Friday, May 2, 2008
PhotoNews is here!
first figurative painting
This is the first time I actually tried painting something that wasn't just abstract. It's supposed to be a horizon from an airplane. 
what happened to Salted Away
After Kristy and I uninstalled Salted Away, we took the pieces we sold (yay, we actually sold some!) and some that we really wanted to keep, and the rest ended up in my front yard as an installation. So far no neighbors have commented on this, but I'm sure many a dog has lifted a leg on the remnants of Salted Away.
copycat art
These aren't the complete paintings. I have found that copying someone else's work is a pretty good way to appreciate what they did. That's probably the main reason to do these, but another is that it is really fun.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
homework
In trying to anticipate what I'll have to do for Barbara's class, I've realized it will be as simple as harvesting the spam I get every day. Here are some selections from today's trash (some sound like haiku fragments to me):
Hey big sausage - easy
Huge love weapon is never too much
Nights full of passion are near
Short way to your true male power
Fondle all her internal nerve endings
Hot nights are guaranteed
Release your inner dragon with the help of bluepill
who doesn't love a ladybug?
Here's my front yard.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
something kind of cool
I found out that the German magazine, Photo News, is about to release its May issue. It will have four of my photographs in it and I can't wait to see how they look. Here's the cover.
Here's the webpage in German with the description of what's in the May issue. http://photonews.de/PHOTONEWS/index.html Google the other photographers. They are awesome.
just another day
I spent some time on the phone today with the admissions office at SAIC. It's registration time. I was all set to go with my classes and had one glitch. The elective I chose, a sculpture seminar with Mary Jane Jacob, the chair of the sculpture department, is allegedly for incoming sculpture grad students. The class is titled Sculpture Seminar: Discourses of Sculpture.
The course description is as follows: Sculpture--perhaps more than any other discipline--offers the widest and most complex view of artmaking. Many of the most essential discourses of what we think of as contemporary art today are rooted in an expanded concept of sculpture. This now includes multiple ways of working: temporary and ephemeral; mixed media and inter- or trans-disciplinary; functional, decorative, symbolic, and critical; and site-specific and community-based. This course is aimed at first semester graduate students in Sculpture but of relevance for all graduates students in any department. Subjects are probed in conversation with visiting artists and other professionals, discussion around readings, and critiques of students' work.
Well, that sounds pretty good to me.
So I told the guy that I wanted to take it, and he said yeah, BUT he had heard this morning that the course was actually for people in the sculpture department and hadn't been blocked to other students. So if I signed up, I would likely get bumped out later. We talked about a bunch of other classes, and I just didn't like the idea of them nearly as much. I asked what would happen if I called the professor and suggested why I ought to get in and he said if I did, and she said yes, that would be the end of it. So I emailed her, talked about my interest in sculpture and installation and she said yes. And so I'm in that class.
The others are:
Grad Photo Seminar: Studio Owens_Clifford. This class is required for incoming Studio students admitted through the photography department. It's how I'm supposed to meet the other photo grad students. Which I am very much looking forward to.
Grad Projects: Interdisciplinary Fandell_Kenneth. Ken is the one guy I've talked to the most at SAIC. He seems most interested in educating artists, rather than photographers, though he teaches in the photography department. He seems to like my non-photographic work, so I'm pretty much looking forward to this projects class.
Grad Projects: Photography DeGenevieve_Barbara. Barbara is the one person everyone I met at the school said is awesome. For 25 years, she's been focusing on sex. Hard to argue with that.
Modern and Post-Modern Art Yood_James. Saw a video of him critiquing work and I'm pretty sure he knows his shit. Looking forward to it. yep.
So that's it. Fifteen hours. Lots of theory, lots of concept. A little photography, a little sculpture. Awesome teachers. I'm a happy guy.
Oh, and here's one more photo of my current man-crush, Keith Carter, from the workshop I took last weekend.
After the class, I emailed him and he had the most (characteristically) upbeat and positive things to say. I'm following his advice, which was as follows: "When you get up to Chicago, just go and take over that MFA program. Make yourself completely indispensable and work harder than anyone else." I know he doesn't mean be competitive, vile or mean spirited and I really like that about him.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Keith Carter Workshop
A week ago yesterday, I attended a one day workshop wth Keith Carter, a kick-ass photographer with a number of truly great books to his credit and a teaching gig at Lamar University in Beaumont. Here he is "working" during the workshop.
I took a bunch of photographs at the Orange Show but nothing worth putting up here. Here's one anyway.
And another.