cigarettesandpurity

collect/support opportunities

2010-06-17T18:03:00.000-05:00

Powerline, 2010 Daniel Shea

Daniel Shea has announced his 2010 print sale. Two prints from Plume as well as a (very) few (remaining in the editioned category) from Removing Mountains are being offered to help fund his ongoing work documenting and considering the use of coal to feed our desire/need for energy. The BP disaster in the Gulf has the headlines, Daniel has spent years making me understand the full and ongoing cost of coal.

Another opportunity to collect and support is the Acre Artist Residency project on Kickstarter. You can participate for as little as a dollar but larger donations (but still a bargain!) are accompanied by buttons to t-shirts to prints. Daniel Shea will be attending a session at Acre this summer...so one of each would be a fully rewarding venture.

Madrid, Spain (Woman With Red Hair And Blue Dress Outside of Carrefour)

2010-05-07T13:50:00.000-05:00

This is the print that came home with me at the end of I 95. This is the print that the Lookers, which I have been posting the last 3 days, were regarding. When offered the option of taking a piece, just one, from an exhibit it is easy to start to be a little crazy. With more than 200 prints available (minus the one Ruben had staked out early) I ran through the list of considerations. Iconic? The boy doing a flip on the mattress, the red steps which became the cover of America, If You Reading This...? One that references historic photographs? The green ceiling of angles which nods to Eggleston as well as Weston but is so beguiling in its own right? It is easy to become childish in the sense of "I Don't Want to Choose!!" "I Want Them All!!"

I loved this image from the first time Zoe posted it while in Spain. It is a portrait which embodies all of the humanity of the subject as well as the artist. The gaze is direct, the posture bold but there is no confrontation in this woman. She is. The backdrop includes the faded/wiped out/disconnected text which runs through so many of the I 95 images. Text as information, text as symbol, text as landscape. Formally, the balancing of the red and green bags with her dress and fabulous hair creates movement which belies the dead center composition. This is one of the most recent images included in the final I 95, a photograph made in the 10th year of the project. Made in Spain it is an indicator that the project took Zoe from the freeway which runs through her neighborhood (and has served as the metaphor and gallery for this work) to the bigger world, yet has found/stayed within that which unites us all. I don't know this woman, and probably never will, but I love everything this photograph tells me about her. She makes me smile. What better gift could she and Zoe give me?

Technical notes: The tissue surrounding the print is acid free tissue brought along to place the print on. All of the prints are laminated and given a full adhesive backing to mount them to the pillars. When 4:00 comes and they are all peeled down it is best to have something to stick them to. If you look closely there is a chip of paint from the pillar stuck to the bottom right edge of the print itself. I have no idea what it will do to the life of the print but love that it adds a bit of terroir. The 4 round objects are 2 pound weights (think bean bags with beautiful leather covers) that are holding the print flat since I had to roll it and place it in a tube to safely transport it on the plane.

Looking at I 95 (3)

2010-05-06T16:58:00.000-05:00

Here is the third installment of Looking at I 95 2010. Tomorrow I will post the print that is being regarded.

Looking at I 95 (2)

2010-05-05T17:33:00.000-05:00

Here are 6 more images from I 95 2010 as a continuation of yesterday's post.

Again, click on image for larger view....

Looking at I 95

2010-05-04T18:47:00.000-05:00

I returned from Philadelphia yesterday. The final Zoe Strauss exhibit/installation/happening of I 95 was absolutely brilliant. The final hour (from 3:00 to 4:00) I took up residency beside the print which I had chosen to bring home. I decided to make pictures of people as they stood to look at "my" print. Trying to photograph the show as a whole is a useless exercise. The scale, the crowds, the light do not lend themselves to the long view. It occurred to me that making pictures of people looking might be the best way to describe the event. Zoe's ability to engage people in looking, and through looking to transcend the "facts" of the image and arrive at meaning, places her among the gods. Today I am posting the first 6 of 18 Lookers.

I will post the rest as the week goes on. At the end of the week I will post a picture of the print that came down, complete with paint chips which testify to its inclusion in the final iteration of I 95. I am grateful for and humbled by the opportunity to experience I 95.

As always click on each image for a larger view.

Testing....

2010-04-25T18:00:00.000-05:00

And now for your favorite Sunday afternoon game show...Will It Leak?!?!

Locked and loaded...what, you thought I was going to put in the G10? Ha! Fat chance!

I really should have filled this with warm water...

Dry as a bone! Next stop the Carribbean!

Mel tested, Mel approved! (still a little queasy but no guts, no glory)

I 95 the culmination...

2010-04-23T14:58:00.000-05:00

Wiki dictionary defines culmination as, "The attainment of the highest point of altitude reached by a heavenly body; passage across the meridian; transit; Attainment or arrival at the highest pitch of glory, power, etc."

A decade is a fairly long time. A decade is how long Zoe Strauss has been exhibiting her work on the concrete support pillars which carry Interstate 95, and its travelers, over her home ground on the first Sunday in May. The nexus of the work is her home of South Philadelphia but has grown to reflect our country and finally, this year, the world. This is the last year that this work will be shown in this way, in this (its rightful) place.

On Sunday, May 2 at 4:00 PM a wave will begin on Front Street and roll all the way to the back (a very long block away) with the 231 prints coming down and going home with those who have, whether faithfully or recently, come to know Zoe and her work. They will be carefully carried from this gallery of noise, fumes and dirt to be cherished as much as any million dollar piece in a collector's vault. It is a wonder to behold.

I am able to make the trip again this year. This is not a Photography Show. This is not an Art Show. This is an event which enriches and engages the eye, the mind and the spirit in a way that the aforementioned so rarely attain. If you are going to be there and would like to meet for coffee or a drink email me. If you're not going/able to be there I am sorry.

A little something

2010-02-17T11:50:00.000-06:00

Here is a little something to get us through to spring. Tom Waits and Tootie Ma do it for me. You can purchase the album and support both Preservation Hall and their Outreach Program here.

via flavorwire

Art and Fashion

2010-02-11T14:42:00.000-06:00

Alfred Palmer, 1942

"In fashion, the right thing at the right time is the right thing. The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing." Tom Ford

When I heard Tom Ford say that in an interview recently I couldn't help but draw a correlation between fashion and the commerce driving contemporary art (much less politics). Perhaps something to consider at your next portfolio review?

2-2-10

2010-02-02T08:00:00.024-06:00

Don't mess with me Phil. I am ready for winter to be over.

(This post was supposed to go up automatically yesterday and I am annoyed with Blogger for the scheduled post setting not working. How often do you get to use a picture of a ground hog? Once a year is how often!)

Care package

2010-02-01T14:30:00.000-06:00

There has been a good bit of talking about the future of photography books recently. Some interesting ideas, some not so much. Noah Beil's artist book This is Not My Sky stands as an example of taking control of your own destiny. The care with which he has hand set the type for the cover and colophon, printed the images and hand tied the binding informs the assembled photographs. The photographs, of a place which is not his home, become a portrait of a photographer with a careful eye. Someone who wants to show the same attention to the way the images will be experienced as that shown to their composition. This is Not My Sky is a visual and physical inspiration. He has made this book under the imprint Extant Books. Lovely since extant is defined as still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost. Care in art making should not be extinct or lost.

Manuscripts

2010-01-30T17:23:00.001-06:00

Pouring Down has re-posted a video (no embedding, click the link). Franny and Zooey was my favorite.

"But the thing is, you raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddam 'unskilled laughter' coming from the fifth row. And that's right, that's right--God knows it's depressing. I'm not saying it isn't. But that's none of your business, Franny. An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's. You have no right to think about those things, I swear to you. Not in any real sense, anyway. You know what I mean?"

j.d. salinger

Street Seen

2010-01-29T15:46:00.000-06:00

Lisa Hostetler has put together another outstanding exhibit of photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Street Seen: the Psychological Gesture in American Photography 1940-1959 opened last night to an overflow crowd in both the lecture hall and the overflow video feed venue (when the overflow is overflowing on a night when the temperature was around 4 degrees F you have a lot of interest). Her talk once again was aesthetically and historically informative while never crossing into the arcane or hopelessly academic. She invites people to see and consider more than lectures what to see or consider. The exhibit remains through April 25th which gives ample time to examine the photographs, paintings and objects without the opening night crowds. Take a look at the calendar of events for details on gallery talks, a symposium in early March and a talk by Phillip-Lorca diCorcia in April.

The beautiful catalog (New York Times review here) is available both through MAM and here. I love that I was able to have mine signed last night by both Lisa and Saul Leiter.

The night ended with dinner with Kevin, Andy, and Sonja. Wine always helps when sorting out the contemporary photographic world.

Curtis Mann, Lately

2010-01-27T11:20:00.000-06:00

untitled, foldings (guided tour, Golan Heights) [95" x 58]

Curtis Mann's blog has been quiet for a while. He updated last week with new work, perhaps for the 2010 Whitney?. Watch the video for insight into his process. He has refreshing praise for digital photographs and the lack of editing in vernacular collections.

Curtis Mann // Photography from Alan Del Rio Ortiz on Vimeo.

Ctrl A

2010-01-25T17:59:00.000-06:00

Did you know that hitting Ctrl A apologizes for everything? Thanks Tommy!

Muscle Memory

2010-01-24T17:49:00.005-06:00

It is the dog days of January. Traditionally my most difficult of the year (if you don't include February, March and occasionally a chunk of April). I haven't been shooting with my camera and find it increasingly difficult to shoot my mouth off here. This video of the world record holder for blindfolded free throws reminds me that nothing succeeds like persistence. To borrow what has become a cliche...just do it.

NOTE: It seems either Blogger's new interface or You tube have made sizing wonky. Apologies all around.

Wearing your heART

2010-01-18T17:28:00.000-06:00

SFMOMA and Gap have teamed up to make t-shirts. This one is a fitting tribute to Larry Sultan using an image from Evidence. There are others represented including Kerry James and Ed Ruscha. If you don't live in the San Francisco Bay area you can order one here.

Letters

2010-01-08T16:07:00.000-06:00

from McSweeney's Open Letters; Author, Jamie King

I'm having one of those weeks and this letter from McSweeney's provided relief. The kind of relief that comes from finding you are not alone. The kind of relief that comes from a good laugh. I plan to print it, insert the appropriate photographic terms in place of performance related content, read it aloud and finally burn it. Then I'll make work.

Awesome

2010-01-05T17:01:00.002-06:00

Douglas Wolk's Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgment: Drastically Condensed Awesome Version is wonderful! The audio is terrible! Watch it at least 2 or 3 times!

Resolved

2010-01-01T11:17:00.000-06:00

Thanks to inspiration from Jason Lazarus I hereby resolve to OWN 2010! And also to clean up my desk....

Almost

2009-12-29T16:46:00.000-06:00

time for a "blue moon".

Greater Atlanta

2009-12-28T16:59:00.000-06:00

I failed to post a month ago when Greater Atlanta arrived. I now see it on the Best of '09 lists put together by Alec and 5B4. Steinmetz' trilogy is now complete and the constituent parts create a sum of beauty.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T12:43:00.000-06:00

to all. Here is a little something for your enjoyment.

Christmas cookies!

2009-12-24T12:40:00.003-06:00

Hope your home smells as good as mine does today.

Re-topography

2009-12-18T12:20:00.000-06:00

LACMA has made a Google map identifying or approximating the locations of the photographs in their New Topographics exhibit. It is an opportunity to revisit the sites and discover/re-discover their visual message as well as the change that 30 years has wrought since the work is tied to time as much as place.

A very cool use of technology...

Impossible?

2009-12-14T17:19:00.000-06:00

Ok, now bear with me. Last week I received an email from The Impossible Project updating their status and announcing a call for submissions for an Impossible Billboard in Times Square. Last night I was in another part of the house and heard a crash accompanied by a very odd noise that I didn't immediately identify. I looked from room to room hoping to discover what had fallen and couldn't see anything out of place. I decided to check the hall closet and found that an old SX70 had fallen from a shelf and in the process fired the shutter. I had no idea there was still film in the camera and don't know what made it shift and fall on its own. Of the 4 remaining exposures I now have one of a dark closet taken by the camera itself.

The basis of the entire project is Edward Land's statement "Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible". I think I'll make a scan and send it in.

(I am not addressing finding the ShakeIt Photo app on Saturday to make it an all Polaroid weekend)

RGB

2009-12-13T15:53:00.000-06:00

Art school students are such fun....

Life imitating art

2009-12-11T15:03:00.000-06:00

For the last week or two I seem to be living in an Amy Stein photograph. The fox was in the back yard and the turkeys came to the feeder that normally hosts squirrels and Blue Jays in the front a few days later. Highly unusual. It would seem the "passage and barrier between domesticated space and the wild" has gotten closer.

Benefits of Membership, Update

2009-11-22T17:06:00.000-06:00

This morning I received this email:

Hello Mel,
An internet search brought your recent post regarding your Art Institute of Chicago Member Card to my attention. I want to apologize for the error in the way your name appears on the card, and for the clearly incorrect assumptions made by whomever entered your information into our database.
If you would kindly provide me with an alternate salutation (Miss, Ms., Mrs. etc.), I would be happy to reissue a corrected card. Please feel free to contact me directly at (312)499-4128 or the Email provided.
Best Regards,
Lorien Steere
Member Relations Representative

I think that is just the greatest! A quick restoration of my faith in my fellow ~~man~~ person!

Benefits of membership

2009-11-20T10:58:00.001-06:00

It would seem that one of the benefits of membership at the Art Institute of Chicago is...

gender reassignment! The unfortunate part is I filled out the application in person. Anyone care to bet that the person who took it listed "attention to detail" as one of their job qualifications?

Family pictures

2009-11-19T17:40:00.000-06:00

A family member asked if I would make copies of a few 105 year old pictures of his grandmother and her sisters. Taking apart the frames that had held them for a very long time, if not since they were made, was a delicate process. The nails used to secure the pieces and backing in their frames, the old wire. When I'm done I will put them back in their frames with new materials but wanted to document the artifacts to serve as a place marker. These materials spoke to me of time as much as the musty smell given off when the frame, like a crypt, was opened. The hand that drove the nails and wound the wire was present.

Hello

2009-11-17T16:35:00.000-06:00

I just want to say Sain Bain uu (hello) to my Mongolian visitor. The internet is an amazing thing.

Sunday comics

2009-11-15T12:16:00.000-06:00

Your moment of Richard Prince Valiant...

Priceless

2009-11-13T10:42:00.000-06:00

Train fare to Chicago to hear Zoe Strauss lecture at the Art Institute...$42

Cab fare from train station to Art Institute due to 1 1/2 hour late arrival caused by sitting stopped on the tracks in Northern Illinois waiting for an inspector to approve our passage following a truck hitting the bridge...$12

Hotel room required after having been told by Amtrak conductor that due to our late arrival the last train would also be delayed and thus leave at 9:00-9:30, only to return to the station at 8:45 and be told that the last train left at 8:15 after all...$284

The opportunity to listen to Zoe speak about her work, politics, art, sports and deliver on her Facebook promise to "lecture her ass off"...priceless

Not Niigata

2009-11-12T11:34:00.000-06:00

The mail arrived with my long awaited copy of Not Niigata. Andrew Phelps has made another beautiful book of images concerning place and time which succeed in their ability to defy both. Kehrer has produced (as with Higley) stunning reproductions and a design which is generous with the space and cadence allowed for the work and viewer.

According to Andrew's blog Buffet a few of the limited editions offered with choice of print are still available. They won't be for long.

Trio with beer

2009-11-09T17:08:00.000-06:00

Here is another view of Big Chicks from yesterday, this time with the G10 rather than iPhone. I think of it as a group portrait.

Context

2009-11-08T19:43:00.001-06:00

Out the door at 8:00 AM yesterday for a full day in Chicago with members of MAM's Photography Council. First stop was the Art Institute to see On the Scene, Playing with Pictures, and attend a discussion on perception, context, and reproducibility with Gaylen Gerber and Liz Deschenes.

Next stop was Big Chicks for Mimosas and Bloody Mary's and a jaw dropping photograph collection. Arbus to Weegee...

Last stop was a visit to Brian Ulrich's studio for insight and information and new work.

An outstanding day! Context became the recurring theme.

Lewis Koch

2009-10-30T15:09:00.001-05:00

Touchless Automatic Wonder, Lewis Koch's web gallery created while Artist in Residence at the Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Denmark in May 2001 of "found text" photographs has been published as a book. Touchless Automatic Wonder, Found Text Photographs from the Real World (Borderland Books, distributed by UW Press) , 112 pp, hardbound, 80 duotone illus. The reproductions are very fine and the design is in keeping with the work giving it room and cadence. At the risk or sounding like a Luddite; the opportunity to fully engage with the sequence, pairings, and individual images in a scale that makes them more accessible than the earlier web version is a great pleasure. The book allows me to turn and re-turn the pages to absord the unfolding of this work while allowing room for my imagination and memory to also make it my own narrative.

Kendra Green from MOCP wrote, "Lewis Koch plays at the borders of the incomprehensible and the inexplicable. A open-air staircase seems to lead only to the sky; the question mark on a cart aptly remarks on its own mysterious placement at the center of a frozen lake; the view from a curtained window reveals the backward lettering of “YES”; on the glass floating in an inky night. Indeed, Koch’s gelatin-silver photographs often make use of odd or unexpected fragments of signage and found text to intensify the unsettling sensation of being radically out of place. Not merely quirky or coincidental, these single words or full phrases confront the viewer with all the authority of labels and directives, at once creating and commenting on the scene’s tension."

It is fine thing to have a book inspire the emotion contained in the title. Curiosity, speculation, admiration, amazement. In a word, wonder.

The book is available here and here. You can contact Lewis Koch (lewiskoch(at)yahoo(dot)com) directly for a signed copy as well as inquire about a copy in a limited edition of 50 with choice of one of 5 images in editions of 10.

All black and white images copyright Lewis Koch and used with permission of the artist.

The kindness of neighbors

2009-10-29T16:28:00.002-05:00

Any ideas on what to do with a 25 pound head of cabbage?

Challenging Vision

2009-10-27T19:52:00.000-05:00

The issues in my work are often of a similar nature with an abstract edge. Though I build on past experience, I attempt to eradicate previous habits of seeing and thinking. I keep searching for what is visually new to me while always hoping that a fusion of form and content will take place.

Barbara Crane, 2002

Human Forms, 1964 Barbara Crane

Do you feel good about your work? Do you feel like you are getting a lot done, moving forward, exploring new ways of seeing and making others see? Do you feel pretty good about having a handle on the technical requirements of photography? Then I advise you do not go to Barbara Crane Challenging Vision at the Chicago Cultural Center through January 10, 2010.

I was there Saturday and felt as though I had been taken, metaphorically, to the woodshed. No excuses, no explanations, no permissions asked. Work, and more work, and more work. Every thing, every form, every media. Humbling, inspiring.

Spend time on her web site to get a taste of the experience. A well made catalog covering the exhibit and her career is available through Amazon.

Security

2009-10-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

Do we know when Amtrak hired Mad Magazine cartoonists for their graphics department or is that the international symbol for "bad guy"?

Mise-en-scène

2009-10-24T16:01:00.003-05:00

with Dan, and myself as metteur en scène.

Dreams

2009-10-23T22:43:00.002-05:00

I'm sleeping under Michael Kenna tonight. Nice when a hotel buys
original art.

Aspen Creek prints

2009-10-21T14:36:00.000-05:00

Aspen Creek Photo had a sale a couple of weeks ago on 8 x 10 prints mounted and matted at 16 x 20 for $12 a print. Their product and service are every bit as good as their older sibling West Coast Imaging. An excellent option for proofing at a good price and still having something usable.

Cash

2009-10-20T16:12:00.000-05:00

Just when I was feeling disappointed that bidding on work in the Aperture Foundation 2009 Benefit Auction was not in the budget....now I can bid on everything and still have enough left to buy a Hasselblad with a digital back!

Those were the days

2009-10-16T11:55:00.000-05:00

Photo by Sonja Thomsen

Last night Curator Lisa Hostetler gave a talk to members of the Milwaukee Art Museum Photography Council presenting an overview of the collection. How acquisitions came about, strengths and focus. I love learning the back story to these things. Example? The Edward Weston (lower left) Bad Water, Death Valley, 1938 (printed by Edward Weston) was purchased in 1957 for $10. The John Szarkowski, Grain Elevators 1, 1949 was acquired as a gift from Boston Store (a department store in Milwaukee) as an art contest winner in 1950. That's what I call getting in on the ground floor.

Before and After

2009-10-14T17:56:00.003-05:00

As I am getting caught up with life I finally had the time to frame 10 pieces from Sonja Thomsen's Petrified series for my husband (Is there a better place for a series that speaks to timelessness [by way of petrified shark's teeth] than a dental office? Except perhaps a lawyer's?). Thank god for Ikea, pull out all their junk mats and backing and you have a very serviceable frame and glass for your own museum board. It feels good to be industrious.

The High Cost of Film

2009-10-12T16:30:00.000-05:00

My husband just paid $125 to have a 3 gallon container of used fixer picked up from his office. $30 to buy, $125 to have hauled away. Another reason (let's not even go into OSHA) he switched to digital x-rays. If you have a darkroom please don't tell me you just dump it down the drain.

My neighbors to the North

2009-10-10T15:18:00.002-05:00

The Mpls Photo Center emailed to ask for help in getting the word out on their call for entries for a juried exhibition of portraits. The Deadline is October 24th so get your files ready for upload (yes you can submit by email!). I only wish they were 425 miles closer so I could avail myself of their facility and classes.

Ba ba ba ba ba......

2009-10-09T15:34:00.003-05:00

Yo La tengo - A Take Away Show - Part 1 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I just found La Blogotheque. I love it. I love the production values on these two Take Away shows by Yo La Tengo.

Yo La Tengo - A Take Away Show - Part 2 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend.

Ephemera panache

2009-10-06T18:00:00.002-05:00

A wonderful surprise came in the mail. Thomas Allen was handing these out at the opening reception for his exhibit at Foley Gallery a few weeks ago. A friend was in New York and attended having gotten to know him when he did the cover of her book. Each one (obviously since they were cut from book covers) is different. I am thrilled with mine, very apt.

Art under water

2009-10-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

I am working my through my inbox as well as my notes to self on items to link to. I found this clip from early summer to be entertaining in an "Art imitating life", "best laid plans" sort of way. Found at CMonster my favorite comment is:

"I hope they leave it there for the bienale. It actually seems more interesting and relevant, a mcmansion underwater in debt to poor planning." Elbowtoe

Art and policy

2009-10-02T14:57:00.003-05:00

Yellowstone 2004

I've been watching Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea this week. Tyler Green has a great post making the point that indeed there was a time in this country when artists were able to sway opinion and policy.

Speaking of...

2009-09-30T14:10:00.003-05:00

photography and painting. The always thoughtful and educational but does it float (an excellent curatorial blog, put it in your subscriptions!) recently put up this collection of Gerhard Richter paintings on photographs. Sometimes things just come in waves.

Love at first sight

2009-09-29T17:18:00.007-05:00

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster at Dia, Gus Powell for The New Yorker

The September 28, 2009 issue of The New Yorker has this image at the top of the Goings On About Town page. It stopped me in my tracks and I have returned to examine it daily since. The image is in conjunction with the opening of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's chronotypes & dioramas at Dia at the Hispanic Society in New York. A very intriguing statement and examination on what is geography.

What keeps me coming back to the photograph is the apparent summation of Sommers' idea that painting is additive while photography must make sense of what exists for framing, and thus by re-framing that existence, becomes something new.

I have long admired Gus Powell's work. This photograph was love at first sight.

Side Note: be sure to follow the above link to the Dia Art Foundation site to read the exhibition introduction by Curator Lynne Cooke. Did you know that dioramas were first devised by Louis Daguerre? Neither did I!

Painting the town red

2009-09-23T16:47:00.003-05:00

There seems to be a trend afoot....

Keeping it in context

2009-09-22T16:48:00.003-05:00

So I opened my mouth and said "Yeah sure, I'll pick up the blog again." and I find myself at a loss for conversation. A while ago I had made a note to myself on Neil Freeman's Contextual Calendar from his Fake is the New Real site. I was happy to find it again since it very well sums up the sense I have of this year.

My thanks to all who wrote to welcome me back. This is the generosity of spirit I was referring to.

Now where was I?

2009-09-20T16:07:00.005-05:00

The summer of 2009 is winding down and the circumstances and demands which have prevented me from posting have abated. My husband has hired staff, last weekend was my daughter's wedding. I have spent this week seriously considering whether I wanted to come back to the blogosphere, both reading and writing.

When Cigarettes and Purity started it was my first successful attempt at any kind of journal or regular writing. I have had countless false starts in my life going back to childhood and never got beyond 3 entries before I bored myself with what I had written. Somehow the keyboard has succeeded where the pen and bound book did not, at least in volume and regularity. This blog has served as a junk drawer (which is in no way meant to infer value) of sorts. It is the place I can throw ideas, writing (other's) and images that have caught my interest to the point of not wanting to throw them away (given my terrible short term memory for names). I can then come back and do a search for a book, an exhibit, an article or the name of the artist who's making the wonderful prints of .....(fill in the blank). Through this space I have met virtually and then actually with a large number of remarkable people who have been generous of spirit. I have not engaged in self promotion nor do I aspire to be a "force" in the Fine Art Contemporary Photography Web Based Wish We All Lived In New York/China/Germany Blah Blah Blah. It is what it is.

I was continuing to go round and round in my head this morning over whether to resume posting or just let it go (Have I bored myself sufficiently? Had the Law of Inertia come to bear? Given the volume and speed of the internet does it feel too much like "jumping in" on Double Dutch?). I looked up to see my husband, just returned from running, sitting across from me wearing the t-shirt pictured above. I picked up the dictionary to fully examine the origin and meaning of illiterate (etymology: 1556 from the Latin illiteratus meaning not furnished with letters). Happily this led me to the word aliterate, defined as a person who is able to read but chooses not to do so. I guess this post means that I am choosing not to be visually or conceptually aliterate and further, that I will continue to use this space to make notes on what I learn. As always you are welcome to drop in and look over my shoulder.

"Affectionate and alarming"

2009-07-20T15:41:00.004-05:00

An occasion as momentous as Susana Raab coming to town brings me out of hibernation. What a pleasure to pick up the newspaper (yes I still receive a newspaper delivered to my door) on a Monday morning and see a nice spot on her upcoming show. If you're within the sound of my voice be sure to come out for the Gallery Night exhibition opening of her Rank Strangers work this Friday, July 24 from 6 - 9 PM

(Regular posting to resume soon......probably)

Excuses, status and amazement

2009-06-15T20:32:00.002-05:00

The days and weeks are continuing to pass with the doppler shift being the main attention grabber.

We found my husband at work as photographed above. It was the end of the day. It was, he admitted, the second day he had worn these shoes this way. While both are, indeed, brown they are completely different shoes. I rest my case. Perhaps we have come to the point of transcending details, only able to discern or process them once they have passed. There is a body of work in this but I'm too tired to grab on to it at the moment.

You'll never believe what just came in the mail...

2009-05-30T21:55:00.006-05:00

A Pink Slip! Because of the crappy economy and my inability to find work, I decided to do what any smart business person would do--I laid myself off. This is the letter I just got from my formerly financially stable self. You can click on the image to get a closer look.

But seriously, the N.E.A.'s recent report, mentioned above in my pink slip letter, does paint an extraordinarily grim picture of what life is like for American artists during this recession. If you are an unemployed artist, like me, and have some extra time on your hands, become an advocate. Write a letter to your legislators encouraging them to support art programs. Tell them that the arts are an industry, like any other, and that when they allocate money to the the arts, they are creating jobs. Here is a link to Americans for the Arts. They have a great page that will give you all the information that you need to find your legislators and get started.

Also, if you are a teaching artist, performer, writer, or musician, then sign up for this University of Chicago research project. The researchers are studying how artists who are not employed full-time get by. The results will be used to advocate for better benefits and wages for this often overlooked and underpaid group of creative educators.

This was posted by Shawnee Barton, an artist who keeps a blog on other people’s blogs. If you have a little nook of cyberspace and are open to welcoming a guest poster, please email her at shawneebarton@gmail.com. She will be grateful. To see where she is headed next, check out shawneebarton.com.

From the Management: I could get used to this! Thank you Shawnee! Mel.....

Abe's Penny

2009-05-25T17:55:00.003-05:00

I am still in over my head concerning day to day life but wanted to post on Abe's Penny. At the end of April I received an email from Anna Knoebel, Editor of Abe's Penny. She wrote:

"Collectible and temporal, Abe’s Penny is like a flash card – quick to experience – and taps into a pre-email love of receiving mail. Each volume contains four postcards that subscribers receive one by one, once per week, for one month. Each postcard features an image and a few lines of text. The full set of four postcards is a full story. Our idea is to keep it short and frequent."

and went on to say that if I would send my mailing address she would send me May's edition(s). Let me state right here and now that I CAN be bought. Let me further state the the concept and execution of this micro magazine is absolutely wonderful which is why I want to let others know about it (and subscribed to keep the stories/photos/poems coming). I am not even close to keeping up with this (or other) blog and email. I am beyond tired of bills and junk in the mail. Subscribing to Abe's Penny assures a tangible bright spot in the mail box once a week. I am taken with the serial approach to the images as well as the narrative text unfolding over a month's time. I think this is a brilliant, somewhat retro, approach to publishing.

You can view the first two editions here (1.1) and here (1.2).

P.S. I have a few more weeks of mayhem and then hope to get back to regular posting. Be well.

Niigata (Not Niigata), Japan

2009-05-16T11:01:00.004-05:00

Andrew Phelps

"My way of working is a bit like making a poodle or a swan out of a shrub. Small bits of the mess are snipped away until some sort of form starts to take shape. The fine-tuning is thus the most difficult, and great plans often fall away to luck and circumstance. A bit of vision is required, but paying attention as I move along is infinitely more important. I stumble with a map, make a wrong turn and bump into someone who gives me a half hour of their time or points me in a new direction. In the end, if all goes well, I end up with something that may slightly resemble a poodle or a swan. But it’s definitely neither a poodle nor a swan, and it is certainly not Niigata."

Sado Island, February 2009

Andrew Phelps has made another beautiful book, Not Niigata, through a commission by the European Eyes on Japan festival. While the release is not set until fall you may now order a Special Edition which will include a print of any image of your choice from the book. I can tell you from experience that the only thing more lovely than his books are his prints, so this is a win/win proposition. I wouldn't put it off until late summer, the exchange rate may go up.

No crisis is too

2009-05-13T19:45:00.001-05:00

Much for baseball. It's also an easy post to make from my phone.

Due to circumstances beyond

2009-05-11T20:08:00.002-05:00

beyond my control I find I must put the blog on hold while I help out in a family crisis. Talk amongst yourselves, but not anything too interesting because my reading will be as limited as my writing.

Under I 95 debriefing

2009-05-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

Zoe Strauss' Under I 95 event is unlike any other. On the first Sunday in May hundreds gathered in the rain to view, experience, buy, and pull down a collection of photographs which speak to humanity and inhumanity, community and individuality.

Culture, landscape and structure are all examined. I felt very familiar with the work having collected several prints as well as the book, America (not to mention having printed the 3 photographs censored by the printer), so was unprepared for the feeling of reverence which accompanies seeing these pieces in what I have to consider their natural setting.

White walls and bad wine are not the background for this work. The pillars supporting the cars carrying people, the noise of the interstate, the rain leaking through is the setting which allows her images to fully realize themselves.

Over breakfast Monday morning she told me the homeless man had asked her if she wanted him to leave. She told him "No, you live here." This was, in fact, his gallery.

At 4:00 PM, just like at a Phillies game, a wave started from Front Street rolling back two blocks with people taking down the prints, holding them delicately to protect them from the damp as well as due to the adhesive. Treasures with bits of paint adhered to the back.

The 2009 iteration of Under I 95 was finished. Zoe still had at least an hour's worth of signing, greeting and hugging to do. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be there. An "Art" event unlike any other. It deepened my understanding of her process and work. It deepened my understanding period.

It was my very good fortune to spend time with Mike Macfeat, Justin Reed, and the divine
Ms Strauss. I see that I missed meeting a whole lot more, much to my disappointment. The size of the space and crowd intervened. I am hoping to make the trip for the final Under I 95 next May.

I would get

2009-05-03T20:15:00.000-05:00

Right on it. I will have a more complete post tomorrow when I get
home and don't have to do it from my phone.

(if this is confusing see previous posts)

You now have

2009-05-03T20:11:00.000-05:00

364 days to plan to be at the 10th and final Under I 95...

No sign

2009-05-02T13:36:00.001-05:00

Of Ms Strauss yet. Could she still be printing?

A day late

2009-05-02T10:02:00.001-05:00

But better late than never

Somewhere over

2009-05-02T09:06:00.001-05:00

Eastern Pennsylvania

Is this similar to...

2009-05-01T16:55:00.003-05:00

W.C. Fields' quote, "Last week, I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed."?

Something about it raining there. We get to try again at dawn tomorrow, although I believe it is supposed to rain tomorrow too. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the current state of travel?

Updates as they occur.

If you need me...

2009-04-30T18:00:00.005-05:00

in the next couple of days I'll be hanging out Under I 95. I'll post updates as they become available.

Perception versus reality

2009-04-28T17:00:00.000-05:00

Another example:

You can read more about Jennifer Jacobs' performance piece here.

The Sunday comics

2009-04-26T16:45:00.004-05:00

The Neitzsche Family Circus allows one to while away another rainy afternoon. Just hit refresh for random pairings.

Perhaps not as wry as Mike MacFeat's Sluggo series, but interactive in a push the button sort of way.

Dawoud Bey

2009-04-24T15:00:00.004-05:00

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of viewing the Class Pictures exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum as well as hearing Dawoud Bey speak on his work.

His formal, directed portraits gently insist that the viewer engage with the subjects and open the door to the social and cultural activism which motivated his picking up a camera. The teenagers in Class Pictures are empowered by the unsentimental, respectful gaze by which the camera allows us to consider them as individuals, rather than marketing demographic or news story. Their words and countenance ennoble them, and therefore us.

He reassured me that What's Going On will have a new installment soon. I enjoy few things more than having an encounter with an artist be as informative and nourishing as their work.

April rain

2009-04-21T15:02:00.003-05:00

Do you hear that tapping sound? No, it's not the sound of the rain. It is the sound of my foot as I wait for decent spring weather to arrive. I mean above 38 degrees.

Turkeys are done

2009-04-20T19:50:00.001-05:00

Done Manifesto

I couldn't help but think of the grammarian rule stating that "People are finished, turkeys are done" when I saw this post from Wooster Collective asking for people to answer the question, "When working on a piece of art, how do you know when it's done?". The question can certainly apply to a photographic series as much as an individual painting/drawing/sculpture.

I find I have more difficulty with leaving something unfinished than going on and on and on.

My favorite answer? Victoria's "10 years later."

Depletion by deletion

2009-04-19T16:30:00.001-05:00

Square America's subsidiary site The Boat Lullabies points to our loss now that the delete button is ubiquitous. Our "mistakes" are often our most complete story.

Lost in a Moment

2009-04-15T14:30:00.001-05:00

A lovely little video via It's Nice That. Simplicity itself.

Peep show

2009-04-12T11:25:00.003-05:00

The winner of the Washington Post 2009 Peep diorama contest. Well done!

Intersections

2009-04-10T17:20:00.003-05:00

I received an email from Amazon the other day, one of their "Based in previous purchases..." notifications on the release of my friend Jane Hamilton's latest novel. I looked at the cover and thought that either they had commissioned a piece from Thomas Allen or had totally ripped him off. I was glad to confirm with Jane, before she headed out on the book launch tour, that the publisher had commissioned it.

Pretty much takes Thomas Allen's work full circle.

This year

2009-04-07T16:45:00.000-05:00

2008 Milwaukee Brewers World Series tickets, unused

It is opening day. This is a day of hope and possibilities. Winter is a season to be survived. Spring, summer and early fall are days to be savored. Long hours of light. Warmth while not here is, at least, proximate. Maybe this year.

You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time. ~Jim Bouton, Ball Four, 1970

The same can be said of a camera.

At the moment we're up by a run in the bottom of the 4th. Hope and possibilities.

Pixel Battle

2009-04-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

The G10 throws down with the iPhone. Fair? I never fight fair!

Photos taken simultaneously March 31, 2009.

How to Save a Fish From Drowning

2009-04-04T11:18:00.000-05:00

Screen shot, embedding not available

Synopsis:

How To Save a Fish From Drowning is about the death of white rural America told through the voices of three old men fishing on a frozen lake. In a landscape cloaked in snow and hovering in a bright nothingness, they escape their wives, chew the fat about neighbours in their town as they wait…

The Scottish Documentary Institute is my favorite find of the week if not the year. How to Save a Fish From Drowning is a beautiful video equivalent to the FSA photographs of the 30's. Interesting that it takes the Scottish to do this work.

I also recommend Butterfly. I can't watch it without thinking of Tanyth Berkley's Grace.

Other short films are available here.

Grant Ernhart gallery talk

2009-04-01T17:47:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending Grant Ernhart's gallery talk in MIAD's Perspectives Gallery. It is more than a little surreal to attend an event held via Skype but an excellent way to overcome distance and finances.

He was more than generous in sharing his inspiration and process for the Gustine series with the photography students. He was more than generous in sharing his questions and doubts as well. I think this is invaluable for undergraduates, particularly in Milwaukee with our somewhat limited opportunities.

He has posted installation shots on his blog. Unfortunately the Gustine series does not appear to be on his web site but the rest of his portfolio is well worth a visit. Grant is included in Humble Arts Collectors Guide to Emerging Art Photography.

More Collecting Opportunities

2009-03-31T16:00:00.001-05:00

Anchorage, AK 2009 Zoe Strauss

Frog Todd Deutsch

1. Zoe Strauss has posted the 2009 prints available to support the 2009 iteration of her I 95 project.

2. Todd Deutsch seems to be having an early mid-life crisis and is offering c prints at ridiculous prices.

Never let it be said that I hog all the good stuff for myself. It may, however, be said that I post after I have placed my order.

To Helen!

2009-03-30T15:58:00.006-05:00

page 85, Slide Show Helen Levitt

"I wanted to be a photographer because I wanted to be an artist and I couldn't draw."

What a wonderful thing, to live to be 95. To have made a body of work which not only stands the test of time but can be discerned as seminal. Still collected, still taught. Slide Show is a testimony to her spirit, unbroken by circumstantial hardship, as much as her artfulness and skill. She received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation in 1959 and 1960 to make color photographs of the New York streets and neighborhoods she had so thoroughly caressed in black and white starting in the 40's. In 1970 the majority of that work was stolen from her apartment and she had to start again. What a wonderful thing to start again. What a wonderful thing to have left us an image of implied abject sadness consoled by a gentle hand. Inviting us to attend (unlike the men in the distance) to the fragility being played out, with the advertisement with the hand holding the egg serving as scenic backdrop to this moment of human drama. A long life and a long career, what a wonderful thing.

Improvised City: Helen Levitt's New York, an article from the November 19, 2001 issue of The New Yorker by Adam Gopnik is a highly entertaining and enlightening way to offer a toast.

500

2009-03-29T15:45:00.011-05:00

This is my 500th post. As we all tend to do with nice round numbers (why not 498 or 503?) I suppose I should mark the milestone (interesting word choice since a milestone is exactly as it sounds. A stone placed along a roadway at regular intervals to mark the distance traveled from, or to, a location in order to give the traveler reassurance and establish their bearings.)

I saved this piece written by Andrew Sullivan for the Atlantic last November for just such an occasion. Why I Blog is a wonderful examination of the phenomenon and form as well as his experience of it. As he establishes the etymology of the word log, he writes,

"As you read a log, you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages—the opposite of a book. As you piece together a narrative that was never intended as one, it seems—and is—more truthful. Logs, in this sense, were a form of human self-correction. They amended for hindsight, for the ways in which human beings order and tidy and construct the story of their lives as they look back on them. Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending. So they have plot as well as dramatic irony—the reader will know the ending before the writer did."

Cigarettes and Purity has taken on the role of making me mindful. It serves as a series of bookmarks for the information that I take in as well as thoughts, ideas and events which I experience. I fall well outside the statistics of bloggers and certainly outside the niche of fine art/contemporary photography blogs. Almost daily I think that I am finished, that I have nothing of interest to say (there are those, no doubt, who would heartily agree). Perhaps there will be post 501?

Mad matting/framing skills

2009-03-25T15:33:00.008-05:00

In a concession to the fact that the inflow of prints has totally overwhelmed the cash to have them framed I bit the bullet and purchased a mat cutter and necessary accoutrements. Here is a display of my first foray into framing. A vertical, a horizontal, a double window and a weighted bottom. I am quite pleased with myself. 4 down, 60 or so to go. I hate having them just sit in the flat file.

The pieces above by (left to right):
Sonja Thomsen
William Lamsen
Kevin Miyazaki
Susanna Raab

"Those who do not learn from history

2009-03-22T17:30:00.000-05:00

are doomed to repeat it."
George Santayana

This is a picture of the BCBG Max Azria spring line magazine I got in the mail yesterday. Hammer pants? Really? Hammer pants. No wonder magazines (and thus commercial photographers) are struggling. They are showing 20 year old ideas to a culture where just yesterday is old news.

Moratorium

2009-03-20T13:00:00.001-05:00

Can we please have a moratorium on the bed. The bed as landscape, the bed as environment, the bed as psychological/psycho sexual metaphor, the bed as implied intimacy. It has been done....and done....and done. I feel as though, in the last last few years, I have seen enough sheets, pillows and comforters to fill a Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Extreme Shepherds

2009-03-19T11:12:00.003-05:00

This made me laugh out loud. Brilliant mash-up of skill and technology. One of these days I will be posting on photography again.....

via Wooster Collective

Extraordinary experience

2009-03-17T17:58:00.002-05:00

My flight home Sunday evening was delayed by about 15 minutes to load some additional baggage. As a result of the delay we were able to watch the launch of the Shuttle Discovery from ignition through booster separation with an unobstructed view at 25,000 feet. As a child of the space age I don't mind saying it was one of the most extraordinary sights I have seen. If you click on the top image you can see the launch pad glowing at the bottom of the image as the shuttle rises through the center.

Day 4

2009-03-15T13:01:00.001-05:00

Day 3.5

2009-03-14T11:48:00.001-05:00

Nothing says vacation like a $50 dead animal head!

Day 3

2009-03-14T09:56:00.002-05:00

For Sonja...

Day 2

2009-03-13T10:03:00.001-05:00

Day 1

2009-03-12T08:37:00.002-05:00

I'm headed to the beach

2009-03-11T11:26:00.001-05:00