|
2 parallel journals, updated every day | ||
 daily bread |
 the other side |
|
it's fall
and i'm painting pears
and cleaning
and messing around with images
and trying to listen
to my partner in crime
who,
even if he feels:
"Não me entendo e ajo como se entendesse"
so
i was in the farm market this morning
and there was an abundance of cojoined vegetables
some squash,
(which i didn't buy)
and many, many potatoes
this is the first that i saw
and i immediately thought:
venus of willendorf
(and now i find there's a flickr pepper venus as well)
sidebar:
anyone else remember the nixon eggplant?
meanwhile,
back at the ranch
i am not only cleaning up my physical space
i am trying to take care of the virtual as well
archiving, backing up, organizing
so i come across a lot of stuff
i haven't seen in a while
like these 2 images
which i had singled out but never posted
both in bathrooms
the one on the left was from 2006
it was my birthday and i was celebrating with a brunch
because back at the loft
was the first open house to sell it!!!
the one on the right was from a month before:
(not so) fresh off the plane for a christmas in LA
another sidebar:
note the camera change
my trusty powershot s60 died at the end of that trip
by the time i got back to ny
my refurbished s70 was on its way to me
my work right now is to get my studio in shape
paradoxically this process has become more about repacking
than unpacking
it has become about paring down to make space for the new
it has become about letting go of old habits
and old support systems
when it comes to making work,
editing is a big part of the process
When you begin a picture you often make some pretty discoveries. You must be on guard against these. Destroy the thing, do it over several times. In each destroying of a beautiful discovery, the artist does not really suppress it, but rather condenses it, makes it more substantial. What comes out in the end is the result of discarded finds. Otherwise you become your own connoisseur - picasso
in a painting
you have to constantly make choices in order to go go forward
when i get stuck
it's usually because there is a portion of what i am working on that i love
but it doesn't serve the whole
in photography
the choices to be made usually come between images
understanding in which the sum of the parts is greater than the whole
choosing which conveys a sentiment, a concept, a point of view most completely
i had a lot of trouble with that decision today
the image i posted on flickr is different from the one i chose for here
there,
i had the extra concern of how it followed from the one in the series before
that's important to me
i also suppose my indecision had something to do with not being sure
what it was that i wanted to say...
the image above is more about me AND my situation
(it's more in the arnold newman vein)
the one below
seems to be about me IN my situation
there's a subtle difference
top half | bottom half
i tried a bunch of stuff tonite:
i took pictures of my shadow while riding my bike and then some with the bike stopped
i took pictures of my legs
see "bottom half" above
i made some composites
but in the end
the simplist worked best
top:me - 12:50 am
bottom: my mother - 9:40 pm
i am not sure anyone else would see this
but i do
so clearly
when i was growing up
people thought we were sisters
everyone has always thought
that we look alike
but we really don't...
she is fair
with blue eyes
her eyes are much larger and wider set
her mouth is bigger
her lips fuller
her cheekbones higher
our noses are different
but our gestures
our mannerisms
are so much alike
that in person
i guess we really do resemble each other
except in photos,
i have always recognized her
in pictures of me
however,
this wasn't at all what i was going to write about today
originally i was only going to post the top picture
and i was going to say that
i'm posting another picture from after midnight
of the day before
really last night
but actually today
but
not
but
what does it matter
i am wearing the same thing
and doing the same thing
and it's all pretty much the same
it was a nice day
but i didn't even go outside
not even on the deck
not even into my garden
i just flitted from one task to another
and back again
almost
at every moment
about to lose my train of thought
but completely unable
to stay with
any one thing
for too long
from
websites
to
community
to
bills
to
the studio
to
phone calls
to
discarding
to
organizing
i even wrote condolence notes to both my aunt & my cousin
my uncle died months and months ago
throwing out,
involves going through
and in doing so
i came across some loose self portraits
from the first time around with all this
that image in the center
in many ways
defined my life senior year
it appeared in different collages
usually hand colored
the image on the right was very typical of how i shot then
usually not looking through the view finder
often low light
rarely with a tripod
the aesthetic around town was hard core street photography
friedlander, winogrand, papageorge, etc.
emotive, experiential work was not quite accepted
it was a tough year.
so we have 2 things going on here
the first is
that while i like this blown out effect
i think it might be evidence that my camera is about to sh*t the proverbial brick;
of the 10 snaps i shot
6 were about 3 stops overexposed...
i was hoping to make it until photo expo
so i could really research what i wanted
but it's not lookin' good
so if anyone has a small camera recomendation...
(i am currently using a powershot 270)
i would love an slr
but i don't think i am going to find one that meets my size requirement
it doesn't need to be tiny
but
i do take it everywhere
(the last time i went camera shopping
i brought my fav evening handbag to b & h
just to be sure it would fit)
and the second is
the broken clamshells
or
an exercise in discarding
so in my effort to move forward
to get rid of some of my past
i decided to start with the broken "broken clamshells"
and about 90% of them are in this condition
the 2 halves have separated
and so they are no longer useful for me to draw
i kept a few
i felt i "knew" them so well
from drawing them so often,
that i couldn't discard them
this was a project that was once so important to me
and now it feels "gone"
there really aren't enough whole ones for me to create the number of drawings i would need to finish it
and for the past 3 years
the tide has changed at the beach where i used to find them
and there haven't been any
so i have no way of replenishing my stock
who knew those little bits of shell
would become so scarce
i thought there would always be an endless supply
i am finally leaving work
and i'm tired
i left early this morning for a press conference on the steps of city hall
in opposition to moving the only single men's homeless center in nyc from bellevue to the bedford-atlantic armory in crown heights
i had to make a presentation
and since that doesn't come naturally for me
i am kind of drained
this is the ny1 coverage, i am posting from a computer with no sound,
but judging from the text, they got a lot of stuff wrong
and since they shot both yesterday and today's press conferences
i can't imagine why they don't have more interesting footage...
and sometimes you just have to lay down on the ground
i just don't feel as if i am making any headway
i just keep getting stuck
between the past and the present
so i solve that
by jumping to something else
leaving so much unresolved
and everywhere i look
i find something that should have been done 3 days ago
(like my estimated tax payments)
this is one of those pictures
that i take in the morning
before i even get out of bed
just in case
i don't take anything else
for the rest of the day
but i did take more,
i took lots actually
because i was on the computer all day
(and i mean ALL day)
writing more letters, entering more data, doing the community thing
and photo booth was always there
sidebar:
sharing a comment
from obdada
from 9/14
"a coP ouT=4 suRe
buT iT leaVes tiMe foR otheR moRe/oTher cReaTiVe thinGs..
ThiS prOjecT caN jusT bE tHe PRiMinG oF tHe PumP..
((LeT steVe joBs be oF helP wheN yoU caN..))
HoW i LoVe mY MAC...
LeT mE counT thE waYs..... "
which really made me smile
anyway
there is something that i strive for in my work
something that defines whether or not i'll show a painting
or at least tells me when a painting might be done
and that is
the evidence of some element of "truth"
and it's here
in this image
and i am not even sure why
i took pictures today
where i loved the light
or the setting
or even the way i looked
but for some reason
this silly pose
even with its contrived attempt to get rid of the morning blahs
has more "truth" in it
and it frightens me when i identify with this side of myself
and i guess that's part of this project
confronting the fears
not only of aging
but of how i would like to see myself
even if i believe it might not be the truth
except
that it is
it's been a long day
and it's mostly been about community work
usually what i do is behind the scenes
i write a lot of letters
organize and focus our organization
prepare grants
and keep our website updated
but tonite
after all the prep
i ended up basically chairing our meeting
i find stuff like that to be exhausting
somehow i have to get all of this
balanced a little better
THIS is my studio cat
her name is smudge
but
(unlike oski who is kind of a rag doll)
she is very fidgety
so i'm kind of surprised she let me take this
even though i have come to realize that i need a fresh start
i am having a lot of trouble letting go of stuff
i actually do have a bit of that "hoarding" disease
though i like to see it from the perspective of being an "archivist"
(as evidenced by welcome to my own private hell;
which unfortunately doesn't make too much sense now
since i didn't keep it "pro"
therefore 90% of the images are not visible,
but i digress...)
and
i think of myself as a collagist
which makes "never being able to throw anything out" kind of all right
it also turns out
that when you are afflicted with this condition,
if you do manage to discard something
your ego
ever vigilant against change
quickly thinks up a crucial need for whatever it was that you just threw out
like today
i managed to get rid of 4 little tiles,
samples for my bathroom in the loft 25 years ago!!!
then i moved a chest down to the basement
and i needed to level it...
and guess what that required...
yup,
those tiles
so that's kind of how it goes...
but i did get a lot of stuff downstairs into storage
things that never should have been in here in the first place
and i ordered a ream of tissue paper
so i can pack up some of the stuff
that i was so happy to unpack a month ago
because one way or another
i am going to have to start fresh.
it is 9/11
it is 7 years later
it is 9:03
7 years ago i heard the planes hit
the magnitude of everything that was lost on that day
is still overwhelming
at the time i dealt with the shock and the grief by creating theARTproject
a site where people could express their reactions
and communicate with others
using images instead of words
The Artists Registry at the National September 11 Memorial Museum is an ongoing database that collects images in response to the events of 9/11.
oski is not really my studio cat
but he has been spending a great deal of time with me here
today i think he was drawn to the deafening chatter of birds in the garden
i am not quite sure what they had found to eat
but judging from the volume & the duration of the din
it must have been a lot
and it must have been good
one month ago in the same place by enidcrow
today's post brings up an interesting question for me;
through out the years
i have engaged in a lot of projects defined by the concept of "daily practice"
for me
a day
is the time from when i wake up
until the time i go to bed
which means my day
usually ends
at some point
between midnight and 4 AM
but given the parameters of the 365day project
in these days of exif data
i believe a "day"
is defined as the period of time between 2 consecutive midnights
so
while i took a bunch of other self portraits today
at various times
i am going with this one
shot,
(imho)
yesterday
but taken at 1:46 am, today
(while i like playing within boundaries
something tells me my body clock is going to win out on this one
and i am going to be stretching this rule quite a bit in the future)
sidebar:
remember
(rhetorical question)
when i said
"i couldn't recognize myself at all"?
well here's another
and now i know why...
i am lying down
(duh)
and being freed from the pull of gravity
does wonders
for all the shadows, strain and other signs of age
but i am not used to seeing myself that way
(since i don't have a mirror on my ceiling)
it is fairly significant that
this is the first image
after a week of doing this project
of me in my studio
and of me working
part of the impetus for my joining 365days
was a need to shift the focus back on to myself
and by that i mean
back on to my work
because that is where the true sense of myself is
the past 2 years have been about returning to this place
returning to the world i left when i moved
returning to the world inside myself
i walked out of a door
and when it closed behind me
it disappeared
leaving me on the other side
with no clear map
of how to get back
and it's taken me this long
to find my way
i read an interesting article this morning
from yesterday's times
(brave new world of digital intimacy)
it's about the phenomena of “ambient awareness.”
or the pervasive desire for on-line social contact
and how that is fostered by facebook, twitter and yes
flickr
so we all know
from personal experience
what this is about
but it is a very specific kind of connectedness
that i am looking for
one that is based completely on the visual
have always created multiple personalities
within every on-line situation
i have lost count of the fotologs,
the photoblogs,
the photonets,
the lomo homes,
the amigos,
the flickrs,
the fotolas
and the stand alone blogs
both solo and shared
that i have created
each with its own voice
each an attempt to set an aspect of my persona free
part of this schizophrenia
is a need to continually start fresh
and anonymous
i want what i do to stand on its own
not to be buoyed by personal connection
and somehow
even on-line
i find that my sense of responsibility
to the relationships i develop
starts to outweigh my responsibility to the work i am making
and i become
once again
lost and unfocused
i want to be seen
and
i want to be known
for what i make
it's that simple
i can talk to my friends
and my family
my work needs to be able to speak
without me
and to reach people
who do not know me
and
a relationship fed solely
(ok, maybe primarily)
by curiosity about visual expression
and
a desire for growth & exploration of that expression
seems to me,
to be
the highest thing
i have had (and lost) this;
it is difficult to maintain
keeping the shared connection sacred
not allowing the outside world to intrude
but
there is a purity about it
that is true intimacy
and i am grateful that it is still in my life
anyway
the article ended with the following:
(she) argues that her constant status updating has made her “a happier person, a calmer person” because the process of, say, describing a horrid morning at work forces her to look at it objectively. “It drags you out of your own head,” she added. In an age of awareness, perhaps the person you see most clearly is yourself."
so...
this is what happens every morning
one of the first things i do
is to take a snap
with photobooth
so that i have at least one self portrait
for the day
it's not my best moment
and
it will be interesting to see
how many of these end up as the final image
(and
it will be interesting to see
if i start keeping a hair brush
in my bedside table)
actually
i have been thinking quite a bit about this project
and what constitutes a self portrait
and
how self portraits differ from portraits
and
how conceptual am going to get with this
and
how emotive can i keep it
(a polarity that basically defines my life as an artist)
i have a number of projects that i want to explore
like the mini challenges
yes,
i think about all of this
A LOT
this is what has been
my sole exercise for the past 2 years;
riding,
twice a week
between crown heights & chelsea
(roughly 1.5 hours round trip)
while my yoga practice,
along with so many other things,
has virtually disappeared
as a result of moving & renovating
i wasn't going to stop to take this picture...
it took me about a block of going:
"i should",
"i' don't need to",
"but I should",
"but i'm not"
to double back
and take this picture
but,
even though
i thought i had already taken my self portrait for today,
i listened
listened to that little voice that said
"you must do this"
because after all
the whole impetus of this project
was to pay attention
to that voice
so that it becomes as strong,
and stronger
than it ever was
because it is this voice
that guides the creative process
and it is this voice
that shrinks to a tiny whisper
and then dies away
when it is not listened to
