Days With My Father

Through Nov. 6, free, Gallery 339, 339 S. 21st St., 215-731-1530, gallery339.com.

by John Vettese

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Published: Sep 21, 2010

photography

"I want to think seriously about what I can accomplish with what's left of my life." Scrawled in uneven handwriting on a lined notebook page, these words might set a dismal tone for Phillip Toledano's photographic journal of caring for his 96-year-old father. Then again, they're from an image titled ambition; maybe Toledano's father, Edward — a painter and onetime actor — isn't sulking in self-pity with those words. Maybe he's serious. It's easy to overlook, depending on your level of comfort with the aged and ailing, but there is a lot of joy and warmth to be found in "Days With My Father," on display at Gallery 339 through Nov. 6. In the beautifully backlit sometimes things are funny, Edward sits in an easy chair with a sly smirk, two shortbread cookies perched on his sweater like nipples. In dad napping (pictured), he reclines wearing a wool sleep mask, decorated to look like the lamb it came from, with stitched eyelids and a pink bow. And beyond the play tomfoolery (and, yes, tear-jerking difficulties) of life at home, we do see hints of the ambition suggested by that first image: an assortment of paintings Edward made from the 1970s and '90s.

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