Concord Monitor – Native photographer captures the faces of the Friendly Kitchen: ‘I see me’

By Catherine McLaughlin

Monitor workers

Michael Tuerk doesn’t bear in mind the day he posed for Cynthia Tokos to take his image.

“Every day is kind of groundhog day out here,” stated Tuerk, 31. “You almost have to wake up with a fresh brain every morning. A clean slate, if you will. It’s the only way to get through.”

He estimates the portrait was taken round Christmas. In it, he wears a gray hoodie tucked behind his proper ear and carries a navy backpack looped over the handlebars of the purple bicycle at his hip. He marks time by noticing the bike he was using.

“It’s a lifetime away,” he stated, holding the picture on the corners. “I almost don’t recognize this person.”

Tokos got here to Concord in 2022 as a director at Christ the King parish, however she has been a photographer for 25 years. During the final 12 months, she’s captured portraits of 48 visitors of the Friendly Kitchen, a soup kitchen offering free, sizzling meals to individuals within the Concord space.

Last Saturday, she remodeled its eating room right into a gallery.

“Some of these folks have some great challenges, and I just wanted to show their dignity and their respect,” Tokos stated.

Tuerk grew up within the White Mountains, graduated highschool in Amherst and traveled throughout the nation as an Americorps member from California to New York to Washington and again. He’s been in Concord since final summer time. Still close-cropped, his hair is longer now than within the picture Tokos took of him.

He’s working with the Coalition to End Homelessness to seek out housing, and within the meantime, he performs the piano on the Friendly Kitchen throughout the previous couple of minutes of meals.

It’s that expertise, in addition to his youth, that Tokos sought to seize.

“To hear him play the piano blows you away,” she stated. “These are the important things that we don’t see. I can see you, but I don’t see you. And that’s what I wanted to do.”

Tokos requested her topics to jot down one thing about themselves on a sheet of paper in response to the title of the gallery, “What I Want You to Know.”

To accompany her portait, Melissa Cleasby wrote, “There is so much more to me than the one small part.”

Cleasby realized to color as a teen when she acquired a toolbox stuffed with paints and paintbrushes as a Christmas reward. At 41, portray continues to be her refuge. She retains her provides in that very same toolbox at present.

At the gallery, landscapes, each actual and fantastical, held on the wall beside her {photograph}.

“Even if it’s the worst day of your life, you can always find something to be happy about,” Cleasby stated. “That’s where my art comes into play. I just paint and everything goes away.”

The web site the place she paints and lives along with her husband, Jesse, is peaceable however “not so ideal,” she wrote.

In her portrait, she sees an aspiring artist.

“I’d be so happy to share my art with others,” she wrote, “and have them enjoy my pieces as much as I enjoy creating them.”

To Sara Curran, workplace supervisor on the Friendly Kitchen, the portraits are an invite.

“These are all people who have lived lives that we know nothing about,” she stated. “This is just a moment in their lives, and we kind of get to learn more about who they are and what they’ve been through.”

On the partitions had been portraits of David Josselyn, an 88-year-old from Henniker who retired from his work as a dump truck driver final 12 months. He used to solely develop out his beard within the winter, however now he retains it year-round.

There was Frank, who wore a critical expression when photographed alone however lit up along with his arm round Darlene.

There was Malcolm King, who lives downtown. It was his palms, bedecked in rings formed like wolf heads, that caught Tokos’s eye. Shy at first, he grew to become enthusiastic about his picture. It provided an opportunity to share with individuals that he’s an elder in his church.

“I see me,” he stated.

There was Bill McFarlin, a musician initially from Epsom who performs close to encampments as a means to assist individuals earlier of their restoration journey. The acoustics beneath the 393 bridge, he famous, are glorious.

At 72, he has performed guitar for 42 years, and his music took him throughout the nation earlier than he returned to Concord in 2006.

“If I can bring happiness in the music, I’m doing something better and spreading a message,” he stated. “Because I’m also teaching that you can indeed be happy in sobriety.”

More than one topic wrote beside their picture, “I’m a good person.”

There had been two pictures of Rodney Moody, who had a means of taking individuals beneath his wing.

“I like to be everybody’s doorman,” he informed Tokos. “I feel needed that way.”

In his portrait, he leans ahead, resting an elbow on his knee, as his canine sits beside him. Browned, fallen leaves perch on the inexperienced grass within the background.

Guests on the gallery handed round a sign-up record for anybody who wished a replica of Tokos’s portrait of Moody, who died in February.

“The guests have been so open to it,” stated Jonesy Rainsville, a workers member on the Friendly Kitchen. “They want to share their stories, and they want other people to know that they’re trying hard and they’re working hard to do the best they can every day.”

Letitia Hamel was hesitant about Tokos taking her picture. Fear of judgement, even ridicule, crossed her thoughts.

“But then I thought, why not?” she stated. “Everybody needs to know who we are.”

Hamel is in restoration, and depends on an e-bike to get round due to mobility points. She stands over her e-bike in her portrait, beaming.

She slowly milled via the gallery, learn the private histories and quotes hung across the room and wiped away tears.

Behind them, she stated, was “hope.”

“It just brings you closer, because there’s something, maybe, you can relate to,” she stated.

To Tuerk, Tokos’s venture is well timed. He stated he feels as if the town’s progress on addressing homelessness has stalled.

“It’s all been bad news lately,” he stated. “That’s something that’s heavy out here, is not knowing that there’s a plan set in motion.”

“Stuff like what Cynthia is doing gets people to talk about it,” he stated.

Catherine McLaughlin might be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com