66 years ago today, Betty and Bob Entrikin welcomed their first and only child into this world: David Leighton Entrikin. Poppers, as I would learn to know him by 40 years later, spent his life doing extraordinary things: joining the Peace Corps during the organizations' halcyon days, traveling throughout the Middle East and Europe, battling illiteracy within the adult population of Washington D.C., running marathons during spare moments, and working tirelessly within the social services communtiy in Seattle during the tumultuous Sixties and Seventies. Over the past four decades, Poppers has lived in India, Afghanistan, Scotland and numerous cities in America.
He eventually settled down in Seattle with his wife, my mother Carol. Amongst the ferns and coffee shops, they ran a used and antique furniture business that progressively blossomed into Ballard Bookcase Company. In Popper's later years he pictured (sic) up a new hobby - photography. What began as a photographic dialogue between man and rust with a rudimentary point-and-shoot Kodak digital camera quickly morphed into a passion. Poppers started waking up before the rising sun to photograph graffiti around town before it was blotched out by the mayor's minions and their primitive tools.
With nearly 2,000 people sleeping on the streets of downtown Seattle at that time, his focus soon shifted to the homeless, a largely ignored-by-the-public and incessantly-harassed-by-the-police demographic. Poppers is the Cal Ripken of urban, neo-realist photography - while spending every Sunday morning for the past five years roaming through dingy city streets, he has amassed thousands of inimitable photos, videos, and interviews.
In the fall of 2008, that collection was painstakingly organized and displayed to the public in a tear-rendering exhibit, "Outsiders". His photos have been displayed throughout Seattle since and were predominantly used in a recent documentary for DESC, a non-profit organization that helps attain housing for chronically homeless people.
DESC in 3D: A Documentary from DESC on Vimeo.
Happy Birthday Poppers... we love you.
He eventually settled down in Seattle with his wife, my mother Carol. Amongst the ferns and coffee shops, they ran a used and antique furniture business that progressively blossomed into Ballard Bookcase Company. In Popper's later years he pictured (sic) up a new hobby - photography. What began as a photographic dialogue between man and rust with a rudimentary point-and-shoot Kodak digital camera quickly morphed into a passion. Poppers started waking up before the rising sun to photograph graffiti around town before it was blotched out by the mayor's minions and their primitive tools.
With nearly 2,000 people sleeping on the streets of downtown Seattle at that time, his focus soon shifted to the homeless, a largely ignored-by-the-public and incessantly-harassed-by-the-police demographic. Poppers is the Cal Ripken of urban, neo-realist photography - while spending every Sunday morning for the past five years roaming through dingy city streets, he has amassed thousands of inimitable photos, videos, and interviews.
In the fall of 2008, that collection was painstakingly organized and displayed to the public in a tear-rendering exhibit, "Outsiders". His photos have been displayed throughout Seattle since and were predominantly used in a recent documentary for DESC, a non-profit organization that helps attain housing for chronically homeless people.
DESC in 3D: A Documentary from DESC on Vimeo.
Happy Birthday Poppers... we love you.
2 comments:
Dearest Nellie,
What a beautiful tribute to your Dad.
We love you.
Wow, this was really inspiring. Not just your father's artistic devotion, but what he is doing with it. Thanks for sharing.
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