Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The Curator's Choice

Photographer, Carey Primeau recently started a photo blog on which he posts one image from Flickr each day. Today he was kind enough to choose one of my pictures. This is a shot from inside the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield Illinois. I had been traveling around the state searching out images for my Land of Lincoln project. The last stop on my tour was Springfield which is (obviously) filled with Lincoln imagery. I was checking out Lincoln's Home and the restored, surrounding neighborhood with my sister, Cassie, when she pointed out this pair of women and dared me to take their photo. At the time I was only carrying my TTR duaflex camera which shoots extremely wide angle shots so, despite my best efforts, I wasn't really able to get a satisfactory picture of the ladies. About two hours later, and a few miles away, we were being harassed by some guy at the museum trying to sell us a season pass or something, when Cassie pointed over my shoulder. I turned and saw the ladies again. We had accidentally been stalking them. Luckily I'd now started carrying my second camera and had just enough time to snap off this one shot. Later a security guard tried to kick us out of the museum, claiming I was taking pictures of their copyright protected exhibits. In fact, I only took pictures in the areas where the docent said it was allowed.

Anyway, my thanks to Cassie and to Carey. Hopefully I'll make it onto his site again sometime.

Monday, December 29, 2008

04-18-95

I've been wanting to show off this terrific portrait of me from 1995, so here it is. I clearly remember being in the air with bended knees, not quite seated yet, when the "photographer" snapped the picture. I tried to protest but she wouldn't have any of it. Later, when the license popped out of the machine, I was satisfied, even with the crooked grin on my face. I absolutely can't remember ever owning those glasses, but man that hair is memorable for sure. It was the one day of my life when my hair was awesome. I've been striving to get it to look exactly like this again ever since.
driver

Too Risky? Too Adult?

Too Risky? Too Adult?The old insomnia kicked in this morning at around 5:30 so I just got up and did some work on this guy. I fell asleep again around 10:00 and didn't get up until after 2:00 p.m. Now my carefully cultivated sleep schedule is going to be totally screwed up.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Big Sale

Tonight I went out for a little while to test my camera's low light shooting capabilities. When driving around, I've been keeping a mental list of good looking things that deserve to have their pictures taken. I hit them tonight. One of the locations was a tiny, little tree on the corner with a streetlight shining down upon it. I went there to shoot it but then I remembered that the last time I looked at it was the day before daylight savings (in October back when trees still had leaves on them.) Tonight it looked lonely and boring and it had a huge, ugly squirrel's nest right in the middle of it. Anyway, I still managed to get these two shots that I'm pretty happy about. The first is one of the suddenly ubiquitous blank and/or shredded billboards that seem to be popping up everywhere and the other is the controversial, local adult clothing store, Slightly Sinful.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Evolving Artists

Beverly Arts CenterEvolving Artists Group Exhibit
Dec 30-Jan 30
Beverly Arts Center
2407 W. 111th St.
Chicago IL 60655
M-F 9am-9pm. Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 12-8pm

Opening Reception:
January 9, 7-9pm
Live Music by The Sam Sinclair Trio. Awards given at 8pm by judges Cathie Ruggie Saunders and Gabriel Akagawa.

Participating Artists:
John Ahrens, Alan Salabert, Alonso Balderas, Jo Beaudreau, Christopher Clark, Matthew Coglianese, Michael Costanza, Jo Craig, Chris Gans, Michael Grimm, Takiya Harris, Rebecca Healy, Rachel Hewitt, Brent Houzenga, Candice Insalaco, Hyun Ja Shin, Jake Jarodsky, Sarah Kaiser, Lauren Karrenberg, Laura Kleinhenz, Magdalena Kolodziej, Kevin Leonard, Kathryn Lett, Karen Light, Chris Matusek, Brendan McAlinden, Laura Milkert, Raymond Miranda, Tressa O'Brien, Colin O'Malley, Danail Ochkov, Sarah Ogren, J. Thomas Pallas, Gabriel Patti, Laura Rogers, Lisa Salamendra, Lindsay Sandbothe, Melissa Scaefer, Bridget Scales, Jill Signorelli, Jessica Van Swol, and Jorie Wilkinson

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The Plague of Doves

the plague of dovesI started mixing water color paint into matte medium and layering it over the collaged paper elements. I like the effect and expect to continue using it in future projects.

This is the first panel collage which started out with a title already in mind. Jessica gave me an old card from a library catalog and suggested using it for the title. I hope she likes the results. Either way I'm making her keep it.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Kuba

It looks like my first official job as operator of the Visual Arts Gallery at GSU will be hanging this exhibition of artwork from the Kuba Kingdom. It is a little bit daunting since all of the masks, beadwork and other artifacts will be on loan from private collectors and may be quite valuable. Here's hoping I don't smash anything up. Even though I'm not officially on the payroll yet, I was asked to put together a very basic website for the show. Check it out and maybe I'll see you at the reception.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Happy Birthday

After dropping our work off at the Beverly Arts Center yesterday, Jessica and I spent the day with Jason and Rachel celebrating Jason's birthday. I gave Jason one of my panel collages and Jessica brought a tiny little, paper-thin bowl that she made with a nice plum-colored, striated glaze. Later we had dinner at Yats with Foul Mouthed Tommy and a bunch of Jason's friends from the Shedd Aquarium.

I should have spent the day today cleaning and doing laundry but, instead, have been alternating between collaging, surfing the web and watching John Adams. Its 6:00pm and I haven't even had a shower yet.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Let's Hang Out

plywood panel collageMost of my time recently has been spent happily playing online trivia quizzes. But then I've also been trying to get some stuff together for a show at the Beverly Arts Center. I've been struggling with developing a good, easy hanging method that wouldn't cause Beverly too much trouble. Its a problem because the projects they accepted are made up of multiple panels which must be hung perfectly straight in relation to one another. I had a solution that would probably work but was going to take me forever to put together and might have been too confusing for Beverly's hangers. Just as I was about to get to work on it, Jessica popped in with a "Why don't you just do this....." and a shake of her head at how stupid I was for not thinking of her perfectly elegant, foolproof solution. So that's what I've been working on. Today I need to write up those hanging instructions. and then tomorrow, we'll drop off my work and Jessica's. I'll write more about the show, and invite you to the opening, when I get a little more information.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Mr. Cough, I Am Bored of You

Mr. CoughI'm calling this done for now but, unless somebody with an outside perspective tells me it looks finished, I think there is a good chance it will continue to get updated sometime in the future.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Last of the Barry Gold Waters

Even though I haven't posted in a couple of days, you shouldn't assume that I haven't been doing anything productive. One day I watched Babe: Pig in the City with Jessica. Another day I went to an art opening with Jessica. Sometime in there I went to Denny's with Jessica. All of those days also included some working on projects. I just didn't get anything finished enough to post about.

Today however, I have a scan of a print to show you. I've been doing some experimenting with this waterless lithographic technique and, though I haven't perfected the method, I was able to get a couple of halfway decent prints. After the litho, I layered on one of my patented ink jet transfers. In retrospect this print is kind of ugly but, whatever man, Proof of Concept.Barry Goldwater

Thursday, December 11, 2008

All the People I Know

Fisher Price Creative Effects Fun PhotomakerYesterday I christened my new Fisher Price Creative Effects Fun Photomaker by forcing a handful of mostly unwilling people to model for me. Of the six people pictured, one is me and one is someone I'll probably never see again. So I really only know four people.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Swet Fmily Nacked

America's SonIt should be known that the website you are visiting right now, my website, is currently the top result when googling the term "swet fmily nacked". It feels good to be the best.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

I'm Froze and I Feel Asleep

detail of nixon collageAfter getting kicked out of the studio today, I should have taken the opportunity to do some laundry and maybe vacuum or something. Instead I sat around doing nothing but feeling tired and cold. In the end I did a little work on this collage, trying to incorporate some elements from my printmaking. You can see some tiled nixons in the detail at left. I ate at Subway again.

Monday, December 8, 2008

No Fumar

A fire reportedly knocked out the electricity so today's open critique has been canceled. I'm doubtful that anyone was coming anyway. It is being rescheduled but I've lost interest now. If you want to see the work give me a call anytime before December 23rd and I'll go look at it with you. Or just look at the picture in yesterday's post.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Mur de la Honte

wall of shameHere's what most of my stuff looks like hung for tomorrow's critique. On the opposite wall I have a collection of collages but I didn't bother to shoot a picture of them because the awfulness of the wall seemed to be (unlike the wall above) beyond my photoshop skills to repair. If you have time, come by tomorrow evening, or anytime during the week. Or just call me, I'm desperate for some human interaction.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Another Good One (Featuring Donkey's Milk)

Here's everything that happened today: Meet up at 11:00am. Head up to art exhibition/sale which (not surprisingly) wasn't open yet. Go to Renegade Craft Fair instead (shop til you drop + speaking to strangers). I wanted to see Mucca Pazza, but didn't want to wait 1.5 hours. Head back to art sale and buy nothing. It's still early so let's go see the Leaning Tower of Niles (the Pisa of the Midwest), a longish drive but, in my opinion, totally worth it (partly because it gave Jessica time to fix my glove/velcro dilemma). Dinner at Baja Fresh: relatively successful despite the fish taco decision. Unique Thrift Store and 50% off a pack of photocopier transparencies. Post-Unique hand washing at the Colonel of Chicken. Close the evening with Donkey's Milk. I'll be back to work tomorrow daydreaming about leaning towers. 6300 Touhy Avenue, Niles, IL. Comments are welcome.

The Best Day Ever

This edition is pretty much finished. In the end I think I have about twenty-eight that I'm happy with. There are about twenty more with slightly misaligned registration that I need to go through and decide which are ok enough to keep and which are getting cut and folded into ridiculous, tiny envelopes. Another twelve, separating the individual printed layers, were set aside for a project I'll get around to describing in a later post, maybe sometime in January.

Anyway, the day seemed pretty productive despite the fact that I took several hour off to hang around at an art reception. This guy, Tim Ryan, was having a solo show as a finish to his graduate studies. The energy in the gallery was high, mostly because Tim's paintings are great and he was selling them for super low prices. I bought one myself for the low, low price of only $30 American. Maybe I'll get a picture of it next week. If you happen to be in or around University Park Monday-Thursday 11:00-4:00 you should stop in at GSU and check it out. It'll be coming down on December 15th so hop to it.

Friday, December 5, 2008

A Small Victory

Stashed away under a bunch of other projects, I found this series of cyanotypes I put together about six months ago. I guess that wasn't so long ago, but now I can't really remember what I was thinking about when I made them. The whole thing seems a little misogynistic, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point. Hurray for ladies! Take a closer look at each portrait to reveal the depth of my condescension.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Zee Works

Action is still progressing on this 20x20 inch collage despite the fact that I spent most of the day designing a trifold prospectus for an upcoming community college art show, helping people with their lithography projects amidst the mess of a studio heating system installation, and devising and constructing an adjustable system for pouring plaster slabs. None of these projects helped me to get any of my own work done. I think I'm heading into the studio early tomorrow in an attempt to get some personal work in motion when there might be fewer demands on my attention. Right now I have three major projects that I want to have finished before next Monday's pseudo-show. A Delicate Balance which just needs some sanding and painting of the light boxes: Slow and Steady needs five more layers of color screen printed, which I could probably get done in one day with no distractions; and then Goldwater, a waterless lithography project which worked pretty well as a proof of concept. It is really only one printed color with an inkjet transfer over the top, so it might go quickly.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Lozenge

Here's a detail of the collage I'm working on now. Thanks to some extremely harsh criticism of the small size of my previous collages, this one is going to be a relatively gigantic twenty inches square. If you look in the lower left corner you'll notice the leftovers from my recent (and ongoing) sickness.