back after labor day REFRESHED!
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Chicago's Filter Photo Festival 2011
Chicago's very own Filter Photo Festival is the creation of photographer Sarah Hadley. It its third year, it promises to offer something for everyone. There are wonderful lectures, workshops (one of which I will be teaching titled Developing your Personal Vision), portfolio reviews and exhibitions. If you haven't considered attending a portfolio review before, this might be the time! There is a great line up of reviewers and it provides invaluable feedback on your work.
August 9 ~ Morning Light
There will also be a juried exhibition called "Beginnings." The jurors are
Barbara DeGenevieve, Photography Professor, School of the Art Institute and
Christy Karpinski, Editor of F-Stop Magazine.
Surely you have something you can submit!
August 9 ~ Morning Light
There will also be a juried exhibition called "Beginnings." The jurors are
Barbara DeGenevieve, Photography Professor, School of the Art Institute and
Christy Karpinski, Editor of F-Stop Magazine.
Surely you have something you can submit!
Monday, August 08, 2011
ON REVERIE by Raphael Enthoven
I am not sure if you saw the article On Reverie in the New York Times yesterday but it is too good not to share. I have posted an excerpt but you can read the full essay online HERE.
August 8
"Imagination, knowing and dreaming into the heart of the matter."
August 6, 2011, 12:46 PM
On Reverie
By RAPHAËL ENTHOVEN
"It’s a sweet drug that plays with fire. A wasteland — forest of ruins or paved-over jungle depending on whether wakefulness or sleep tips the scales. An old city where the shadows still hold a trace of vanished occupants, where detailed buildings, patiently reconquered by nature, suddenly still are there, sand castles. Through the dreamer’s kaleidoscope where the absence of desire is taken as reality, birds slash through the twilight, cypress trees dive into the pool, stars sparkle in the sea, clouds take on shapes, water lilies bloom in the sky, plans become flexible, the limit to how far things can go relaxes, thought dances, light is lit by shade, opposites are juxtaposed, merge and become linked in a prelude to beauty: reverie is contemplation’s prehistory, the education of the gaze by the eyes of the soul.
Suddenly, the world before concepts.
Daughter of consciousness and sleep, reverie blends their realms. Like intoxication, reverie is lucidity without an object, an activity but one that’s passive, a search that begins by giving up and lets itself be dazzled rather than looking...."
August 8
"Imagination, knowing and dreaming into the heart of the matter."
August 6, 2011, 12:46 PM
On Reverie
By RAPHAËL ENTHOVEN
"It’s a sweet drug that plays with fire. A wasteland — forest of ruins or paved-over jungle depending on whether wakefulness or sleep tips the scales. An old city where the shadows still hold a trace of vanished occupants, where detailed buildings, patiently reconquered by nature, suddenly still are there, sand castles. Through the dreamer’s kaleidoscope where the absence of desire is taken as reality, birds slash through the twilight, cypress trees dive into the pool, stars sparkle in the sea, clouds take on shapes, water lilies bloom in the sky, plans become flexible, the limit to how far things can go relaxes, thought dances, light is lit by shade, opposites are juxtaposed, merge and become linked in a prelude to beauty: reverie is contemplation’s prehistory, the education of the gaze by the eyes of the soul.
Suddenly, the world before concepts.
Daughter of consciousness and sleep, reverie blends their realms. Like intoxication, reverie is lucidity without an object, an activity but one that’s passive, a search that begins by giving up and lets itself be dazzled rather than looking...."
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Candy Chang's Before I Die Project in New Orleans
Before I Die is the amazing brainchild of New Orleans artist Candy Chang. She is using blackboards that line the outside of an abandoned home in New Orleans to encourage people to think about their hopes and dreams. It is a symbol of rebirth and a testament to New Orlean's resilience and creativity.
In Chang's words...
"With support from old and new friends, I turned the side of an abandoned house in my neighborhood into a giant chalkboard to invite my neighbors to share what is important to them. Before I Die transforms neglected spaces into constructive ones where we can learn the hopes and aspirations of the people around us. This process (including obtaining official approval from many entities) has been a great lesson--more on that later. If you're in New Orleans, stop by the corner of Marigny and Burgundy (900 Marigny Street) to add your thoughts to the wall and discover what matters most to your neighbors. I believe the design of our public spaces can better reflect what's important to us as residents and as human beings. The responses and stories from passersby while we were installing it have already hit me hard in the heart."
The project has had such a positive response that Chang decided to continue the project online where you can add your dreams. Here are a few that have just been added....
Before I die I want to let people realize the value of equality.
-- AARON
Before I die I want to find true happiness. And channel that to the world..
-- TRICIA
Before I die I want to Save someone I love's live or die trying.
-- GUS
Before I die I want to feel accomplished.
-- SAMANTHA
Before I die I want to have a world tour with my parents.
-- DEWI MARISA
Before I die I want to forgive.
-- LACEY
Before I die I want to finally live on my own..
-- ANONYMOUS
Before I die I want to be a great mother.
-- STEPH
Before I die I want to see and eat everything in the world!.
-- DIANA
Before I die I want to truly be happy..
You can read more about it on her website HERE. What an inspirational project. I can't wait to visit the site on my next trip to New Orleans.
Friday, August 05, 2011
Ralph Eugene Meatyard
There is a Ralph Eugene Meatyard exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago which is not to be missed. I was first introduced to Meatyards work when I started out exploring photography. I have plenty of broken dolls and masks that I too have collected and photographed but they never had the power of Meatyard's work. I found the photographs haunting and disturbing, offering up some truths about the human condition.
I work in several different groups of pictures which act on and with each other – ranging from several abstracted manners to a form for the surreal. I have been called a preacher – but in reality, I’m more generally philosophical. I have never made an abstracted photograph without content. An educated background of Zen influences all of my photographs.
— Ralph Eugene Meatyard, 1961
from the wall text at Art Institute show...
At the Lexington Camera Club, where Meatyard first seriously studied photography, his mentor Van Deren Coke urged students to "start in your own backyard." Later Meatyard recalled the value of this advice. "This backyard business was carried into our own work. Van believed that we could make most of our pictures around our own homes. In making any photograph, Van suggested, it was enough to find the appropriate background, be honest, and put anything you wanted to in front of it. I have found that this is still the best way, with an excursion afield from time to time."
Extract from the preface, by James Rhem of the Photo Poche
"In short, Meatyard's work challenged most of the cultural and aesthetic conventions of his time and did not fit in with the dominant notions of the kind of art photography could and should be. His work sprang from the beauty of ideas rather than ideas of the beautiful. Wide reading in literature (especially poetry) and philosophy (especially Zen) stimulated his imagination. While others roamed the streets searching for America and truth, Meatyard haunted the world of inner experience, continually posing unsettling questions about our emotional realities through his pictures. Once again, however, he inhabited this world quite differently from other photographers exploring inner experience at the time. Meatyard's "mirror" (as John Szarkowski used the term) was not narcissistic. It looked back reflectively on the dreams and terrors of metaphysical questions, not private arguments of faith or doubt."
I work in several different groups of pictures which act on and with each other – ranging from several abstracted manners to a form for the surreal. I have been called a preacher – but in reality, I’m more generally philosophical. I have never made an abstracted photograph without content. An educated background of Zen influences all of my photographs.
— Ralph Eugene Meatyard, 1961
from the wall text at Art Institute show...
At the Lexington Camera Club, where Meatyard first seriously studied photography, his mentor Van Deren Coke urged students to "start in your own backyard." Later Meatyard recalled the value of this advice. "This backyard business was carried into our own work. Van believed that we could make most of our pictures around our own homes. In making any photograph, Van suggested, it was enough to find the appropriate background, be honest, and put anything you wanted to in front of it. I have found that this is still the best way, with an excursion afield from time to time."
Extract from the preface, by James Rhem of the Photo Poche
"In short, Meatyard's work challenged most of the cultural and aesthetic conventions of his time and did not fit in with the dominant notions of the kind of art photography could and should be. His work sprang from the beauty of ideas rather than ideas of the beautiful. Wide reading in literature (especially poetry) and philosophy (especially Zen) stimulated his imagination. While others roamed the streets searching for America and truth, Meatyard haunted the world of inner experience, continually posing unsettling questions about our emotional realities through his pictures. Once again, however, he inhabited this world quite differently from other photographers exploring inner experience at the time. Meatyard's "mirror" (as John Szarkowski used the term) was not narcissistic. It looked back reflectively on the dreams and terrors of metaphysical questions, not private arguments of faith or doubt."
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