Experience a Picnic Table

Art should somehow relate to the artist that makes it.  It should tell you something about that person and their experience.  The visual artist creates images for a purpose, there is a reason that they are showing you what is in the image.

Here are three images of picnic tables.  These images are not just about the tables.  There is always more to it.  Location of the table- what is around it?  Think about what you would experience if you were sitting there right now.  Do these tables make you think of other picnic tables you have seen in your travels?  What did you do at those tables? Who was there with you?  When you think of that time do you recall the conversations?  Do you recall the smells? 

Does the place in the image remind you of experiences you have had or places you have been? 

It is not just a table.  It is a doorway to your life.  To the places you have been and the people you know and the people you knew.

Reading List-

Reading-
The Spy- James Fennimore Cooper

Picked up-
The Count of Monte Cristo- Alexander Dumas

"Don't you wish you could send a smell?"

                                                                                                  Traci

Reflection

Does the image inform?

What does it tell you?

Does it reveal more about who you are?

Does it reveal more about who we are?

Do you learn something about yourself by looking at it?

Does it tell you something about who I am?

What do you get from looking at it?

What do you give?

If there is interaction, is it positive or is it negative?

Indifferent?

Signs

4 Photographs

Aesthetic: a particular theory or conception of beauty or art : a particular taste for or approach to what is pleasing to the senses and especially sight. 

Merriam-Webster

 The mind is constantly trying to organize and make sense from visual information.  Analysis of the spatial relationship of visual elements, recognition of identifiable shapes, and path of eye travel when viewing a photograph all lead to a sense of visual structure.

Photography- Bruce Warren

A picture is what it looks like.

Looking at Photographs-John Szarkowski

To Experience Life and Know That it is About the Experience

I have been floating along trying to figure out why I am doing the things I am doing.  Why am I making the kind of work that I have been making?  Obviously it is a struggle for any artist from time to time; your message gets lost... you just kind of drift for a while.  Speaking with a friend the other night I saw a glimmer of sense in what I was doing and I thought about it over the last 24+ hours and I think I might have come up with something a little more concrete.  I might get deep here; I might not but lets see how it goes.

I grew up in a loving, idyllic household in the suburbs of Chicago.  My life growing up was deeply rooted in family tradition.  I had close relationships with my immediate family as well as my extended family.  I was taught from an early age the importance of family and family history.  I was taught to revere my elders and love all people regardless of race, creed, color or station in life.  I was living sort of the Norman Rockwell existence.  Sure there were issues; we were not well off and my parents had to work hard to keep us afloat; my father especially.  My mom was a stay at home mom who gave us all kinds of opportunities to lead a cultured and enriched life.  My grandmother would support her in this endeavor and we all had experiences and opportunities that most of the people I knew did not get.  We were always going to museums, taking family vacations across the country, reading books, learning about where we came from and who we were.  The older I get the more grateful I am for the opportunities to learn and grow I was given as a child.  We had stability, we had a steady progression of thought and growth.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties all of that fell apart.  My grandmother passed away.. as grandmothers often do.  It was a little early for her to go but, not an unexpected occurrence.  After she passed I started to realize who the people in my family really were.  My immediate family has been and always will be a tight knit group; we have been through too much together and seen too much not to be that way.  My extended family began to fall apart.  We moved in with my grandfather and the rest of the family pretty much just went away after that.  It took some time but they just ended up abandoning grandpa.  (If you are reading this and think I owe you an explanation I will be happy to give it)  That was difficult.  At the same time my father became terminally ill and it was only a matter of time before he would be gone as well.  After dad passed grandpa came next.  While it wasn't bad for him to go it was what happened in between that did the most damage.  The life that was expected was no longer possible.  The people who I thought would always be there were either gone or had changed in ways that I never thought possible.  What was once deemed as strong and nearly impregnable was now laying in shambles at our feet.

It was a long hard lesson on how life doesn't and won't go the way you expect it to go.  After talking with my friend the other night I think the light came on and I am seeing the work for how it really is. 

I am searching for something in this world that is concrete.  Something that stands the test of time.  The places that I photograph are much like myself in many ways.  Each place in one way or another relates to different aspects of my life.  Images dealing with new development or places going through a drastic change (i.e.- farmland being developed into new suburbs or industrial parks; tear downs in the suburbs; etc.) relate to drastic upheaval and change in values as well as use.  Photographing farm buildings that are either run down and still in use or completely abandon offer metaphors to a way of life that is almost non existent anymore; maybe even in a state of a waking dream.  Travelling and seeing these places and always wondering how they are similar and or different from my experiences.  Going to the farm and small towns downstate as a young boy and seeing the places where my grandfather grew up.  Going through the fields as a young boy on our way to church every Sunday and then seeing those field turned into houses and shopping centers.  The images of the small town may relate to a need for simpler times, more concrete values and a need to find a way back to life at a slower pace.  In this age of rapid changes in values, technology, ecology, politics, structures and ideas; I think there is something in us that looks for simplicity something that needs to get back to a time when things were a little bit more sure and the values were not questioned so much. 

It is just the tip o the berg here. 

Reading List

Finished-
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens

Reading-
The Spy- James Fennimore Cooper

The aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be.

Oscar Wilde- The Picture of Dorian Gray

Places Everyone!

What is it about a place that makes it interesting?  Why do we go back again and again; whether physically or in our thoughts?  What makes that place stick out in our minds?  These images are of a few places that I have frequently visited in my life time and I keep coming back to.  They hold a place marker in my mind without any good reason.  They are just there. 

Another theme that has been in my thought pattern- Placement.  How is the decision of placement come upon?  On all levels.  It is a concept that, as an artist, is very important.  The structure should serve some purpose whether aesthetic or functional.  The decision was made, but why?  No good answers; only conjecture and suppositions on the part of the viewer.  Is it my place to tell or is it better left unsaid? 

Who can tell?

No artist desires to prove anything.
                                                                  Oscar Wilde

The Human Effect

One of the themes that I am looking at with my work is the concept of the interaction between human made objects and nature.  It is not only the effect that humans have on their natural surroundings but how the natural surroundings effect humans and their creations.  We use natural materials to create structures that are both necessary and convenient.  Mulch to create pathways and keep our gardens free of weeds; steel taken from the ground and refined to make the container that holds kitchen grease (from animal fat) behind a restaurant; sand, gravel and water that make the brick pavers to build the retention wall that keeps erosion from taking away the land that a new home will sit on.  We are truly industrious creatures.  I find the processes fascinating.  I find the places we use the processes and the processed materials fascinating.  The more I see, the more I want to learn; the more I learn, the more I want to know.

Reading List-

Finished-
Hard Times- Charles Dickens

Picked up-
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories- Robert Louis Stevenson
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
The Spy- James Fennimore Cooper

Reading-
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde

Creating Images and The Next Step

Create images that challenge the senses as well as the intellect.

I have decided to go back to school and get my masters degree.  I went to school to become an artist... I went to school after that to teach art hoping that it would pay the bills and afford me time to keep immersed in my work while I shared my experiences as an artist with new artists.  Due to the rough weather in the economy and my clear lack of being able to get past a first interview- close to 30 first interviews by now; I have decided that it must not be the right time to be a teacher.  Being an artist has been the most challenging and fulfilling thing I have undertaken.  I need that constant challenge that I get in school.  I need to take my work to the next level.  This time next year I will be gearing up for the next challenge.... just a question of where now.

Theme

It is important to say something with the work (otherwise, why do it?).  There are various themes that have been running through my head.  I hope by putting them into written form I can gain a little more perspective. 

Effect/impact that man and man-made structure has on the natural environment; also, the natural environments effect on man and man-made structure.

Placement- where we locate and why.  What effect does location have? 

Processes- natural processes, patterns, cycles, forces, etc.; man-made processes, patterns, cycles, forces, etc.

Values- generational values; why do we want?  What do we want?  Is what we want something that we need?  Does it make us better people?  Or, does it make us better than other people?

"To distinguish between the beautiful and the sublime... To distinguish between moral beauty and material beauty and to inquire what kind of beauty is proper to each of the various arts.  These are some interesting points we might take up."

James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

In Process

I have been considering the idea of a place that is in the midst of a process; a change; a transformation.  As artists we are in a constant state of transformation; change is just a part of what we do.  I feel that natural changes and alterations made by people are significant in the work I am attempting to make. 

Reading-
Hard Times- Charles Dickens

"It wouldn't hurt them, Sir.  They wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, Sir.  They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy..."

Sissy Jupe- Hard Times

Wild Raspberries

"I will tell you what I will do and will not do.  I will not serve that in which I no longer believe; whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: And I will try to express myself in some mode of life or arts as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile and cunning."

James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Reading List-

Finished Reading-

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man- James Joyce

On Hold-

The Dubliners- James Joyce

Reading-

Hard Times- Charles Dickens

Environmental Interaction

I am fascinated by our natural surroundings.  The reality of existence is interesting to me.  I feel that interaction between living things and environment needs to be explored.  I find the interaction between humans and our surroundings especially interesting.  I like how we work to make sense of our environment; our attempts to control it when in the end it seems like it controls us.  It is a fragile coexistence. 

I have tried to be focused on specifics in my work over the last few years and there is a place for that within the larger picture of what I want my career as an artist to be.  Right now I am seeing a larger direction or angle to my work.  I have been very narrow in the past and have not been able to look beyond the work and what I thought it should be.  Maybe it is time to let the work be what It is and focus more on the long term ideas... what do I find interesting about our existence and how do I translate that through a visual image?

Sunday, July 11, 2010

When you go somewhere what do you do to the place?  How do you interact with it?  What is left behind by your presence?  Is there a place that has not felt the physical touch of man? 

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Able.

I am able.

Whatever Happens........

.....just keep working.

I Found This Place.....

 

.....and I feel the need to keep going back.  It is like every time I go I find something new and more interesting than the last time I visited.  I am satisfied with the images from this place but I feel that there is more to it than what I am coming up with.  This might take some time.

Reading List-

Was Reading-

How the Other Half Lives- Jacob Riis

I put it down for a while because I just didn't find it that interesting right now.  I feel like I am not in a place mentally to read non-fiction at this time.

Reading-
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Dubliners- James Joyce

Picked Up-
A collection of titles by Charles Dickens;
Oliver Twist
Great Expectations
Bleak House
Nicholas Nickleby
Hard Times
A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and A Cricket on the Hearth
David Copperfield

Where Are We? Why Are We?

Patterns, shapes, lines, form; placement, format, representation, relationships.  Where we put things.  We build, shape and form our surroundings to fit our needs.  External forces act upon our creations.  We react to the forces to preserve our creation.  The forces can be natural- out of our control; not of our making as human beings.  The forces can be synthetic- of our own doing; man made.  The places in this series represent man altered land forms; places of our own creation that survive because we do.  We make them and preserve them for our own purposes.   

Where Are We?

Another location.  The relationship between man made structure and natural forces.  How do the changes we make impact our surroundings?  How are the changes we make effected by our surroundings? 

The place was there before we were.  When we got there we decided that this place could be used for this purpose.  We went in and made changes to the place.  We dug; we filled in; we built; we tore down; we rebuilt; we laid roads, railroads, etc.... the original place still exists and it can be seen if we look closely.

 

Change happens but, why does it happen?  How is the decision come to for a specific place to be changed?  What goes into that decision?  What is taken into consideration when the decision is made?  Why was that put there and not somewhere else?

 

The way our places are laid out is an interesting puzzle.  The thought process is interesting and I want to find out more.  It deserves investigation.

Reading List-

Reading Now-

How the Other Half Lives- Jacob Riis