with Arafat and got slapped by Oriana
Fallaci...I documented the Muriel Boat lift from Cuba. I spent a week with
the largest and oldest hashish family in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon. I
documented the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland and around the same time
purchased a 300 year old wee rye thatched cottage in County Donegal,
Republic of Ireland just outside Ardara...it was paradise nestled between 2
ocean channels and a fresh water lake. I lived there for about 4 months a
year for 10 years until my dear former wife wanted to sell it. I began
teaching photojournalism at the Univ. of Wisconsin Madison.
Shortly after that I participated with 17 other photographers members of
The National Press Photographers at Martha's Vineyard in producing the first
entirely digital newspaper...we used a new product which eventually became
Photoshop. I started a company called The Digital Light Monkeys, I traveled
around North America training other photographers and editors on how to
migrate to digital photography. The dawn of digital was a fabulous time and
made things so much easier but with it came the ability to manipulate
images. I was commissioned to created the visual portion for the largest
survey ever done on the ethics of digital imaging...
For entertainment I would ride and race my bicycle in various places
around the world, Majorca Spain, Gerona Spain, Pyrenees, Dolomites in Italy
and Isle of Skye were some of my favorite haunts.
Upon arriving home from a ride in the Pyrenees my former wife Carol
Pylant (we were divorced 7 years but good friends) introduced me to Beverly
Aagaard. Beverly is an amazing women who happens to do inter-vascular neuro
surgery. A relatively new procedure which treats strokes and other brain
blood flow issues via arteries. We have been married 8 years and are living
happily on the west side of Madison with Flic Flak and Fanny our 2 Norwegian
Forest Cats.
Three years ago I had an exhibition at The Chazen Museum of Art entitled
"Small Arms: Children of Conflict" a catalog was also published of the work
which depicts the various ways children cope with conflict and war. The
exhibit has also hung in the UK and Ireland. The catalog (book) has
generated a few thousand dollars which is given to local groups around the
world who aid women and children. My next exhibition is a fund raiser for
WCCN (Working Capital for Community Needs). It's a Madison based non-profit
micro funding group which I have volunteered with to document how loans of
as little as $16 can change the outcome of a person's life. The exhibition
is entitled "Seeds of Change" the photographs are of borrowers in Central
America. Opens Oct. 16th Pyle Center,University of Wisconsin.
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