"Beautiful Decay"

Here is an article on Autobiography by Ellyn Ruddick-Sunstein published in Beautiful Decay. This series is ongoing/in progress so I have not been able to separate myself from the photographs and sculptural objects yet and deduce how they flow with one another. It was interesting to read a stranger's take on the matter and I was most drawn to her concluding paragraph:

"The narrative of the series is hard to follow, and therein lies its power; the viewer is tasked with the impossible exercise of constructing a life between bookend-like photographs of chopped hair. What emerges from the powerful work is not the objects themselves, or even whatever personal and mysterious experiences they might symbolize, but the artist’s movingly frantic and ultimately futile attempt to immortalize what is already gone."

Thank you, Ellyn, for the thoughtful words. I hope the narrative is clarified as more pieces are added to the series.

Six Chairs: Robert Cumming

Robert Cumming, Makeshift Art School Furniture Chairs, 1976

Robert Cumming, Quick Shift of the Head Leaves Glowing School Afterimage Posited on Pedestal, 1978

I remember when a few chairs from the Art Department made their way home as a child. A stool not unlike the one above was a preferred seat in the studio, even though a student painted a swastika on it (I eventually I asked my father if I could sand it off and he complied). Each time I see these two photographs, I laugh (an action that needs to happen more often these days).

"Daylight" by James Luckett

James Luckett recently created a series of photographs on his iPad that I have not stopped thinking about since I saw them on Instagram. He documents one winter day in Yellow Springs, Ohio from a window in a shotgun house. He is no stranger to using this "low tech" camera to create artistic photographs. See the rest here.

My (nonexistent) Spare Time...

... is devoted to this:

Reading Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950

Listening to Carrie Mae Weems discuss From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried on the Modern Art Notes podcast.

Jacinda Russell, Instagram Loading in Sierra or Tom Friedman's Untitled (a ring of plastic drinking cups), Aerial View, 1993

Critiquing two months of 27 photographs on Instagram.

Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, Book Cam (Aperture Edition) 210mm, 2012

Preparing a talk on the Aperture Remix exhibition currently on display at the Ball State Art Museum (= best show since I've lived here). More soon.

Marcel Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1963

Shoveling more snow (and drifts) from the driveway than I ever have in my life (inventing new swear words and complaining profusely on how much I despise winter).

Beth Hoeckel

Dreaming hourly of how I can live in a warm climate 365 days of the year. Hoeckel's photographs evoke a sense of longing for warm weather, blue skies, clear water, and swimming outdoors. I can dream....

Voice-over: David C. Nolan

In addition to exhibiting Nine Fake Cakes & Nine Bodies of Water in the White House, Mary Wright was hard at work making these videos for the next Space Object auction. She asked her neighbor to read David C. Nolan's text and it is effective (read: creepy). There are three below and more can be found here.







Videos by Mary Wright.

Sometimes Nothing Says It All (in bleached fabric)

Ed Ruscha, I'm Going to Leave More Notes and I'm Going to Kick More Ass, 1999 and
Say Yes to Our Demands Or Else, 1999

College Ruled and Graph Paper in the Mike Kelley Retrospective

The following three photographs were taken of Mike Kelley's drawings and photographs at PS1 MoMA. Thank you PS1 for changing your photography policy!

One of my favorite details of the Mike Kelley Retrospective was his use of paper - both handmade and found. They were painted and photographed with text written in block letters, neatly and sloppily.

Around the same time I saw this, I finished an entire page of "Names People Think I Am Called" that begin in 1999 while working for the Houston Center for Photography. I have struggled with how to present it (currently it's written in a spiral notebook from Archaeology class in undergraduate school). I am now brainstorming whether or not I want to apply some techniques other than "found."

There is a growing pile of cardboard notebook backing in my studio. With school and work combined, I produce a great number of these over the year. They might make an appearance in the resolution of a few lists.

It doesn't hurt that I take a great deal of notes that look like this in faculty meetings (grow cardboard pile, grow).

Exposed a Roll of Film for the First Time in a Decade

Sent 17 January 2014. Owning a typewriter makes letter writing infinitely more interesting for me to write (and hopefully for one to receive).

Telecake News

I found this photograph in Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel and couldn't help but laugh. It was source material for their billboard research. It also serves as a reminder how much cakes have changed since 1972 (technology too).

Auction at Space Object

There is a month long auction happening at Space Object. This week Nine Fake Cakes & Nine Bodies of Water.  Next week A Tale of Obsession: David C. Nolan & Marilyn Monroe.

Mary created some hilarious photoshop collages for the cakes. I am looking forward to her neighbor reading David C. Nolan's text as a video component in next week's feature.

Collage by Mary Wright for Space Object.

Found: Wedding Ring

Responsibility = check (two weeks on Craigslist with only one response identifying it to have diamonds = wrong).

Emotional baggage = check (see above photograph).

Solicited advice from anyone who would listen = check.

Best advice received from Pat (below):

a few things to dwell upon....

this sounds like a premise for a body of work on your part, as gold comes with its own baggage, aside from your personal baggage.for one thing, any gold you have in your possession must, by the laws of probability and of history, have molecules of gold melted down from the whole world's treasures and possessions, ancient and modern.  therefore, a gold ring contains bits from the various pharoah's melted treasures, plus  the many artifacts of the ancient, medieval and modern world that were melted down time and time again. Gold is the one material that seems to be infinitely recyclable.  You are getting your gold back, the same mix of gold your wedding ring was made from.   

so whatever emotional baggage the found ring seems to possess, that very gold - cold, incorruptible, neutral - has had a billion tears of gratitude and sorrow shed over it by countless human beings.  The tragedy / loss of the particular ring now in your possession, whether it was an unfortunate accident or a deliberate act of ridding oneself of an intolerable burden, was one of many lost and found moments for the gold.  It is now yours. 

Pawned = check.
In the name of Art = fast forward to 2015 when I spend the $45 en route to the Gold Coast.

Mail in the New Year

Great things in the mail arriving this month, reminding me of the past and wishing good things for the future (none of which deal with the Postcard Collective but I am gearing up for that in early February).

A book Li made after our trip to Stewart Island, New Zealand in 1998.

A postcard from Lisa reminding me of home.

A painted Moleskin and New Year's greeting from Eric and Yoonmi.

All of this inspired me to send something of my own to an address in Los Angeles featuring a found photograph, some of the contents of my wallet, and a list. My first typed correspondence on the Skyriter. Hoping to share the response soon.

Globes: Round 5

Anywhere but here where 15º feels warm and driving 20 mph is too fast.

The interlibrary loan book on the potential summer travel destination arrived today.

Songs Ohia's Didn't It Rain is playing in the background.

Escape (no link necessary).

Sarah Malakoff, From the series Second Nature: Untitled (Interior Blizzard)

Sarah Malakoff, From the series Second Nature: Untitled (Interior World)
[I love this series by Malakoff as it is reminiscent of a far more comforting and livable Madonna Inn and the cats! Oh my... the cats!]

Rebecca Norris Webb, One Room School House from My Dakota, 2012
[New acquisition elaborated upon here.]

Lori Nix, Library, 2007
[Everyday I look at Lori's work as this was the first photograph I ever bought at an auction.]

Joachim Brohm, Indian Ocean, 1983-84
[For Ohio.]

Jennifer Bolande, Globe Sitings, St. Mark's Place, NYC, 2000-2001
[It's comforting to know that someone else looks for globes, documents them, and titles the photograph accordingly.]

Simoneau Guillaume, Broken Vows
[There are more things broken than vows.]

Luigi Ghirri, Lido di Spina, 1978
[Bottom of the world]

Luigi Ghirri, Modena, 1973
[A whole post could be dedicated to Ghirri's photographs of globes but these two are my favorites.]

Someday, I would like to own one of these.

Trying to Survive

Surprised the phone didn't freeze while taking this photograph in -14º.

Lenscratch Post This Week

A Tale of Two Obsessions: David C. Nolan & Marilyn Monroe and Arline Conradt and the Cat Scrapbook along with Autobiography were featured on Lenscratch this week. Thanks Aline!

The Switch

This happened today. I finished the Ice Plant 5 Year Diary. This is a horrible present to give someone unless they ask for it because the responsibility and commitment loom for months before they decide to use it 1/3 of the year later (thanks former friend not mentioned here). Then they become addicted until an unnamed airline company searches a suitcase and slips it into the wrong bag. Four months go by with no entries, just a vague wondering of what happened to that diary. Then an email is received with a "promise to send it back as a Christmas present" (translation: owner of the other suitcase needed to finish reading it).

Aside from those two instances of blank entries, I stuck with it and (GASP) purchased a new one that now has an entry dated on the first day of the year rather than in the middle of March. The potential of having ten years of every day of my life accounted for at the end of the red volume is frightening. Maybe I will learn to vary my schedule, focusing less on documenting hours spent on powerpoints and laps swum. However, it is hard to break a system that has five years of practice compressed not so neatly into five small lines.

Hello 2014

Shoji Ueda, Dunes, 1986