Friday, August 29, 2008
Adventure Time
This quirky, offbeat, and totally charming cartoon short has just been picked up as a series by the Cartoon Network. I can't wait. I was laughing out loud watching this. It's bizarre, in a good way.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Watch This Space
I'll post some of my own art here soon. Meantime, check out this great PSA about art education:
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Photo Essays
Still not much happening, art-wise. The remodeling project in my house keeps dragging on and on, so I am without my basement space for making prints right now. I start teaching classes on Aug. 25 after having the summer off, and it's looking like the remodeling won't be finished before I resume teaching. I was hoping for a small break between the time the project is finished and school starts, to regroup and start working on my new darkroom (which is part of the remodeling job). That's not going to happen, so I'll have a few weeks of teaching while simultaneously putting the darkroom together. Should be nice and exhausting!
I have been doing some shooting, and have some ideas for things I want to start working on. I also have a few negatives for more bookmarks ready to print, which I probably won't be able to do for a few weeks.
I've also uploaded quite a few photos to JPG magazine, including a couple of photo essays. These are basically groups of thematically linked photos with a bit of writing. The first one I titled The Institute. It's several photos I took of the models for a new wing the Art Institute of Chicago is constructing. I've made cyanotypes of several of the photos I shot of these models, some of which I posted to this blog over a year ago.
The most recent photo essay I posted to JPG is titled Night at the Fair. It's a selection of photos I took at a small carnival back in 1996 using color saturated film.
Posting to JPG magazine and making bookmarks haven't really replaced making art, but it has kept me busy through a summer in which my studio work has taken a back seat. I know from past experience that as soon as I return to teaching, having a structured work week will likely push me back into the studio.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Yay! More Bookmarks!
OK, I really wasn't planning on posting any more bookmarks on this blog, but I really don't have anything else to show right now. Work has been going really slowly this summer. Several attempts at gum bichromate prints haven't turned out well (I have a couple that need one more layer, but I've been avoiding finishing them, because I know I won't like them when I do).
Meanwhile, my basement work space has been torn up due to a remodel/construction project we're having done to the house. Eventually, the construction will be over, and as part of that project involves building a real darkroom in my basement, I'll soon have a nice space to work in that I don't have to share with the washing machine and that I can make light tight. I'll be able to develop film and print B&W photos, not just alternative process photos.
Until then, I'm stuck, as far as printing is concerned. I probably could attempt some alt process prints, but I'd have to move junk and rearrange stuff for an hour in the basement before starting, then put it all back before the construction resumed the following day.
I've actually been doing a decent amount of shooting, especially with my Holga camera. Some of those will likely turn up on my Photo A Day blog pretty soon.
So, it's more bookmarks. These have been on my Etsy page for a while, but are making their first appearance here.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Animation News
I'm a huge animation fan. Some of my all-time favorite movies and tv shows are animated, and there's always a couple of cartoons on my Tivo's to do list. This weekend saw a couple of animation related events that I'm excited about.
First, here's the trailer for Ponyo On The Cliff, the latest film by Hayao Miyazaki, which opened this weekend in Japan.
I'm a huge fan of Miyazaki's work, his Studio Ghibli is arguably making the best animation in the world right now (OK, maybe it's tied with Pixar). If you haven't seen any of Miyazaki's work, drop everything, run to your nearest video store, and rent a copy of Spirited Away. Ponyo On The Cliff looks like another great film. I haven't heard when it will be released in the USA, but I'm hoping it won't be too long.
As long as I'm on the subject of animation, the final episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender aired this weekend on the cable channel Nickelodeon. I was out of town, and didn't catch them, but I have them on my Tivo and will finish them soon.
I must admit I'm a total Avatar fanboy. I could go on at length (and have, just ask my friends), but let me just say that it's no hyperbole that Avatar: The Last Airbender is the best animated series in at least a decade, and will likely be considered one of the best animated shows of all time. Trust me, it's that good. I wouldn't have named this blog after it otherwise!
If you haven't seen this show, I can't recommend it highly enough. The animation, writing, and art direction are of a quality rarely attempted in a children's cartoon program. Even the music is exceptional (I'm hoping for a soundtrack cd). Start with the first season, and watch the episodes in order. The story builds over the three seasons, and some of the characters go through significant development as the series progresses.
Avatar wasn't cancelled, by the way. It was planned from the beginning as a three season series with a finite number of episodes.
One more thing: If you haven't yet, go see Wall-E. It's excellent.
First, here's the trailer for Ponyo On The Cliff, the latest film by Hayao Miyazaki, which opened this weekend in Japan.
I'm a huge fan of Miyazaki's work, his Studio Ghibli is arguably making the best animation in the world right now (OK, maybe it's tied with Pixar). If you haven't seen any of Miyazaki's work, drop everything, run to your nearest video store, and rent a copy of Spirited Away. Ponyo On The Cliff looks like another great film. I haven't heard when it will be released in the USA, but I'm hoping it won't be too long.
As long as I'm on the subject of animation, the final episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender aired this weekend on the cable channel Nickelodeon. I was out of town, and didn't catch them, but I have them on my Tivo and will finish them soon.
I must admit I'm a total Avatar fanboy. I could go on at length (and have, just ask my friends), but let me just say that it's no hyperbole that Avatar: The Last Airbender is the best animated series in at least a decade, and will likely be considered one of the best animated shows of all time. Trust me, it's that good. I wouldn't have named this blog after it otherwise!
If you haven't seen this show, I can't recommend it highly enough. The animation, writing, and art direction are of a quality rarely attempted in a children's cartoon program. Even the music is exceptional (I'm hoping for a soundtrack cd). Start with the first season, and watch the episodes in order. The story builds over the three seasons, and some of the characters go through significant development as the series progresses.
Avatar wasn't cancelled, by the way. It was planned from the beginning as a three season series with a finite number of episodes.
One more thing: If you haven't yet, go see Wall-E. It's excellent.
Friday, July 11, 2008
From The Archives II
I have a couple of gum bichromate prints nearly finished (I’m hoping to print the final layer today). I’m pretty sure they won’t turn out well, which has been the case with all the gum prints I’m attempting this summer. I have a few more images I’m working on, but they are still in the digital stage, and haven’t even been printed as negatives yet.
With work progressing slowly, it seems like a good time for the second installment of From the Archives, wherein I post an old piece of work and write some comments about how it was made and what I was thinking about (you can read the first installment here.
Altarpiece was made in the fall of 1996. It’s the first piece I made while in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art (technically, it’s a revision of that piece. When first made, it was prints only, I didn't have the bowling ball and pins yet). While it looks like a first graduate school piece (it’s a little overambitious, and could have been thought through a little better), I still really like the piece. It’s one of the few times I’ve ventured into installation-type work, which I appreciate, but don’t feel very compelled to produce. It’s also funny, and the humor in the piece seems natural and isn’t forced.
Here’s a short statement I wrote after completing the piece:
Altarpiece unites the iconography of two very different American cultural institutions, religion and sports. Bowling is the quintessential American sport, being a pastime for the masses and recreation for the non-fit and non-elite. The imposition of bowling imagery onto the basic triptych form of an altarpiece comments on the fervor and passion felt for sports in general and also on the elevation of sports in our culture to an almost religious station.
Altarpiece is a mixed-media work, combining hand-colored black and white photographs with gold leaf, a wooden pedestal, bowling ball, and bowling pins. The negatives used to print the photographs were created digitally from various appropriated and original source images.
The digital negatives made for Altarpiece aren’t like the ones I make now for alternative process photography. Back in 1996, inkjet printers did not lay down enough ink to make a useable negative. For this project, I had to take my digital files to a commercial printer and have 4X5 transparencies made (at about $15 each). I used those transparencies to print real photographs. The images came from a book on bowling instruction, and a history of altarpieces checked out of Cranbrook’s library. The photo of the bowling trophy I took myself (see below).
I’ll finish with a couple anecdotal stories about gathering the bowling paraphernalia.
I needed a bowling trophy to photograph for the center panel, and couldn't find one anywhere. At the time, my sister was living across the street from a thrift store in Chicago, and went there to look for one. She misunderstood what I needed, and ended up buying about 15 bowling trophies that happened to be in the store. I used them to decorate my studio at school, and all year long, people thought I was a bowling fanatic. I kept the one I used for the center panel (It’s still in my studio, on top of a bookcase), but I don’t know what happened to the rest of them. They’re probably still decorating student studios at Cranbrook.
I also had trouble finding a bowling ball (I didn’t want to spend money on a new one), but a friend at school said she would bring one back when she went home for the holidays. Turns out, home was Fresno, CA, and the purple bowling ball (in a tacky baby-blue case) was her carryon luggage for the flight back to Michigan. I wonder if you could carry a bowling ball onto a plane today with all the ridiculous new ‘security’ measures?
Altarpiece won a juror award at an exhibit titled Myth America at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI in 1997. I also exhibited it at the annual faculty art exhibit at Moraine Valley Community College in 2006 (the show’s theme was showing older work alongside current work), where it received many interesting comments.
With work progressing slowly, it seems like a good time for the second installment of From the Archives, wherein I post an old piece of work and write some comments about how it was made and what I was thinking about (you can read the first installment here.
Altarpiece was made in the fall of 1996. It’s the first piece I made while in graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art (technically, it’s a revision of that piece. When first made, it was prints only, I didn't have the bowling ball and pins yet). While it looks like a first graduate school piece (it’s a little overambitious, and could have been thought through a little better), I still really like the piece. It’s one of the few times I’ve ventured into installation-type work, which I appreciate, but don’t feel very compelled to produce. It’s also funny, and the humor in the piece seems natural and isn’t forced.
Here’s a short statement I wrote after completing the piece:
Altarpiece unites the iconography of two very different American cultural institutions, religion and sports. Bowling is the quintessential American sport, being a pastime for the masses and recreation for the non-fit and non-elite. The imposition of bowling imagery onto the basic triptych form of an altarpiece comments on the fervor and passion felt for sports in general and also on the elevation of sports in our culture to an almost religious station.
Altarpiece is a mixed-media work, combining hand-colored black and white photographs with gold leaf, a wooden pedestal, bowling ball, and bowling pins. The negatives used to print the photographs were created digitally from various appropriated and original source images.
The digital negatives made for Altarpiece aren’t like the ones I make now for alternative process photography. Back in 1996, inkjet printers did not lay down enough ink to make a useable negative. For this project, I had to take my digital files to a commercial printer and have 4X5 transparencies made (at about $15 each). I used those transparencies to print real photographs. The images came from a book on bowling instruction, and a history of altarpieces checked out of Cranbrook’s library. The photo of the bowling trophy I took myself (see below).
I’ll finish with a couple anecdotal stories about gathering the bowling paraphernalia.
I needed a bowling trophy to photograph for the center panel, and couldn't find one anywhere. At the time, my sister was living across the street from a thrift store in Chicago, and went there to look for one. She misunderstood what I needed, and ended up buying about 15 bowling trophies that happened to be in the store. I used them to decorate my studio at school, and all year long, people thought I was a bowling fanatic. I kept the one I used for the center panel (It’s still in my studio, on top of a bookcase), but I don’t know what happened to the rest of them. They’re probably still decorating student studios at Cranbrook.
I also had trouble finding a bowling ball (I didn’t want to spend money on a new one), but a friend at school said she would bring one back when she went home for the holidays. Turns out, home was Fresno, CA, and the purple bowling ball (in a tacky baby-blue case) was her carryon luggage for the flight back to Michigan. I wonder if you could carry a bowling ball onto a plane today with all the ridiculous new ‘security’ measures?
Altarpiece won a juror award at an exhibit titled Myth America at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, MI in 1997. I also exhibited it at the annual faculty art exhibit at Moraine Valley Community College in 2006 (the show’s theme was showing older work alongside current work), where it received many interesting comments.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Road Trip To Milwaukee
If you read the last post, you'll know that I'm busy with home remodeling this summer. Not so busy that I can't take a couple of weekend trips, however, and one of those weekenders is going to be to Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Art Museum has two exhibits this summer that look really interesting. Gilbert & George are a British art (and life) partnership that make immense, brightly colored photo mosaic/collage pieces with provocative content. Some of their work is really great, and it's all worth seeing.
The Sensory Overload exhibit of Kinetic and Op art looks interesting as well. Both exhibits look infinitely more interesting than the Jeff Koons show at the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago.
The Sensory Overload exhibit of Kinetic and Op art looks interesting as well. Both exhibits look infinitely more interesting than the Jeff Koons show at the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Chicago.
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