Meet Anthony Licari, age 7:
A slight and spirited boy in small town Nebraska , middle of middlest America. His heart skips it's first beat over a girl. With a preternatural understanding of the opposite sex belying his age, young Anthony knows the most direct course of action. This calls for a heartfelt outpouring and intense expression of affection: The Love Letter. Surreptitiously slipped into our heroine's locker. This amateur amorous overture falls on unappreciative and uninterested eyes. Skip to age 9, and our protagonist has honed his skills and see better fortune. Aiming next for a self possessed and matured target two years his senior. Acting in opportune time (she was sick and missed school), he brings her homework and chocolates plying her with words and sundries. He gets the girl.
Licari's high school years were spent primarily focused on sports and with an eye towards maintaining the status quo. Not that his sensitivity was dulled. If anything, an elevated sense of awareness, self consciousness fed in to a heightened state of self criticism and doubt. This uncertainty set seed to root and a quieter introverted skin was adopted. Graduating high school and small town life Anthony actively pursued conventional success. Doing what he did because it's what one is supposed to do. Licari lived the middle management life, but couldn't quite ace it. Like so many running the rat race the only distanced gained was between tail and mouth. The twinge of dissatisfaction became a buzz, became a roar not possible to ignore.
Anthony Licari bought a camera.
Unsure what to do or how to act, the camera it sat. Perhaps the build up, the compound accumulation of a desire not realized; but the nagging sound of fulfillment did not tide still. It manifested to near tangible. Whatever the case, some soul salve, spirit balm was in order.
Anthony Licari picked up his camera.
It was a chemical reaction, an ALchemical reaction. This move was anything but aloe vera. This was the inception of a frenzied possession. An obsession that with each skill satisfied and learned the drive to go further was intensified. Developing and giving a tool to this powerful animus toward mealy mouth drone life. Self taught at a manic pace with in eight months of passionate study his images garnered praise. Woven between the other dimensions of frozen time and dreams are his writings. As the stream of creation and production hurried to flood the words brought themselves in their own time.
Now, as in every moment, is Anthony Licari of compiled components . A string of sequential moments strung together in formed flesh. Footing gained and rooted on a path to rise.
(biography by Pavielle Wuerfele)
