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Bingo
Photographs
by
Andrew Miksys
When
I was eleven my parents took me to a special bingo session for children.
Remarkably, I won $300 and wasted no time buying the best BMX bike
I could find. Overnight, bingo entered my life as this magical game
that brought me treasure and the envy of all my friends. A few months
prior to this, my father walked out of a job he had selling insurance
and started the Bingo Today newspaper. In high school, he gave me
a job delivering his newspaper to bingo halls around Seattle. Each
week I entered the smoke filled rooms of local VFWÃs, BoyÃs Clubs,
hockey or skating clubs that sponsored bingo. Bingo œregulars” were
seated at their favorite tables with ink daubers and various good
luck charms next to seemingly endless rows of bingo cards. After
unloading the stacks of papers, I would sometimes pause, take in
the scene, and listen to the numbers being called. In this series
of photographs, I have sought to return to these experiences that
fueled my early imagination. What keeps me returning, however, are
the fascinating people I meet and their wonderful willingness to
share their wins, their loses and lives with me.
Click on the
images to enlarge.
Andrew Miksys
is originally from Washington State. Several of his bingo photographs
will be included in an exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum www.seattleartmuseum.org
entitled, Hereabouts: The Northwest by Seven Photographers, November
16, 1999 - March 12, 2000. In 1998-1999 he received a Fulbright
Fellowship to photograph in Lithuania. An exhibition of his Lithuanian
photographs will be on view at the Foster Gallery, Louisiana State
University, from November 29 - December 11, 1999.
amiksys@hotmail.com
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