on Balance

Guggenheim Fellows 2013

The list just came out...
and guess what...Deborah Luster is one of the fellows!
It is well deserved....
Here are other photographers...

Photography

Scott Conarroe
Bruce Gilden
Sharon Harper
Michael Kolster
Deana Lawson
Deborah Luster
Christian Patterson
Gary Schneider
Mike Sinclair
Alec Soth
Valerio Spada 

Deborah Luster ~ Tooth for an Eye

One of the many pleasures of New Orleans is the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The photography curator and artist in his own right , Richard McCabe, has produced some stunning shows in the last few years. Most recently is the Tooth for an Eye : A Chorography of Violence in Orleans Parish by Deborah Luster. The exhibit took my breath away in its depth and breadth of handling the difficult and painful issue of violence in our cities. This is very important work and incredibly well done. 

Grid of Deborah's photographs at the Ogden

Gun violence is a subject that I once entertained exploring but did not have the stomach for it. As an alternative  I decided to start a blog to document daily shootings "In My Backyard."  After two days I had to stop as it was too disturbing to start my day knowing who died and where the most recent act of violence occurred. I am deeply grateful to Deborah for creating this body of work that so eloquently discusses a very dark side of the human condition.

In Deborah's words...

"With a homicide rate nearly ten times 

the national average, New Orleans stands today, as it did as far back as the 1850"s as the homicide capital of the United States." 

"TOOTH FOR AN EYE:A CHOROGRAPHY OF VIOLENCE IN ORLEANS PARISH is a project that attempts to take a very close look at something that no longer exists - an invisible population - in the only way in which one can approach such things, obliquely and through reference. The result is a photographic archive documenting contemporary and historical homicide sites in the city of New Orleans and is as well, an exploration of the empty, dizzying space at the core of violence."

"The images that populate the archive were collected with an 8x10 Deardorff field camera. The exposures in these photographs are long, and much of the action-mechanical, botanical, and human -is rendered as spectral blur, a physical representation of time like some isotropic fog, depth without defined dimension."

"Chorogrpahy is a form of geography that describes the inherent attributes of a place. These attributes may be physical, sociological, conceptual, metaphysical, or sensory. Tooth for an Eye not only documents sites where violence has occurred, it also finds itself documenting the city's physical loss as her unique material culture crumbles and transforms following generations of political failure. Many buildings that served as backgrounds for violent death have disappeared since they were photographed for this project."

 "In the atavistic culture of New Orleans, so alive with the historic, symbolic, and sensual, there exists a porousness between the worlds of the living and the dead, where time bends and flows, and neither world lives or dies free of the other's space or influence."

 These portholes have color video, one for family and one for friends...underlining the fact that many lives are at stake here,  not just those of the victims or the perpetrator.


You can check Deborah's website to see where else the work has been exhibited.
Deborah's book, Tooth for an Eye, is available on Amazon.

The Magic of New Orleans

I am just back from a full 10 days in New Orleans. The city never, ever fails to disappoint. Little did I know when I scheduled the trip that  St. Patricks day and Super Sunday would fall during that time. New Orleans is notorious for their masked parades and celebrations. Learning more about the Mardi Gras Indians and their long history was a gift. When I served in the Lower Ninth Ward post Katrina, I kept hearing how all the artifacts, costumes and traditions were "gone." I am happy to report the tradition is back in full force and quite spectacular.  

Wondering what this is all about?

Text  is provided byWikipedia...

Mardi Gras Indians are African-American Carnival revelers in New Orleans, Louisiana, who dress up for Mardi Gras and other special occasions in suits influenced by Native American ceremonial apparel.

 The idea of letting loose and embracing traditional African music and dance is a backbone of the Mardi Gras Indians practice.

Aside from Mardi Gras Day, the most significant day for the Mardi Gras Indians is their Super Sunday. The New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Council always has their Indian Sunday on the third Sunday of March, around St. Joseph's Day. 

Mardi Gras Indian suits cost thousands of dollars in materials alone and can weigh upwards of one hundred pounds. A suit usually takes between six to nine months to plan and complete.

  Each Indian designs and creates his own suit; elaborate bead patches depict meaningful and symbolic scenes. Beads, feathers, and sequins are integral parts of a Mardi Gras Indian suit. 

Collectively, their organizations are called "tribes". There are about 38 tribes. They range in size from a half dozen to several dozen members. The tribes are largely independent, but a pair of umbrella organizations loosely coordinate the Uptown Indians and the Downtown Indians.

If you want to learn more, check out The House of Dance and Feathers website, a cultural museum based on Ronald Lewis's participation in the culture of the Mardi Gras Indians and the keeper of the history.

                      

                           St. Joseph Altar 

 

Book Updates

I always try to plan for the expected...because it usually happens. This morning I hoped to make a dent into creating the unique encaustics that will be encased in the limited edition, artist made book,

BETWEEN

Fire/Smoke

 I was working away and the heat gun began to smoke and the coils on the inside turned an angry red...pretty scary. The studio smells like a burn but happily, I unplugged everything and found myself with time to update the blog.

I can hardly believe it is almost spring. The sun just came out after 4 days of grey, snowy, wintery days and it feels wonderful. One thing I love about living in Chicago is that nothing lasts forever, the seasons are in constant flux which keeps things interesting. 

 I have been spending the last 2-3 months preparing files for my upcoming book, The Burn. It will be published by Kehrer Verlag is will be released this coming fall. After great struggle, I finally decided to write the book  essay with the help of many eyes and ears. It was a true collaboration.

 Natasha Egan of the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago helped me to sequence the work. Her first question was ..."what would you like the first and last photograph to be?"
Everything else fell into place after that. It was an amazing process to see how her keen eye could sort thru 60 some photographs and restore order and grace to the work.

 Walker Blackwell of Latitude ran some proof prints for me. Once the final design decisions are made, he will make another set to send to the publisher for color corrections. I turned all the proofs and text over to  Renata Graw and Jeremiah Chiu of  Plural, a design firm in Chicago. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

 And now I am focusing on a very exciting new venture, creating a limited edition handmade artist book with interdisciplinary book and paper artist, Teresa Pankratz. Teresa has created an amazing structure and design for this book, which is really more like an art object. It  is pure poetry.
I am really thrilled with being able to make / create this with her and look forward to the actually assembly of the book.  The unveiling will be this coming May 17th...stay tuned.

 All of art making is a labor of love and I feel so luck to be in the throws of the creative process.

Chris Jordan ~ Midway ~ a love story for our time from the heart of the Pacific

MIDWAY : trailer : a film by Chris Jordan from Midway on Vimeo.

......Across an Ocean of Grief

On Being "Original"

..."newness" or originality are often matters of subtle degree. The new doesn't have to be an epoch-shifting breakthrough. Just as we all have different fingerprints and handwriting, we all have a potential for some increment of originality. I am always on the lookout for a spark of necessity — a feeling that this particular artist had no choice but to make this particular artwork this particular way. That is the only way authenticity or even originality can start to emerge.”                     Roberta Smith 9/28/08