Sebastian Salgado

A wonderful article on Sebastian Salgado this morning in the New York Times.
He too has been photographing nature, traveling the world over for his "Genesis" project. His subject matter for this project is the natural world that has been untouched by modern development.



In the article, Salgado states “I’m 100 percent sure that alone my photographs would not do anything. But as part of a larger movement, I hope to make a difference,” he said. “It isn’t true that the planet is lost. We must work hard to preserve it.” So I am thinking that he along with so many other artists are trying to do just this.

If you are not familiar with his work, you should be. It is epic. He is well known for his Workers and Migration projects. He clearly photographs with his head and his heart and is one of the great photographers working today.


Going up the Serra Pelada mine, Brazil, 1986

Full view of the Serra Pelada gold mine, Brazil 1986

Gourma-Rharous, Mali 1985


Refugees in the Korem camp, Ethiopia, 1984

On Richard Olderman

Amazing work and amazing artist. Dick has been very influential in my taking up photography and pondering the state of the world.



"This small body of work, the grains of sand found on the beach at Little Talbot Island in Northeast Florida, keeps me mindful of Nature's reality. Here, worked upon by the wind, rain , sea and tides, the grains of sand ebb and flow in an exact manner to create such overwhelming beauty that I am guided back to my heart's desire.



In a civilized world of intentional brutality, one can easily lose what is most important about being alive. The necessary awareness of beauty and pleasure that should surround our days is there...constantly to be experienced. The moments of being a small part of this beauty, working with the possibilities it offers, is what I love to be doing. To have the good fortune to share what I have discovered completes the cycle.



Hopefully, you might be touched to discover your own location in the natural order of things. These images of sand are my evidence of two becoming one."

More of his work can be seen HERE.

“Reveries of a Solitary Walker” Rousseau

According to Rousseau,

"If there is a state where the soul can find a resting-place secure enough to establish itself and concentrate its entire being there, with no need to remember the past or reach into the future, where time is nothing to it, where the present runs on indefinitely but this duration goes unnoticed, with no sign of the passing of time, and no other feeling of deprivation or enjoyment, pleasure or pain, desire or fear than the simple feeling of existence, a feeling that fills our soul entirely, as long as this state lasts, we can call ourselves happy, not with a poor, incomplete and relative happiness such as we find in the pleasures of life, but with a sufficient, complete and perfect happiness which leaves no emptiness to be filled in the soul."

Reflections....again

Ah, not to be cut off,
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of the stars.
The inner-what is it?
If not intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep
with the winds of homecoming.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Reflections on The Modern Wing of The Art Institute Of Chicago

Spectacular is not a strong enough word to describe the new Renso Piano's addition of the Art Institute of Chicago.
It is totally awe inspiring! A must see. The building, the light, the space, the art ...you will be walking two feet off the ground after your visit and it is great excuse to drop in on the Windy City. Here are a few pix I took the other night...







Jeff Coons, Women in Tub, 1988




I was blown away by the very considered placement of the art. The marble sculpture of Jean Arp so beautifully compliments the Joan Miro painting.




So totally Chicago...

Aleksandar Hermon

Was reading the New York Times today and ran across an article about the writer, Aleksandar Hermon. The full article is HERE. I was really intrigued and went online to learn he was giving a reading in Chicago this afternoon. After planting a few tomato plants I headed down to the Book Cellar and heard Aldksandar Hermon read from his just released (today) book, Love and Obstacles.

I was blown away...

One of the many moving passages was from The Noble Truths of Suffering, short story, one in which the narrator is invited to meet a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Now I ask you, what creative person has not pondered the following...

"When he was young, like me, he said he used to think that all the great writers knew something he didn't. He thought that if he read their books they would teach him something, make him better; he thought he would acquire what they had: the wisdom, the truth, the wholeness, the real shit. He was burning to write, he wanted to break through to that fancy knowledge, he was hungry for it. But now he knew that that hunger was vainglorious; now he knew that writers knew nothing, really; most of them were just faking it. He knew nothing. There is nothing to know, nothing on the other side. There was no walker, no path, just walking. This was it, whoever you were, wherever you were, whatever it was, and you had to make peace with that fact....
"This?" I asked. "What is 'this'?"
"This. Everything."

Another reading in Chicago is tomorrow, Monday, May 18, 12:30 PM, Borders on State Street (150 N. State St.)

The Overwhelming ~ A Must See

If you saw Ruined (which travelled to NYC) and liked it, The Overwhelming presented by The Next Theater Company is a MUST. They just extended the show until May 30.

"With his tenure at risk, Professor Jack Exley uproots his family from Illinois to Rwanda on the eve of the genocide to interview a mysterious doctor about his AIDS treatment program. When the doctor vanishes without a trace, the family finds itself lost in sea of changing stories and shifting alliances. A hit in London in 2006 and off-Broadway in 2007, The Overwhelming is a potent, gripping drama about the challenges facing a progressive American in a foreign country on the brink of disaster."

It raised so many questions, thoughts and discussion. One of the better plays I have seen this year. So happy they extended it.

This is a two for one because opening tomorrow at the Noyes Cultural Art Center is the work of Chicago photographer, Ursula Sololowska. I have admired her work from afar and it was great to see it up close and personal.

Ursula Sokolowska, Untitled No. 32 ©2006

Ursula Sokolowska's Artist statement

"This work examines the trauma and uncertainty carried from childhood. In particular, I am referencing my own upbringing as a Polish immigrant. There is an undercurrent of helplessness and misdirection linked to a sort of schizophrenic parenting, excommunication, and constant movement. Typically, the perception of children handed down by my elders was that children did not have a choice. Frequently, I heard a Polish equivalent of the phrase “Children should be seen not heard”. I am attempting to give these children voices.

These photographs are projection-based installations. The models are mannequins and their faces are projections. The faces of the children are slides that my father took of me when he was still involved in my life. The other slides are present day images that I have shot of my mom, my dad, and myself. My goal is to reconstruct my own childhood, empowering the past for better or for worse. The result is a troubling recreation of events that may seem disturbing but are far less in context to the real events that transpired."

Ursula Sokolowska Untitled No. 65©2006