Licensed to Practice Art: art

Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

ArtStorm

Kristy, Rachel and I are doing a show at ArtStorm, which will open August 16th. Here's the link to the gallery and the show announcement:

http://www.artstormhouston.com/calendar/calendar.php

Here's what they have to say about us.....

The Photography of Rachel Hewlett, Kristy Peet, and David McClain
August 16 - September 13, 2008

This exhibition, curated by original ArtStorm board member Monte Large, represents the quintessential modern photographic perspective. All participating photographers in this group exhibition will present their signature works, which will be arranged for the first time together in the ArtStorm galleries. Rachel Hewlett's work reflects remnants and things we leave behind, subtly and mysteriously investigating elements of mundane life. Through similarly coordinated presentation, Kristy Peet’s work is an eerie and intuitive glimpse into the "character" of objects that seem to have a life of their own, as well as its own compelling and unique brand of composition and portraiture. David McClain’s Hotel series represents a vehicle for the artist to reconcile the demands of professional life with his interest in conceptual photography.

Opening reception on Saturday, August 16, from 7- 10 p.m., featuring live music by Houston-born, Berlin-based DJ Plank, hailed as the latest wunderkind of the European underground club scene, spinning tracks from krautrock and prog rock to Japanese new wave.

www.kristypeet.com
www.davidmcclain.com

This show will be so cool that they scheduled the opening (a) after I've left town; and (b) after my bedtime. I should go to an opening one day where there is actually a dj. Seriously, ArtStorm is a pretty great little alternative space that does seem genuinely excited to show work that doesn't show elsewhere, and since it is actually inside the loop, maybe a ton of folks will show up, especially since there is a Berlin-based DJ. Monte of ArtStorm told us there were about 500 people at the last opening. Impressive.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Prematurely Named Blog

Welcome. This is a first for me, which is à propos, given that I'm about to embark on an adventure. My first day towards a Master of Fine Arts - Studio at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago will be August 28th. At the conclusion of two years time, I will be [drumroll] Licensed to Practice Art!

The trip to this point has been quite eventful, but the transition between now and August 28 will be complicated too. And the course between then and two years hence is almost impossible to imagine. I'll chronicle some of it here.

For background, it helps to know that I grew up in a town in South Texas, moved to Houston to attend Rice University, then went to the University of Houston for a law degree and I practice law. There. That about covers the first 45 years.

Now, a little about why I chose SAIC and what I want to work on next.

I was rejected by every school with any good sense, but still had to choose between the MFA programs at SAIC and the School of Visual Arts in New York. I conducted a poll of pretty much everyone I know who is involved in art and visited both schools. When I visited SVA, despite the overwhelming students, faculty, graduates, and what not, I came away with the impression that it would be too much like attending law school all over again: very smart people in a very competitive program, hoping to make it big and reap the rewards. I'm confident that SVA would make me a better photographer, and maybe even a very good one. But SAIC feels more like Rice, or at least what I recall Rice feeling like. In my mind, it was an intellectual, academic environment and I will never forget Dennis Huston chasing me down across campus one day, demanding an explanation of why I hadn't showed up for his Shakespeare class. Rice was more about teaching how to learn than teaching the thing itself, and that has proved much more valuable. I think SAIC is going to be the same way. I hope SAIC will make me more of an artist than a photographer. Which is important since I've been studing art history and non-photographic arts for the last year or so.

My friend Kristy and I have been collaborating on installations, and they have become completely non-photographic. Our first installation was at a local community college (involving the printing of photographs on rocks and helium filled ballons). It was called Salted Away, and it was all about epistemology, and curatorial practices. We think. Here's an installation shot.

After it was done, the school asked us to create a permanent installation with the rocks and we installed a spiral jetty, after Robert Smithson. There were no photographs in it at all. That piece is called After Smithson (Limestone Jetty). There's a photo of it too.

We've also proposed three other installations and are waiting word on whether they will be accepted. They all have something to do with art history, epistemology and curatorial practices. We think.

I like referencing non-photographic art and I like using photography for the things that require photography. But I want more tools than photography alone, though I can't imagine abandoning photography. SAIC seems like the kind of place I can do installation, performance, painting, video, sculpture, and photography as long as it makes sense. Sounds good to me.

So what do I do next, photographically? I'm thinking about a purely documentary project for grad school. I visited the Rio Grande Valley (where I was raised) last weekend and liked several of the photographs I made. The day before, I had taken Keith Carter's workshop at the Houston Center for Photography (HCP), and he described his decision to approach East Texas as a tourist in an exotic locale, and how thinking about the place as if he had never been there, didn't know anyone, didn't know the customs or language, etc., really made a difference in his work. The perspective allowed him to make photos that were personal, of his time, and were the first successes he had. It reminded me of advice I got from Peter Brown, another gifted teacher, to photograph the Valley.

So I began thinking of working on a personal documentary of the area, particularly the rural area my family lives in. There is much more there than I could ever photograph: the plants, the people, the racial tension, the stark economics, the crooked judges and sherrifs, the citrus groves, the onion fields, the beaches, the loners who went as far south as they could go, the drug dealers' mansions at the end of dirt roads, the remote Polish farmers in little hamlets who only listen to polkas and have 24 hour weddings, the brutally hot weather, the river, the stunning growth, the diseases that don't exist anywhere else in the country -- I don't know of a place quite like it. There are stories that people swear are true, like encountering Chupacabres (goat suckers) and the night the devil danced at Boccacio 2000, a disco in McAllen, before spinning so fast he melted into a pool of blood on the dance floor, leaving only a black cape behind. I have met people who swear they've seen the Chupacabre and others who swear they were at Boccacio 2000 that night. Anyway, there's no shortage of material there.

All I got this trip, though, was a few shots of the family and my sister's house. Here are some of those.