VISITING ARTIST: Paola Antonelli

This lecture was interesting because most of the audience was an older crowd of men and women. It really made me understand how important this woman must have been. 


Paola Antonelli's lecture was titled The Design Exhibitionist. She came to speak at VCU because of the work she is known for doing at the MOMA in New York. Her lecture was very different because she was showing us elements of design instead of the artists we are usually used to seeing. She has a history in teaching fashion classes but she was trained in architectural design.


She spoke alot about design in today's world. One interesting idea she talked about was called "an organic path" which is basically her way of saying go with the flow, love your work and love what you do. She also emphasized an idea of leaving things open ended to keep the audience wondering about the art and design. She spoke of "lard and honey; " which was her way of expressing the idea of brings odd things together that really shouldnt be together that end up somehow working perfectly together. Lard and Honey was something she said had that effect. 

Contest # 2

These 4 images were submitted to the Photographer's Forum 30th Annual Spring Photography Contest

IDEA POST: 4/8/10 Getting it together!

Here are two images that I have been working on the past few day. I decided it would be best for me to work with what I have before I go shooting even more stuff for this project. I am continuing with the same approach I was before but trying to make the changes and time shifts I am thinking about more apparent.

The one on the top is similar to the one I showed at midterm. It is the same image but I manipulated it in a different way. I choose to try to show a "second" where the sky was still, like a break from the speed of time.
I have a few more images picked out to rework as I did these.

Its definitely crunch time and I have a bit more to shoot this weekend to be prepared for the panel review. I am excited about these two new images I am getting them printed so I can judge how they will look at different sizes, incase the details i choose to use or exaggerate are working at a larger size as well.

NEW ARTIST POST: 4/5/10 Robert and Shana Parkeharrison

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

This couple that makes the art together always wins my vote. Their mixed media creations combine performance art with art that can be hung on the wall. The open ended narratives enacted in each of these images become a new canvas for the viewers imagination to run wild with the story they started for you. These images are romantically tragic. The character in the scenes are attempting impossible feats. The one where he is standing on stills ready to take flight with his man made wings always reminds me of children who are honestly trying to fly like peter pan as they jump off of something just a little too high for safety. He is expressing this same desire as a child would trying to honestly make the impossible happen.

The open narratives within these stories are great as well because I really get to make up my own story to why men are hanging from clouds with giant fish hooks. Its all terribly romantic and i want to look at these images all day  and make up my own fairy tales to go with them. 

IDEA POST: 4/1/10 Revisiting photos

So I have been really lost with my project. I feel pretty defeated and I was thinking I was going to shoot the whole project over again in the next week and a half to have something ready for print. But then i snapped myself out of that mind frame.

No my project is not working the way I want it to. and No I am not sure how to fix it at this point.

But despite all this uncertainty I have a plan. I find it completely ridiculous to discard all of the images I have already taken this semester. So i have been going back through my weekly production and my notes and finding the pictures that appeal to me the most. I am evaluating each one as a raw file, thinking about what my intentions where when I shot the images, and what I can do to turn the image into something new that can speak.

Time is such a complex thing when you get down to the details that I am now focusing on one phrase to move this work along. "In the blink of an eye." I like these words because they are commonly used in all different kinds of language; in books, movies, news television, etc. It is simple and to the point and I want to see if I can revolve my images around this phrase.

Hopefully I can pull this together with approval, shoot a few more images this weekend and have everything ready for printing and get this show on the road!

Here are some of the images I am revisiting:

These are my two images I entered into the anderson juried show

NEW ARTIST POST: 3/29/10 HELEN JONES

Helen Jones is a local Photographer in Norfolk, Virginia with a studio space at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens. I chose to write about her pictures because my fiance always teases me because I take a lot of pictures of trees. For whatever reason i am always drawn to their beauty and complexity. 


Her series is called Norfolk's Urban Forest, she describes the function of trees, what they do and how the benefit us. This is not her reasoning for photographing them. She is inspired by the power that trees possess. "It is, instead, the iconic power trees have always possessed that excites me. When I travel to distant lands, I'm always drawn to photograph this power trees create in a landscape. They comfort or inspire. They conjure up fear or suggest the complexity of age. They also symbolize a land, its people and their stewardship of the specific piece of earth they occupy."


I really appreciated the way she speaks and I feel like she says how I feel about the trees that I photograph. They have some kind of power that draws me to wonder how long it has stood and what worlds it would have seen if it could. 


The photograph on the left is my favorite because the trees are engulfed by this vine that seems to be protecting it.

IDEA POST: 3/25/2010 Changes and Time

Since my last meeting and critique I have been trying to discover what I am going to do with this project. My focus is on time and change and it is interesting to talk about these topics but they can go on forever on different tangents.

Paul and I discussed how time goes by in different ways:
1. Most popular thought is that time is linear. This is how we all generally think of time.
2. TIme is also circular. Like how flowers bloom, die and then bloom again. Or like how ice can melt and then freeze again.

I want to bring the focus of the changes down to the idea of time.. time passing by and how time passes and things change. When a person sees the change that had occurred they wonder about the time that went by and what they missed. I think of this being similar to how sometimes when I sleep in late I wake up and realize that the sun is already high in the sky. I realize I missed half the day and wonder where the time went. For me this is all about the realization of time being wasted or missed. It is not a sad thing.. it is just a higher awareness of time.

VISITING LECTURE: 3/25/10 Hamza Walker

Hamza Walker
Hamza Walker visited VCU as the Juror for the Anderson Gallery Student Exhibition. Walker is the Director of Education and Associate Curator for the Renaissance Society at the University of Columbia. The Renaissance Society is a non collected museum that is devoted to showing contemporary artists and their work in their amazing 3500 square foot gallery.

The Renaissance Society was opened in 1915 and showed artists like Pablo Picasso, Diet Mondrian and Cindy Sherman. Recently the gallery has shown artists such as Kara Walker and Felix Gonzalez - Torres.
Walker is "known beyond Chicago't art scene not only for his innovative curatorial work but also for his wide-ranging thinking and writing about contemporary art." - From theUniversity of Chicago magazine online.

The 3500 square foot gallery at the Renaissance Society is a wide open space that Walker transforms for every show he orchestrates in the space. He showed us examples of shows and how the space transforms. Walls move and it looks completely new with each new show. It was interesting to hear him talk about some of the shows he has put together. Such as a show about black art, everyone told him not to do it, but he did it anyways.

As the juror for the Anderson gallery student exhibition this lecture was also for the purpose of explaining his decisions about his choices for the show. Walker was interesting to listen to because he is very lighthearted. He described some of his decisions as " I just had to.." with a hearty laugh. It seems he choose some pieces because they were out there and bizarre. He also chose pieces based on their relation to other images by other artists. It was interesting to see how he saw things.. he described how one piece would comment the other and he just had to put them together. The photograph above is Cassie Mulheron's work about identifying as a race. He was intrigued by the painting of the face and how it related to similar images in the show that was of tribal face painting.

That is how he choose the show, by pairing similar things together. Congratulations to all the Photo Seniors whose work got accepted!

VISITING ARTIST 3/11/10 Sanford Biggers

Sanford Biggers is a LA native living in NYC. His work is a combination of scultpure, performance and other various medias. Most of his works involve alot of preparation and are heavily involved in the processes of making them. Biggers has attended many residencies and had living in many major cities in America as well as Japan.

One of the first pieces that he showed us was a linoleum floor that he laid with a design. This floor was meant to be used for break dancing and biggers was interested in showing the space created and the way a space is treated. The square he designed from break dancing became a kind of a scared space to those dancers that same way that temple and churches are sacred to other people. This floor is show in galleries with all the wear and tear of it being danced on, and occasionally it was danced on with in the gallery spaces.

One of my other favorite things that he showed us was a video. It was two screens side by side showing "Middle Class America. " This was a collaboration he did with a white artist and they took home videos from when they were young and took similar scenes and put them together as a movie. It really just shows that even though they are different colors their families were no different from one another.

Pictured above is a glass piece called Lotus. The flower petals are actually diagrams of slave shifts formed into a photograph. It speaks to peaceful religions as it is the shape of a gong and how it is a circle. It is an intense image that is a strong reminder of what happened in the past.

Sanford Biggers work is so vast it is had to describe him in just a few words. His work covers ideas of race, social standings of the past and black culture.

NEW ARTIST POST: 3/22/10 Sue Williams

The age of Aquarius, 2009, oil and acrylic on canvas 42 x 52 inches.

newamericancentury.org, 2005, oil on acrylic on canvas, 72 x 84 inches.

Sue Williams

www.davidwirner.com/resourses/40608/sw_PR_final.pdf

I have read many different articles trying to wrap my head around what these pieces by Sue Williams are about. "The long history of bloody interventions and brutal colonialism perprtrated globally by the most powerful nation," this quote was in a passage that was trying to explain what these pieces mean. Really, it goes straight over my head. 

I was attracted to this work because it has a very Dr. Suess like look to it. It is bright, shapely and bubbly, it has loose outlines of a darker color, and colors paired together to make the designs pop. It is interesting that from afar these pieces are attractive curvy designs. When approaching the piece you see that these designs are like intestines. The look like bodily bits and pieces and wrap and link together to form this long thriving twisting things in the painting.

The combination of the cartoon and childish nature with the grotesique figures that seem to move around the canvas create a strange balance that I am not sure what it means. I would guess that in simple meaning it really talks about this combination and contrast that I described.

NEW ARTIST POST: 3/8/10 Inka Essenhigh

Green Goddess 11, 2009, oil on canvas

Moon and Tide, 2009, oil on canvas

Yellow Fall, 2007 Oil on Canvas

The snow at night, 2008, oil on canvas 68 x 74 inches. 

Inka Essenhigh

Inka Essenhigh was born in Belfonte, Pennslyvania in 1969. She attended Columbus College of Art and design and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She now currently lives and works in New York City. 

ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/20/guide-to-painting-inka-essenhigh "Artist Inka Essenhigh on how she paints" This article by Essenhigh describes her love for painted that started when she was a child. She grew up also being involved with ceramics. She paints primarily with oil paints although for a while she painted with enamel to have a break from the traditional source of oil paints. The fluidity of her images is her style.

Essenhigh creates these imaginary characters in surreal settings. Her colors are beautiful and there are many little details in the work. everytime I look at her works I see something new.

IDEA POST: 3/11/10 Irreversible Processes

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5164
"What is time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate theory"

In this article Sean Carroll discusses ideas of time. He is interested in what he calls the "arrow of time." The arrow of time is his description of the way that we in our culture relate to time. We see time as a past, present and future. We can remember the past and know the present but we cannot "remember" the future.

"Time doesn't exist, it is a human concept, our own way of measuring change. There are irreversible processes, there are things that happened like you can turn an egg into an omelet but you cannot change an omelet into an egg." The idea of irreversible processes is the thing I found most interesting out of this article. Time is a strange thing because we can easily say that time does not exist, but when one accepts it as reality how does one explain their own world. Our lives revolve around time, clocks, deadlines etc. I am not sure how to explain my own existence without the reality of time.

Irreversible processes seem to me to be some kind of a clue to what time is. The example of the egg being able to turn into an omelet but not back to the same thing it started from. I guess that starts to talk about the elements that make up the object but at the same time it shows that we cannot reverse a situation.

This idea really gets me thinking about the changes that occur that people seem to not notice. Time can pass by and I miss things all the time. I water my plants but i forget sometimes and come back to find a little one dead and dried up. I completed missed that it was dying, it may be insignificant but it shows my unawareness and distraction.

IDEA POST: 3/4/10 what is a waste of time?

While searching for ideas and quotes to influence and inform my ideas of time I have been finding there is alot of discussion that time isn't real. I happened upon Griffin Davis's Facebook status that said, "What exactly is a waste of time, when time is only a concept?"

Time is like God, we are raised talking about both of them and the truth in their existence, as a child there is no question about the existence. They are real, but as we get older people start to question their beliefs. Some people decide they don't believe in God and somehow I don't know what I believe. It seems like I can't say its not real because I want god to be real but I dont know how to explain that he could be.

Time is different than that because I never considered  its existence until now.  I don't know how it cannot be real but it really is just a theory of the changes that occur in the work. This concept places us all on a timeline along with our actions and plans all on a timeline. I am not sure how to explain or imagine the world without the concept of time tying what had happened to what will happen.

William Penn said, " Time is what we want most, but what we use the worst." I thought this quote was brilliant until I thought about the existence of time. It is strange that we can desire something that is just a concept.

The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight. Maybe it can start tomorrow, from stealing all my time. This is a lyric from Lifehouse's song Broken. I thought the first line was brilliant and insightful and then I learned it was from a song, which just makes me feel silly that I thought it was so deep. But i guess music can be in some cases an art form and a true form of expression when it is not confused with the pop/rap cultures and lady gaga craziness.

These random different quotes have all started me thinking about what is time and what do I care about time. What do I want to validate in my images? Am I trying to prove something? Im not sure yet...

NEW ARTIST POST: 3/1/2010 Scott Mcfarland

Scott McFarland

Born in 1975 in Canada

Earned a BFA at University of British Columbia

Represented by Monte Clark Gallery, Regan Projects and Union Gallery.

Portion of a interview available on http://neditpasmoncoeur.blogspot.com/2009/04/q-scott-mcfarland-digital-gardens.html

The interviewer in this segment (link above) asks Scott Mcfarland if the way he produces his images is similar to the way that a gardener prunes his garden. Mcfarland believes that his process is similar because of the process both the photographer and the gardener is one where this are chosen to be put together because they fit and belong seamlessly in the setting. He works with shooting the images multiple times during the day and season to create these surreal images that show each plant completely in bloom. He is not afraid of post production editing and I really love this.

The image with the cactus is my favorite. There are little clues that let you know this image is fabricated, like the shadows on the ground around the cactus. 

This is an artist that Paul introduced me to because he thought he process is similar to the though process i have been having with my work. I plan to approach my shotting in a similar way and take control of time in the photographs to show how quickly time passes and to illustrate the absurdity of trying to control it.

IDEA POST: 2/25/2010 Thinking about my work

I just had my meeting with Paul yesterday and it is hard for me to think of other things but my project and how I am going to go about shooting. I have been thinking about the artists Paul told me about and how they manipulated landscapes in the way that they did. One photographed one location multiple time to capture all the blooms of a garden and put them all together in one landscape photograph that showed all the flowers in bloom at once. The other artist would photograph one location for several hours and composite chosen people and objects into one photograph. Both artist created these artificial landscapes.

I guess time is something that people will never be able to see, we know it is passing and we see things change but we never actually see time. I guess time is a lot like wind. We see clouds move and trees sway with each gust but we will never actually be able to see the wind.

This image is one of Scott mcfarland's where he took many photographs of one garden and showed everything at once all in full bloom/ growth.

For my project i am envisioning shooting an image of a tree, idealistically shoot in a perfect composition, with just a small subtle change, one portion or side of the tree will show a transformation from bare branches to buds starting to form leaves.
I also image shooting the ocean, and capturing many boats going by and showing many boats on the horizon at once.

I like how the artist I described above created imagery that was slightly off that makes the viewer wonder what is going on. That is how I want to effect my audience. Through the subtle clues i them to realize that I am showing time passing.

NEW ARTIST POST: 2/22/2010 Mile Coolidge

These photographs are from a series called "Street Furniture" by Miles Coolidge from 2008. I was immediately intrigued by these images because of the perfect/imperfect compositions they have. I mean a perfect composition because the subject (the furniture) are lines up perfectly in the photograph, but they are imperfect because they make your head turn when you look at them. Typically everything we look at you find your balance off of the horizon line, in these image the horizon line is screwed and the viewer tries to see it the correct way (usually by turning the head to make the horizon straight).

The questionable positioning of the elements in the photograph raise questions. I question why they are off balance and why the furniture is in the locations they are. Soon I realize these pieces of furniture are someones trash. Like seeing photographs of abandoned houses, these abandoned pieces of furniture make me wonder why they are being discarded and i wonder what memories are attached to these items.

IDEA POST: 2/17/2010 Death

It is really funny how things come around and influence the things we are working on. I am taking a Religions class called Death: Myth and Reality. In it we are studying what death is, and what death means in different cultures and religions. In the last class session the whole class was crying by the end.... I mean everyone. We were discussing euthanasia and the pros and cons for this controversial medical procedure. We were discussing situations where the patient is terminally ill and does not want to wait for it to get worse. We watched a documentary about this old couple, the husband was sick and losing muscle function quickly. He chose to be medically killed. I don't want to use the word "kill" but there really is not other word, but this is the act of being put to sleep and then given  medicine that stops the muscles from performing. Before the man was put to sleep, he told his wife, "Don't worry you'll know where to find me, I'll be at the Milky way and Little Dipper." Oh my gosh, I cried so hard.

But anyways One of the big points of this lecture and the class so far is about the meaning of life and the reality that cannot truly know the meaning of life until we know the meaning of death.We know what happens to the body when we die, but what happens to the consciousness??? Death is absolutely a huge part of our lives, we fear death, we fear the unknown.

Death is unpredictable. It can happen any time to any one. Our fragile bodies carry our consciousness, does our consciousness die with the body in death? I was occasionally taken to church as a child and Im not even sure what the Judio/Christian traditions say about where the consciousness goes. I know that every once in a while a hardcore religious person will approach me and ask if I am going to Heaven or Hell. How do we know what exists?? I think all these thoughts that are unconfirmed and we will probably never know the anwsers are the reasons that death is feared. I hope I learn not to fear death.

A book for the religions class is call "How we die" by Sherwin Nuland. She writes this book to tell us how we are most likely going to die and in doing so, suggests how we can live a fuller, more meaningful life. "'Oh Lord, give each of us his own death." This book is about the doors, and the passageways that lead to them; I have to tried to write it in such way that insofar as circumstances allow, choices may be made that will give each of us his or her know death." ( pg xvii How we Die)

For my project I want to really be able to speak about the value of life, not from a religious standpoint, but from a realistic awareness of the short time that humans live for.

VISITING ARTIST 2/16/2010: HANK WILLIS THOMAS

You cannot deny the power of an artist that is truly truthful, honest and inspirational.The Hank Willis Thomas lecture was just that. Thomas was so truthful in the way that he spoke and just utterly honest it as hard not to be entranced by his work and by his words.Thomas started off the lecture with a quote from Carl Hancock-Rus that expressed that there is not such this as "black" and "white." "Have you seen a white person before?," Thomas asked us, " you haven't."

Thomas's mother is a Photographer and an Art historian. He was really influenced by his mother but did not decide he wanted to be an artist until he was grown up. They did a beautiful collaboration piece together called, "Sometimes I see myself in you" where they combined their portraits together.

Sometime i see myself in you, 2008 Digital C Print 50" x 21"

Thomas's work as so much to do with branding. Branding with the interest that simple advertisement and imagery can build a billion dollar business. Thomas appropriates branding techniques to convey subjects of race, class and history in a easy to read and convey form. Here are a few examples where Thomas uses common advertisements to make a statement about the relationships or today to the times of slavery. Specifically the practice of branding of slaves, and the way that we are all branded by name brands today.
           
Branded Head, 2003, Light jet print, varible                      Scarred  Chest, 2004, Lightjet Print, varible

Hank Willis Thomas's work ranges from pieces like the ones above to ones where he deals with advertisements from years past, he deals with the beauty of black women and how the trends change. He works with concepts risen from the murder of his close cousin. The best thing about this artist is the way he speaks and how he is not looking for justification for things that happened in the past, but he makes connections between the past and things today. If anything I think this man is a bridge to understand the difference, or more the like lack of difference there is between people of different colors or backgrounds. We are all people.
At the end of his lecture I think we were all amazed by the video called "Along the way." It is a portrait of America. Watch a piece of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-1AZi7AUzE

VISITING ARTIST: 2/15/2010 Paul Pfeiffer

Morning After the Apocalypse, video installation, Paul Pfeiffer, 2003

Today's lecture was with Paul Pfieffer. His work deals a lot with photography and appropriated imagery and video. As he was speaking about his work, I often found myself very confused by his intent or the reasonings to why he create some of his odd pieces. 


One series called "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" is a series of more than four images of basketball players. Pfeiffer appropriates that images, and erases the contextual information for the photography, moving the figure to different areas of the court. The images of these players are interesting because they are of high tension moments for the players. I was confused by Pfeiffer when he said that the name of the series really had nothing in relation for the work. But later I read in an interview on Art:21 that he used the name from a historical reference of the history of evolution. He said that he was interested in the combination of the history of evolution with the dramatic ending or scene being displayed in the photograph.
It make me wonder why he didn't give that explanation during this lecture.


Pfeiffer really showed a great variety of work that spread over a good period of time. He works a lot with the ideas of erasing identity from images. I really admired his project in the World Trade Centers where they filmed eggs hatching and the chickens growing up in real time and played it back in real time on the televisions in the World Trade Center. When he was speaking about the video I pictured in my head something beautiful and graceful but when he showed a clip from it you see that it is a little rough and intense because it is very close up and ground level with the chickens. I think he was trying to remind people of the cycle of life but I would be interested to learn peoples reactions to the imagery.


Another work that I admired was the "Morning After the Deluge." In this work he took two real time videos of the sun rising and falling and turned one upside down and butted the horizon lines together. The end product was a beautiful film show the sun set and rise at the same time. The sun stays in the same spot on the frame and the horizon line moves up and down the page.


These two piece I have described really remind and influence the work I am working on now. Because I am focusing on appreciating everyday and realizing the time going by, these two works reflect the idea of the cycle of earth never ceasing.

NEW ARTIST POST: 2/14/2010 Kenneth Josephson

Polapan, 1973, from Ken Josephson portfolio, 1973/1975

Chicago, 1964



Stockholm, 1967
 
Anissa, Chicago, 1969

New York State, 1970, from Ken Josephson portfolio, 1973/1975

Kenneth Josephson
Represented by: Stephen Daiter Gallery http://www.stephendaitergallery.com/
Website: none

When looking through the list of photographers on the Museum of Contemorary Photography website this artist was the first that i clicked on today and I was amazed from the start. This photographer was born in 1931 in Detroit, Michigan. He started used the family camera at age 12 and purchased his own 4x5 two years later. Josephson's work is straightforward and in your face and that is what i love about them. It is not hard to figure out what is going on in the images but it keeps the audience asking "why?" and therefore retains their attention.

I love the style behind the three photographs where another photograph is used in the composition. It sees to tell a story of a past or a future of the location. It also seems to tell a secret or a story, so something that once way. They are just really visually appealing to me. The photograph of the little girl is almost alittle confusing when looking at it because it is hard to figure out which way the image was taken, but that is something that keep the viewers eyes lingering on it and asking questions.

The other two of the car and the sewer cap, i love just because he found this kind of evidence in the environment. i connect with these because they touch with the way I think when i go out to shoot. I like to wander and shoot the unexpected and the unseen beauty.

I really enjoy the direct connection with the viewer that is created with the composition. I hope my images can relate to the viewer in a similar way.

IDEA POST: 2/11/2010 "Carpe Diem"

"Carpe Diem"

Everyone knows the phrase that means, "Seize the Day". It is actually from a longer sentence Carpe Diem quam minimum credula postero. The whole sentence means "Seize the Day, trusting as little as possible in the future."

With the project I am working on this semester I am thinking about this idea of seizing the day and not wasting or taking for granted the time that is given to us. Also during this semester I am taking a class called Death: Myth and Reality. Basically in this class we are learning about death and how different cultures deal with things in different ways. I have learned and realized that we (human) fear death mostly above other emotions. Death is mysterious and undefinable and there is no way to know what happens to a person when they die. 

I remember watching scary shows when I was a kid, and there is one scary show that I watched that has always stuck in my head and it was about a person dieing but they were still conscious of what was going one even though the were pronounced dead. In my Religions class we are learning about the Buddhist religion and their beliefs about death. In the buddist religion they believe that a person is cycled as they die, and there is a period of waiting time that is kind like Limbo. Its all quite confusing but the point is that they believe that the cycle is bad and to be released for the cycle one must reach enlightenment through karma. We watched a movie about Buddist monks who read books the dying men to help them transcend through the cycle and they continue reading even after the person is dead because they believe that the "soul" stays in the body for a period after death. I thought is was interesting how they believed the dead man could still hear him and that I always remembered a similar story from my childhood. 

Anyways I ranted about all this because I have been thinking about the meaning of carpe diem in relation to the mystery of death. We fear death, therefore we appreciate every day more, but what would we think of life when we actually knew the facts about death. We know what happens to the body, yes, but we do not know what happens to the consciousness. 

ttp://www.myartspace.com/viewer/picture/?pictureid=mkhtrumnra1lbwz1

this link goes to a Myartspace page of an artist from Northern VA. The website would not let me copy it. It is a painting and the image reminds me of a certain kind of limbo, all the people look like souls waiting for their next placement in the world or their enlightenment.

This topic makes me question the importance of everyday, and it makes me question if it is really important or if your life on earth is just another kind of limbo waiting for the next path. 

NEW ARTIST POST: 2/7/2010 Mark Ruwedel

Northern Pacific #15, 2006, Photograph

Central Pacific # 18, 1994, photograph

Union Pacific #34, 1995, photograph

DeathValley: Ancient Footpath Along the Shore of a Departed Lake, 1995, Photograph

Marc Ruwedel

website: unknown

Interview:http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/along_the_western_rails/

Gallery Representation: Museum of Contemporary Photography

"The details. The weather. Getting off the Interstates, far from fast food stops. Discovery, disappointment, getting lost, the occasional bear or coyote. Being alone. A sense of the histories inscribed on the surface of the land."

- The interviewer asked Ruwedel what we are all missing out on that he is taking in the photographs. The quote above was his response. 

Mark Ruwedel was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1953. 

"Combining photographs of ancient trails and remnants of 12,000-year-old ceremonial sites with modern tire tracks and roads, Ruwedel questions how different these intrusions really are. " This is a description of his work on the MOCP website. He compares how the environment changes and how things we have created, like train tracks and systems are falling away just the same. I appreciate these photographs because of exploration that seems to happen during the creation of them. 

I hope to echo this exploration in the photographs I create this semester. I want my photographs to seem to be something  people would walk by everyday but not notice. i want to bring the passage of time visually on top of my images. 

IDEA POST: 2/4/2010 "time"

Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'
`If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you wouldn't talk about wasting IT. It's HIM.'
`I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.
`Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'
`Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.'
`Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. `He won't stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!'
- Lewis Carroll's Alice in wonderland and through the looking glass.

http://www.shurupov.ru/time/
For this post I really wanted to research some different things about time. In the link that is above it is a scenario laid out for the reader. It tells the reader to imagine they had a bank account where $86,400 are put in the account everyday, but at the end of the day any money not used does not carry over, it disappears. Then we realize this really isn't about a bank or money, it is about each day and the 86,400 seconds we get each day.

 I enjoy both of these clips because they are simple reminders of the time we are given. This is how I want my art to function. Both of these propose a serious question and give a light answer but it leaves the viewer thinking about it.

NEW ARTIST POST: 2/1/2010 Beate Gutschow

Beate Gutschow

website: unknown

interview with Creative Face magazine: link to interview

gallery representation unknown.

About Beate Gutschow: She was born in Mainz, Germany in 1970. Gutschow went to the School of Fine Arts in Oslo, Germany, as well as, the School of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany. She is widely know and has show her work across Europe and the United States. She took part in an Artist Residency at ArtSway and has shown her work at the Contemporary Museum of Photography in Chicago.

About Beate Gutschow's work: Gutschow's works is really about challenging the ideas of truth and fiction. In this series, LS Gutschow has constructed images of landscapes. In the images of "natural landscapes" she has collaged images to create the perfect landscape based of the rules of painting landscape from the 17th and 18th century masters. The construction and composition of these images give us clues to the "created" reality that Gutschow is presenting to us. The nature landscapes are cast after painting from the 17th and 18th century while the building landscapes are fabricated and have no clues to an actual location. Also the building landscapes were shot with black and white film and the grain becomes an evidence to the changes in the imagery. Gutschow expresses that she wants the viewer to question it, to ask questions about what it is, what it can mean or be.  

 “Landscape (nature) never looked like this. In my work ideal means not to exclude the

ugliness, it means to construct reality.”- I like this quote from Gutschow because she speaks of creating Reality... instead of creating fiction or a false view.

"What's important to me is the relationship between reality and fiction. I'm also interested in the expectation we have of photography: that, no matter what else, photographs represent a slice of reality. At first glance my photos seem to do this too, but then you quickly sense that something's not right. What you see in these images can't be attributed to any particular place, and eventually you realise that this is not a homogeneous representation of reality. " - From interview link above.

I find that I really appreciate this work because it does make me question it. I wonder where this could exist and what the people are doing within the photographs. i found myself comparing the black and white building landscapes and the nature landscapes to each other. And I really like this artist because she is creating something that never existed in our world but she still calls is reality. It reminds me of my own work because I am trying to piece together scenes to show the movement of time. Even though she is trying to create questions of authenticity in her work, I am trying to create questions of time and where it all goes if you waste it.