Every day is mother’s day

The world was changing too fast for photographer Peter Monroe. The black-and-white film he favored, with its ability to separate even subtle tones of gray, was discontinued, so he switched to a color film of similar demeanor. Then, about five years ago, it too abandoned him.

Even his subjects seemed to leave him behind. He started a series on men in wide-brim hats, but they got scarcer and scarcer. He tried old-fashioned motel signs -- ones that advertised color TV -- but they got torn down faster than he could shoot them.

Then he chanced upon a subject that wasn’t going anywhere: grown men who were still living at home with their mothers.

“Mama’s Boy!” is an exhibit of 13 of these photos, on view at the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum at Cal State San Bernardino through May 22.

The series began in 1995 with one portrait -- a man and his mother, hands in their laps, seated at opposite ends of a velvety blue couch in their Brooklyn home. Between them, atop the couch, was a stuffed cat and an air of veiled thoughts.

Monroe showed it to his friend Martin Porter -- a guy generally filled with ideas. Senior vice president at a magazine publishing house, Porter suggested expanding it into a series of photographs of middle-aged men living with their mothers.

Granted, some of Porter’s ideas turn out better than others. But the more Monroe considered it, the more intrigued he became. He spent two years photographing middle-aged men and their mothers in their living rooms.

Included are tidbits of information under headings such as: “Girlfriends or Sex,” and “What Happened While I Was There” that range from the outrageous to the mundane. “My life is a nightmare,” one man said during the shoot. Under the heading, “Why He Lives With His Mother,” Monroe noted that the man kept getting fired from jobs, and under “Girlfriends or Sex,” Monroe wrote, “Not since 1983.” Then, under the heading, “Epilogue,” Monroe wrote how two weeks after the picture was taken, the woman moved to Florida. The man was left alone, mother and sofa suddenly gone.

Monroe’s subjects are friends, neighbors, friends of friends. He met one man through a marijuana dealer -- and the dealer, it turned out, also lived with his mother. Their photo is included in the show with the parenthetical disclaimer: “Attention William Bennett or whoever is now the drug czar: None of us would ever smoke pot anymore -- and if we found out somebody was, we would call the police.”

Monroe refers to another of his subjects as the “Nudist Buddhist”; a friend met him at a Buddhist function, but he also happened to frequent nude beaches. There also was a friend’s father; he used to be a professor of romance languages at the University of Massachusetts but was now in his old bedroom with high school pennants on his walls.

There is an old-fashioned Americana feel to pictures and a certain symmetry. The living rooms are not modern. Sons and mothers are seated at far ends of a couch or on matching chairs or standing at opposite sides of the fireplace. Usually there are paired end tables or lamps as well. Monroe moved coffee tables out of the way but otherwise let people pose themselves -- and the mothers and sons are always separated. One often seems happier than the other. In some, neither seems overly pleased.

Monroe also likes to include something that runs contrary to the theme, so in “Mama’s Boy!,” for instance, he included a photo of a man who lived with his mother and stepfather, so the three of them are seated on the couch. It breaks the symmetry. He’s currently working on a show of green houses in the area of Massachusetts where he lives. It will include one blue house.

“Mama’s Boy!” is marked by a large degree of “tolerant pungency,” says Ivan Karp, director of OK Harris Works of Art in New York, where the show debuted in 1999. “There was a broad range of human speculation as to the meanings of the relationship,” he says. “There was an analysis of who was the victim, the mother or the son.”

What insight did Monroe gain through the project?

None, he says. He’s not the type to judge people. Nor is he prone to theorizing. He just knows when he likes how a picture looks and is driven by technical aspects of photography. For this series, he drew from his stash of the discontinued color film. He used $15,000 worth of lighting equipment for the shoots.

Porter, who grew up with Monroe on the North Shore of Long Island, finds “Mama’s Boy!” honest -- harsh, funny and provocative, but always honest. “It grabs people,” he says. “And in art, like anything else, honesty grabs people.”

Monroe, 50, says his visual sense begins with the fact that he has 20/15 eyesight; maybe that’s why he sees things most others don’t. He’s also tenacious about remaining true to his subject matter. While working on a project about the Bronx, he rented an apartment there to immerse himself in the community. He even used water from the Bronx River in his darkroom in an attempt to somehow make the project more organic.

“I know it sounds crazy,” he says.

He did not, however, move back in with his mother, though he lived with her in his 20s.

“Mama’s Boy!” does include a photo of himself with her. The text indicates that it was a “privilege” to be able to sit with her on the couch in the living room that was off-limits to him as a child. His mother was a bit upset that he mentioned that.

But just as his photos are straightforward, Monroe is blunt. The text accompanying a photograph of his stepmother and her son, a former professional tennis player, deals with the son’s schizophrenia and other things that offended his stepmother. Some members of his family no longer speak to him.

Green houses, he says, are not so emotionally complex. Their feelings don’t get hurt, and so it has been a good change working on that project, scheduled for exhibition next year at OK Harris. Monroe has one more photo to make, but he’s waiting for that moment when the foliage and light are right.

He continues to study the house carefully, with high expectation, patience and 20/15 vision.

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One son’s story

An excerpt from Peter Monroe’s “Mama’s Boy!” text:

Names: Paul and Freida Levy

Where: Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn

Work: No

Something interesting: His nickname is “The Sheriff” because he always carried a gun and wore a cowboy hat. Since Paul is broke, I gave him $50 as

a modeling fee.

Why he lives with his mother: He was a professional gambler who would do “Las Vegas Nights” at temples, but the business changed. “When they opened up Atlantic City, they took away all my action,” he said.

Girlfriend: No. She left when he moved into his mother’s.

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‘Mama’s Boy!’

Photos by Peter Monroe

Where: Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum, Cal State San Bernardino, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino

When: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

Ends: May 22

Cost: Free; parking, $1.50

Info: (909) 880-7373 or museum.csusb.edu