The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson's Envelope Poems

Hannah loaned me this book months ago and I finally had time to read it this week. I have always felt indifferent to Dickinson but this may change my mind. The Gorgeous Nothings is the most elegantly printed monograph of worn paper and text that I have ever seen. Who wouldn't be enthralled with a page that reproduces aged paper resembling shark's teeth or an arrowhead flake?

The excerpts below focus on Dickinson's interest in birds as their migrations away from the Midwest in the fall are often on my mind. Beside each torn fragment printed to scale, there is a diagram that translates the handwriting into type.

In some cases, I was more enamored with the condition of the paper than Dickinson's text: particles floating on a white expanse, saved from further decay, memorialized in print.

I will leave you with one that was not scanned as the words were more important than the visual representation:

"There are those that are shallow intentionally and only profound by accident."

Madonna Inn

"Let's say that Albert Speer, while leafing through a book on Gaudí, swallowed an overgenerous dose of LSD and began to build a nuptial catacomb for Liza Minnelli. But that doesn't give you an idea. Let's say ... Chopin's Sonata in B-flat sung by Perry Como in an arrangement by Liberace and accompanied by the Marine Band."

- Umberto Eco in On Ugliness

The third visit is the charm. The Swiss Rock is booked and this time, I hope to have access to the swimming pool (though this tennis court color scheme may be photographed once or twice during my visit).

I am either going to love or hate this (hopefully the former). In any case, my intolerance for pink may be tested. [All images via.]

The Fraud Issue: Idaho Center for the Book

Thanks to Stephanie Bacon, Faux is featured in the latest Idaho Center for the Book newsletter.

Luxury Magazine

Sometimes the Internet is kind and brings your work to the attention of strangers in South Korea. Here is an interview with Luxury in their latest edition focusing on food. I am one of this month's "food artists." I wish I knew what questions were translated from English but I remember that I was asked why I chose cake, I elaborated on the first float, and I discussed the most tricky part of the process. Perhaps that is what is written here.

Postcard Collective Fall 2014

The last three Postcard Collective entries have featured photographs taken on my phone (What does that mean? Hope I am not getting lazy.). This one is also unusual since I used an envelope which goes against most things I believe in when thinking about postcards. There were too many components and I ran into the problem of not being able to say everything using only two sides.

Hopefully Ernst thinks this is an adequate reinterpretation of his postcard.

Further Adventures in Anonymous Items Stolen from Art Departments

To be printed to scale soon.

This is Problematic

Hm... still contemplating how to contend with this (but am thankful that Hearst Castle is conserving water in California's horrific drought).

"An Anonymous Inventory of Items Stolen From Art Departments" Part 1

Jacinda Russell, Site specific installation currently on display at the Biennial Faculty exhibition at Ball State University, 2014 - ongoing

Twice a month I photograph new objects as my favorite part of this series is people quietly volunteering to let me borrow something to eventually display over an entire wall. I've deduced that aside from the obvious (tools), chairs and still-life drawing display pieces are the most sought after. I did not take any one of the above, however, I borrowed Mark Sawrie's "Stolen BSU Photo Area" stamp and made sure it was represented on the wall.

"Performance: Contemporary Photography from the Douglas Nielsen Collection"

From the Center for Creative Photography's website:

"This exhibition gathers more than 100 works from the private collection of Douglas Nielsen, choreographer and professor at the University of Arizona School of Dance. Featuring photographs and photo-based prints by artists as diverse and provocative as Diane Arbus, John Baldessari, Jo Ann Callis, Nan Goldin, Bruce Nauman, Richard Renaldi, and Cindy Sherman, the exhibition’s unique installation draws out the dramatic and physical tension that can result between photographer and subject, the observer and the observed. Among the exhibition’s highlights are focused displays of images by Nancy Burson and Jimmy DeSana, as well as compelling works by lesser-known artists such as Todd Gray and Noah Kalina, all of which are presented in ways that are by turns whimsical, meditative, and revealing about a fundamental aspect of the art and nature of photography."

Every time I return to the Center for Creative Photography, I remember how fortunate I was to attend school at the University of Arizona and to be able to bring my students to world class exhibitions directly across from the Art Building. My tour guide was Cass Fey and she explained the background information in presentation and installation. We walked through discussing our favorites, remarking at how well the objects fit with the photographs, and the salon style hanging (and even incorporating the circular columns). I most enjoyed seeing Noah Kalina's video Everyday in the context of a museum rather than a viral link found online.

Until the next visit, Arizona!

Arizona Inn - October 2014

The week before leaving for Arizona, I kept thinking about the most important pools that informed my experience of living in Tucson. The Arizona Inn featured many attempts to float a cake in 2010 and is the epitome of a pool one would want to sneak into (as this action is often a topic of conversation in the summer time). I began to look at satellite views and made prints the day before leaving.

Even after soaking all of them in the pool that is featured in the satellite view, I am more interested in the warped, smudged and dried original (not so much the photograph above). Still thinking and collecting...

The water was murky but inviting. Unfortunately, I have a far better image of this noodle on my iPhone but this is the best one from the digital SLR.

I left a souvenir from the 2010 cake float (back then all the chairs were covered with yellow fabric).

 

Here are the prints drying in the back seat of the rental car.

 

The two other pools that made a lasting impression on my time spent in Tucson. I did not trespass and photograph them during my visit which is leading me to believe that there is something more significant to be made by this act of capturing the image rather than visiting the location itself.

Art Department: University of Arizona, Photo Area, Room 14

  

I have been writing on chalkboards and dry erase boards in Art Departments since May, telling the stories that took place in those very same rooms years ago. This one refers to teaching my first semester (and what a horrible job I did of it). It is the tamest of the group - or the one that I am most likely to admit I made now.

I follow specific rules when taking these photographs. I do not plan what I am going to write. I accept any spelling and grammatical mistakes. I take the photograph quickly because more often than not, it feels like I will be caught (and I was once at Boise State). Most of the time, when looking at these images later, I regret the words that were written, wishing for something more.

Returning to the University of Arizona photo area for the first time since 2001 was jarring. It looks far more run down than I remember with stains on the linoleum, scuffs on the walls, warped homasote, and outdated furniture. I was happy to see that the color processor was in full swing - wishing I still had access to that room and all that I could make with color film.

Breaking Out the Binoculars in Tucson

I finally saw a rare cristate (I wasn't convinced they existed outside 1940s postcards prior to this weekend). There are over 25 in the park and I wish I could have seen more.

All photographs were taken at Saguaro National Park East in the Rincon Mountains home to 1.6 million saguaro. I visited Tucson over fall break to knock off another water destination on my list, visit old friends, and photograph my old art department. More photographs soon.

"Landfall" - Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet

Last weekend, Hannah and I drove to the Wexner Center to experience Landfall. My previous encounter with the Kronos Quartet was watching them behind a screen with Phillip Glass as they performed Dracula in Houston, Texas. I once saw Laurie Anderson perform Live in New York in Vancouver, Washington where not a face in the crowd had dry eyes as she described NYC post 9/11. I could not imagine an event more worth traveling to despite it being a hectic time of the semester.

Surprisingly, Hannah and I were two of the youngest people in the audience (though I envied the ten year old boy who was there with his father). The performance was beyond description and I am still trying to find the words to process what we saw. The core of the story featured Hurricane Sandy and one of the most memorable parts was the finale when Anderson described walking into her studio basement to see keyboards, archival papers, and photographs of her dog floating in brown, murky water. These three sentences were projected on the screen above the Kronos Quartet moments before the show ended: "How beautiful. How magic. And how catastrophic." Those words describe many of Anderson's stories whether or not they are related to a horrific event.

Anderson spoke of a list of millions of animals that are now extinct. As their names and locations last found (remains discovered) scrolled by, one cannot help but think how many more in our lifetime will be added. I am mesmerized with each story Anderson tells of animals, as they often feature disaster. Once, I created an artwork based on her description of birds and I keep wondering if anything will come from this event.

Jacinda Russell, From The Lost Photographs, 2003-2005

Laurie reminded us that human beings were not the only ones that lost their lives the day the airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center. Birds, burning, their bodies seared, also fell to the ground amidst the flesh and debris.

A magnificent cake in Lieko Shiga's "Album/Rasen Kaigan"

Lieko Shiga, From Album/Rasen Kaigan

and while we are at it, here's a globe:

Lieko Shiga, From Album/Rasen Kaigan

Ofili and Sidibé

Chris Ofili in Malick Sidibé's studio

To say I am behind on my New Yorker subscription is an understatement but I happened to finish a recent issue and was enamored by Calvin Tomkins' profile "Into the Unknown." It is highly worth the read and can be found here. Of course I am a sucker for any photograph taken in Malick Sidibé's studio in Mali which lead me to research the above image, wondering if Studio Malick was still in use. 

Malick Sidibé's studio photographed in March 2013

Malick Sidibé's negatives (both images from this fascinating slide show).

More stills of Lake Pend Oreille from the 8 mm video

Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, 1955

Cape Horn Road, Bayview, Idaho: 1955 & 2014

 

Something must be done with this (an 8mm film my uncle recently emailed featuring my mother pointing at the sonar barge in Bayview, Idaho). I have a brick of 13 year old past expiration slide film, a newly repaired Pentax K1000, and a local camera shop that is willing to cross process. If my first trial (expecting lots of errors) works, this may be the key to approaching all the photographs of Lake Pend Oreille taken in May.

The Skeleton in the Drawing Closet

Once a few weeks before obtaining my undergraduate degree, I borrowed my father's keys to the art department. After midnight, a friend and I removed the skeleton on the right from the drawing classroom and installed it into the art gallery exhibition. It was placed prominently in the center of the space and was well illuminated the moment the gallery director turned the lights on the next morning.

When returning to Boise last month, I requested to photograph the skeleton in the drawing closet. It lives in another building now and is missing an arm. I was surprised to see that the once white anatomical man on the left was still in use. Its presence was often featured in drawings displayed in the hallways. It, too, was missing its right arm but I found it on the shelf above and reattached it for this photograph.

I was a child when I first encountered that skeleton. Back then I wondered who that person was before they died and how their bones came to live at Boise State. Last month these thoughts persisted: what does one do with an aging and decrepit skeleton in an Art Department? Can it be discarded or repaired? How long before its life after death has run its course? Many years later, I no longer recognized it as human and it felt as false as the model on the left.