Promo Cards are Here

Ignore the institutional background. So glad I went with the two-sided approach. Marilyn is a little more yellow than I would have liked but overall, I am pleased.

Promo Cards Ordered

I am raising the bar at the Society for Photographic Education this year. I am not printing my own promotional cards but ordered two sided ones (A Tale of Two Obsessions is the obvious choice for this format). Here's to hoping they arrive on time and look close to the colors below.

Next up: apply for exhibitions to show this series together at long last.

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!

Plates to Pixels: July 2013

I met Blue Mitchell at Photolucida and he kindly chose A Tale of Two Obsessions for exhibition on his website Plates to Pixels for the month of July. It is the first time both David C. Nolan and Arline Conradt are seen together beyond my website and may it not be the last!

27 Months Later...

My response to Arline Conradt's cat scrapbook is complete!

Size: 17" x 14" x 2.5"
Number of Pages: 176
Number of Cats: 3770

Arline Conradt's original scrapbook:
Size: 16" x 14" x 3.5"
Number of Pages: 310
Number of Cats: 3770

Post-its from my response:
Most number of cats on one page: 355
Least number of cats on one page: 1

Post-its from Arline's cat scrapbook:
Most number of cats on one page: 90
Least number of cats on one page: 1

Number of glue sticks it took to adhere my response: 7

Examples of individual pages (above and below)

After spending six days gluing 2200 cats, I added an addendum (perhaps foolishly). Here it is in its entirety. The numbers featured here are not part of the 3770.

Mock-up installation photographs of my response in front of Arline Conradt's cat scrapbook transformed into wallpaper.

Videos I streamed & rented on Netflix while gluing: Zero Dark Thirty, Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present, Detropia, Into the Abyss, Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, Jean Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, Roman Holiday, Our City Dreams, A Small Act, Crips & Bloods: Made in America, Moving Midway, Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap, Elegy, The Rape of Europa, The Gates, and three Wholphin DVDs.

Next up: updating the website and collecting 25 more cat claws. I can see the light at the end of the very long tunnel. Thanks to everyone that helped me accumulate cats the last two years.

Soundtrack to the Cat Scrapbook: Animal Collective's "Leaf House"

Animal Collective, Leaf House

This song is now five years old, yet I think of it often while gluing pages in the cat scrapbook.

Commissioned Cat Scrapbook Addition

One day many months ago, 250 of the postcards below were accidentally shipped to the Art office. Since I am working on a cat project, everyone thought I should take the bundle, but one card was enough since it's not about multiples of the same image.

Heather Myers, Administrative Coordinator Extraordinaire, looked up the name on the front of the card and sent me the website. This spawned the idea of a possible commission for the cat scrapbook. Many months later, due to my busy beyond comprehension schedule, this arrived in my mailbox when I returned from Europe.

Jenny Parks created a relatively accurate portrait of Oatmeal and Button Omelet. The one thing that she was not aware of in the sample photographs I sent her to make the drawing, is that Oatmeal is twice the size of Button. Also, the cats would never sit that close to one another. Last night, I had the brief opportunity to take a quick snapshot of the two of them - foreboding shadows sum up their relationship well.

In any case, I now have a portrait of my cats to add to the cat scrapbook in homage to Arline Conradt. Too bad I feel like hanging it on the wall rather than putting it in the book. We will see what materializes from it. In the meantime, I have 2067 more cats to glue. My deadline is next week. This will happen.

Cat Scrapbook Cover is... Covered

As Amelia says, it "is in the spirit of the original" though mine features felines not letters of the alphabet.

All of the cats will be counted (though it looks like the interior will feature a headache). Exterior below:

Interior:

Now to fill it with pages that are not quite done! After this Stutz show in Indianapolis, I have my work cut out for me.

Acquisition for the Cat Scrapbook in Cesky Krumlov

Did I mention it moves? Image courtesy of Cass Fey.

Cat Scrapbook In Progress

In April, I tried to complete the cat scrapbook before attending the Photolucida portfolio reviews. Assembling 3770 cats was a task greater than the time I had allotted and I only finished 1/3 after many 2-3 AM nights up late gluing. My goal is to finish it before the end of June.

The paper for the cover arrived yesterday. I noticed that my version of Arline Conradt's cat scrapbook will have far less pages. Why? I tend to go for quantity of cats rather than including many pages with 1-2 big cats.

However, this did not apply when my brother and sister-in-law gave me a belated joke Christmas present while I was in Oregon: a cat book larger than my suitcase. I spent two days cutting it up, cropping the bigger images to the size of my 13x19" portfolio. Part of me wished I purposefully left all the cat cut-outs in the box when I met with the reviewers just to see their faces.

Looking at how other people have referenced the scale of Alice Buckman's Cats on Amazon is amusing.

Here are some individual pages that are complete. Like Arline, I have divided mine into sections but have plans to depart from her process considerably at the end.This page is from the post-its and note cards "chapter" and is one of my favorites (in addition to nearly every reviewer at Photolucida).

There are several pages devoted to cartoons from The New Yorker.

Stickers and small cats cut nearly the size of stickers.

Blue paper as background and postcard section.

From my childhood stationery that I rediscovered before this event two years ago. 

More postcards including a $7 one purchased at the ICP a year ago strictly for this book on the top right (it moves!).

This page marks the departure from Arline's sections into something that is more "me." I found two images of Marilyn Monroe with cats and wrote a small paragraph wondering what David C. Nolan would have said about these two images if they were in his collection.

More to come as I reassess all the feedback from Photolucida and wrap this up (at long last).

The Cat Scrapbook was a hit at Photolucida

People think I should make a cat video (I'm not sure I think that but we will see). Perhaps I should consider it if Paul Pfeiffer is making gifs like the one above.

Frantically working on the Cat Scrapbook at Every Possible Minute

It is taking far longer than I ever imagined to assemble my re-interpretation of Arline Conradt's cat scrapbook. Here is a sneak peek of one of the pages:

Hoping to be 1/4 done before Photolucida (and that will be an accomplishment).

Herron Lecture

I had a good time at Herron School of Art last week when I delivered my lecture A Tale of Two Obsessions... It made my day to see a large faction of friends from the Ball State Department of Art and some past students in the audience. In addition, I saw an old friend from an Anderson Ranch residency who I hadn't encountered in 10 years who now teaches at Herron. Roughly 50 people attended and I was able to say two dirty words in an academic setting without getting into trouble. Overall, it was a success.

(Photographs courtesy of Natalie Phillips)

According to the specifications in my Indiana Arts Commission grant, I have to do one more presentation. The next one will be a guerrilla projection in downtown Muncie as soon as the weather warms up. Looking forward to seeing David C. Nolan's quotes on the side of unsuspecting businesses.

Cat Claw Greeting Card (nearing completion) and the Woes of Too Much to Do

I hope this is the last entry of the card in progress. I am nearing 300 claws (and two teeth) as I start the "halo" around the list of participants. This afternoon I will photograph my piles of cats on paper that will be used in the scrapbook. I have mentioned the cat scrapbook for months now but as soon as I build cardboard boxes for shipping the lunch bags to Poland, I will have time to work on it rather than documenting its incomplete status. There are too many works that are floating around as partially done in the studio! This is frustrating but I have a goal of finishing this before traveling to Photolucida in April.

Also on the must conquer list in the coming weeks:

• a blog post on my marathon viewing of The Clock (coming soon after the Herron lecture)
• my collaboration with Camden Hardy (the mystery of the concrete block)
• edit more images in Autobiography that were rephotographed last week
• take James' advice and accumulate a portfolio of 4-5 series that explores my interests in collecting rather than bringing one project to the two portfolio reviews I have this spring
• somehow acquire 8-10 more exhibitions before the end of October
• eat, sleep, play with the cats, and breathe every once in awhile (I can dream)

Lecture This Week at Herron School of Art

In conjunction with the Indiana Arts Commission grant, come see my artist's talk on A Tale of Two Obsessions: David C. Nolan & Marilyn Monroe and Arline Conradt & the Cat Scrapbook.

Above image courtesy of Amelia who is having a show at Gordy's Fine Art and Framing that opens this Thursday night in Muncie.