Book Review: "Puking Rainbows Past and Future" by Sean Lotman and Tennbo Lotman
“The bored man is an ideas man. The daydreamers shall inherit the Earth.” – Sean Lotman
“I had no idea how big Earth was before I came here.” – Tennbo Lotman
In the confines of COVID lockdown, Sean Lotman and Tennbo Lotman began collaboration on Puking Rainbows Past and Future, a pocket-sized photo book of aphorisms and imagery between an artist father looking back on his life and a young artist son who is taking the first steps along his creative path.
Tennbo received a Fuji Instax camera from Sean in Christmas 2020, and with his “inherent eye for framing,” and wry wisdom beyond his years, he began experimenting with double exposures, harnessing the magic of instant film. Sean, at the time, was writing prose poems about his life experiences, and Tennbo followed suit with what Sean describes as his “own stream-of-consciousness spoken word” – the two generations in dialogue through image and text. The project’s title comes from “Tennbo,” Sean says, “his words penned on the cover of one of his first sketch books,” during a time where every day was filled with image making between the two of them. What emerges is a testament to how not only do children learn from their parents, but parents learn from their children, too.
Family Trip to Lake Biwa (Sean Lotman, 2023)
Ferocious bear at Asahikawa, Hokkaido (Tennbo Lotman, 2022)
The book’s top spine makes the presentation feel like a small notepad one uses to jot down things they never want to forget. Readers are privy to Sean and Tennbo’s call-and-response communication through glossy Fuji Instax images printed on matte pages, their slight sheen suggesting a personal photo album. The text is printed on various color papers reminiscent of Post-it notes with typewritten font in English and Japanese. It is an intimate, honest exploration on what it means to be a parent and an artist, as well as a reminder of those first joyful sparks we all experienced as artists trying to make sense of the world around us.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
"Puking Rainbows Past and Future" by Sean Lotman and Tennbo Lotman
Publisher: Neutral Colors
Designer: Daisuke Kano & Erisa Yamashiro
Offset-bound in a slipcover case, 4.1 x 6 x .6 inches
Matte paper with glossy varnish for the Fuji Instax images
109 pages
Purchase here
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Image by Kitoko Chargois
Lisa Toboz is a self-taught, lens-based artist with an MFA in Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She combines photography and collage using family archives and found objects to explore autobiography, mortality, and storytelling. Her photo books include Dwell (Polyseme, 2020) and The Long Way Home (Static Age UK, 2018). She has exhibited internationally, and her photography can be found in various publications including Lenscratch, Reed Magazine, Fisheye Magazine, Uppercase, SHOTS Magazine, and Polaroid Now (Chronicle Books, 2021). She is the self-portrait category winner in the 23rd Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, a Photolucida Critical Mass finalist, and an Analog Sparks Best Conceptual photography award recipient.
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