Indiana Arts Commission Grant

Finally some good news on the application front:

"The Indiana Arts Commission is pleased to inform you that you have been selected as a recipient of an IAP Grant for grant period July 1, 2012 - June 30, 2013 (FY2013)."

Now I have to make frames for 29 Marilyn Monroe prints and find a location to give lectures in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Muncie. I am excited that it's my first breakthrough in receiving a grant outside a university. May there be many more to come!

Current Exhibitions

In addition to Lust at Jennifer Schwartz Gallery, here are some other things that are in the works:

My submission for Io Palmer and Lisa Link's Serve and Project napkin show at The Kitchen Gallery Exhibition at Clermont Gallery, University of Cincinnati from 4-22 May.

One of two accepted submissions for Paperchaser 2012 at Gallery 308 in Muncie, Indiana (seen alongside Mollie Baumann's mixed media photograph). "Desert Sun" and "Little Great Lakes" are on view until 26 April. The reflections and hideous i-Phone photographic reproduction look a little like they are underwater. Appropriate or inappropriate?

I also shipped two artworks to Rockford, Illinois for the 2012 Rockford Midwestern Biennial at the Rockford Art Museum. Sooke Potholes... and Scott and Kim's Backyard... made the final cut.

The Objects of Containment proposal by Hannah Barnes, David Hannon, Jennifer Halvorson and I was accepted as an Atrium Gallery exhibition at Ball State University in November 2012 and will travel to the Academy of Art in Wroclaw, Poland next April.

I have a solo exhibition at Vincennes University that will be installed in August 2012. It will feature Strange Artifacts: A Found Object and Photographic Wunderkammer, The Library of Loss and two new pieces from the Autobiography series. Scary to think that a minimum of 80 artworks will be in one location!

Discounting the largest stack of rejection letters that I have ever received this year and the diminishing checking account from application fees, there are still 15 things in the works with many more to come. I'm down to the wire on the ten exhibition quota (generously bequeathed to me by the tenure and promotion committee) before 31 October. It can still happen... gray hairs and all. Five more to go.

Plugging Away

It's that residency application time of year again. I've been researching these and have a list of five to apply for this month and next.



On a slow lab day in Photo 4, I managed to scan 141 pages of cats (I don't know how many that totals because some have only one and others have dozens). I foresee another mass scanning session tonight in Photo 1.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to seeing the sun next week in LA and a field trip to Cincinnati tomorrow with the Video classes to see this show curated by my acquaintance Jordan Tate of i like this art.

Day 12: Progress

Detail of Jeff Wall's Gust of Wind

All those papers flying in the wind are beginning to look like my rejection letters. Scanning, reading, writing, purchasing framing material = 5.5 hours in a day of work in which I also received 5.5 hours of sleep. ZZZ.

Day 9: Progress (Let's Get This Show on the Road)

I spent the day researching and writing (for 7 hours!). I am formulating ideas about the California portion of the VB trip which will be here before I know it and the majority of the day was devoted to this task. There's nothing like thinking of commonalities between artists like John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha and what work I would like to delve into that explores that (or what work I already make that comments on theirs and how I never realized it).


Ed Ruscha, Spam Product Shot, 1961


John Baldessari, The spectator is compelled..., 1968-79 (perhaps he's looking for Spam)

More time was devoted to Marilyn Monroe as visiting David C. Nolan's address in San Francisco is part of the California project and it would have been her 85th birthday today. The Lost Look Photographs by John Vachon arrived at the library and I've been perusing it. On a side note, I did see The Misfits while in Astoria (horrifying/fascinating = last film for both Monroe and a very sweaty Clark Gable). It was nowhere near the snooze fest of Seven Year Itch and still didn't beat Some Like it Hot but it was worth seeing even though the horse scenes were hard to watch. Speaking of The Misfits, this is what the back of a press photograph is supposed to look like (ahem, David C. Nolan):



Four more applications were sent today as well. Jennifer sent me the link to Mary Bennett's new exhibition, 1983 Rejections: 3 Acceptances and my odds better not be that bad (.15% = yikes). I never keep my rejections letters thankfully as that would be too painful to behold.


Mary Bennett's installation at 23 Sandy Gallery, Portland, Oregon

From the website: "This unique documentation of a poet’s struggle and success was found in a dumpster in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood in the mid 1990’s. The tattered, annotated index cards show a record of submissions to literary journals from 1973 to 1978. The installation is an attempt to recognize and honor this poet for her forbearance and patience."

There is definitely a connection to the Art Guys' Wailing Wall:

Day 4: A List

Swearing at Blogger for the system breaking down for over 24 hours (and erasing three posts from this week)
California tickets purchased
Rental car reserved
Phone interview with a residency in Alaska
More Italy research
Second edition of 20x30 cake photographs printed (6 finished the set)
3 artworks packed and shipped to Oregon
School list completed
2 library books scanned
Globe hung from the ceiling in the office
Two trips to the post office
Another "master list" of accomplishments that need to be finished before Wednesday
Matboard hauled into my school office
Orange County Museum of Art not quite rejection nor acceptance letter received (getting closer to real live acceptance)

= 12 hours later



Goodnight.

Day 1: Progress

I can't stop creating more piles rather than getting rid of them. My stack of library books to read and scan at school started off this big at 12:45 PM.



By 3:30 PM, it grew to this size (this is what I get for putting 19 books on interlibrary loan last week). I am looking most forward to The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl.



A nice rejection letter regarding the fake cakes from Kreemart.



My box of new acquisitions opened (the kitchen table pile is 2/3rds gone now that the Amazon box is a cat toy). Avedon at Work and the "Ruscha Brick" are books that I have had on the list to "rebuy" for the last four years. I have waited for Zoe Leonard's You See I am Here After All to be published since 2009! I can't wait to read it as it was one of my favorite installations at Dia Beacon. Ed Ruscha: Road Tested, Sea Change: The Seascape in Contemporary Photography, and Publish Your Photography Book are needed for summer research. Finally, I hate buying books with the Oprah seal of approval emblazoned on the front but it does have a bird on it! Summer means time for reading fiction and Jonathan Franzen is first on the list.



I also scanned one of my favorite Doug Dubois photographs from ...all the days and nights (a library book in the desk pile).


Doug Dubois, My Father in the Ocean, Naples, Florida, 2006

All in all, it was an 8.5 hour work day with some visible progress (including two big things crossed off my school office list that I haven't had time to do all semester).

To or To Not Spend $60 on a Submission Fee

Abelardo Morell, $7 Million, 2006

Spending money on exhibition submission fees in excess of $30 is never something I like to do. I don't know what it is about photography but asking for $60 here and $90 there to submit 5-10 jpegs tends to be acceptable. Who can afford to pay this and why set the standard that this is okay? Why does the chosen artwork always look the same? Needless to say I kick myself for contemplating it especially since I can't get in to save my life (I'm a "Hey Hot Shot," Photo Lucida, Review Santa Fe three times EACH failure = that's close to $1000 = haven't I learned my lesson?).

Update: Apparently I have... Just writing that post made me come to my senses and put my debit card away.

Bought my airplane ticket home tonight....

Order of operation: before the summer begins - go back home.



Lee Friedlander, Western United States, 1975

In the meantime: the weekend before utter chaos and no time on my hands will entail (final critiques and grading commence Monday):

1) Finish painting and sanding the Nine Fake Cake & Nine Bodies of Water frames
2) Buy matboard in Indy for above
3) Finish editing the remaining 12 Marilyn photographs because I can always hit the Print button while grading...
4) Revel in the fact that I turned in 12 more applications for exhibitions for the cakes last week. Current status: 32 pending & 4 rejections. Come on two acceptances!

26 Applications & 183 Fears (they go hand in hand)

Bring on the rejection letters! I'm hoping for two exhibitions - TWO to come from this. I realize that's a high ratio (.08%) but I have to think positively.




Also of note, Michael Bernard Loggins "Fears of Your Life" list was on This American Life recently [it's Act 3 in the previous link]. I was first introduced to Loggins via Rachel Hines. This is one of the most idiosyncratic books that I make my students read - part of it's charm is that it's handwritten.



Highlights:

"Fear of something that you think that could be in the closet that might be scary is scary"

"Fear that if you Put too much of toilet Paper in the toilet Bowl it will run over and get all over the Floor and on you and on someone else too. It would leak from up stairs to the Next Floor Below."

"Fear of Sharks. Fear of Giant Man. Fear of Gorilla. Fear of Godzilla. Fear of Tall Woman. Fear of Killer Whales. Fear of Dinosaurs Bird. Fear of Invisible Man. Fear of Blob." [yikes! one of those describes me.]