Intelligentsia

Today I dropped off a bunch of prints at The Millennium Park Intelligentsia Coffee Bar. They should be hung tomorrow and be ready for viewing by Thursday. If you're in Chicago in the coming weeks, go to Millennium Park to see the famous, multi-billion dollar artwork and then stop in at Intelligentsia to have some coffee and look at some of my hundred dollar crap.

Yeller

Polaroid film is no longer available. This pack expired in 2002. I don't know what is really happening here. I started fooling around with color correcting some of these pics. It is kind of amazing how much detail is hidden behind the bad developing.

View Finding

Last weekend's View Finding workshop was nice and laid back. Seven people showed up with vintage cameras, ready to point a digital camera through them. Today I edited, formatted and printed two photos from each participant. Tomorrow those prints are headed to Ireland where they will be included in John Baucher's TTV exhibition. The rest of the photos are available for viewing right now on Feed's flickr stream. All in all it was a nice, fun, easy project and I hope to be able to do it again for next year's World TTV Day.

Saturday. In the Park

Today started out with a trip to the farmers market to listen to The Oak Street Ramblers play some bluegrass. Then I cruised over to Perry Farm for the View Finding event. I guess there were about seven of us wandering around the park carrying conspicuous photographic contraptions by the end of the afternoon. There were a bunch of people at the park racing dogs, so that was interesting. Pictures from all the participants will be showing up over the next few days. There are already some good ones posted.

After that I visited with Jeanie for a couple of hours before heading up to GSU to attend the gallery reception for the Brainstorm Exhibit. I didn't win any prizes but Michael took second place as well as selling both of his pieces. A few minutes ago I realized that I haven't had anything to drink all day.

Salt

While preparing for tomorrow's View Finding event, I took this shot through the viewfinder of an old Bronica S2A. The weather is supposed to be pretty nice tomorrow so drop by Perry Farm around noon if you want to join in on the fun.

The Last Post Ever

This should probably be the last time I'm mentioning these prints. I finished cutting them down to size and my corner rounder came in the mail today so I used that on all of them too. Then I stamped the lower right corner with this cool self-inking, automatic numbering machine that I bought when Office Depot was going out of business. The final edition came out at 71 which is a pretty weird number. 55 of those print are headed off to Australia tomorrow. That leaves 16. I'm not sure if anyone would want a tiny little picture of me, but I'll happily sell them for $5 each.

Black

Four posts in a row about this stupid print and it isn't even done yet. I didn't finish the whole edition yet, but I did print enough of the last two colors to see what the finished print looks like. I think its pretty cool and, if done on a larger scale, it should look a lot more hi-def. Once everything is printed on this little print, I'm going to round off the corners and send the edition off to Australia for an exhibition and print exchange. I guess the theme of the project is supposed to be "travel." I'm not really into themes.

Blue

I finished off the rest of the red layers today (I only misregistered two prints out of 80 which seems like a pretty good ratio) and then I got to work on printing the blue layer. The process seems to be working. Once the black layer goes on hopefully everything will come together. I think I might try doing something similar on a larger canvas. Did I mention how small these are? They are only the size of a playing card, so about 2.5" x 3.5".

Red and Yellow

I finished carving my four linoleum blocks on Friday and began printing today. (Saturday was filled up with a Feed event and my Mom's birthday.) I finished printing the yellow layer on about eighty of these and just started on the red layer. So far, I think it is working out ok. You can already begin to see how the mixing colors is making a face come through, especially if you squint or look from kind of far away.

Battleship

I've spent the last couple of days thinking about doing a print for this Australian card exchange. Today I started carving on these linoleum blocks. The finished print is going to be a pseudo-CMYK self portrait done entirely by hand. I'm not sure if the process is going to work or not so hopefully the results will at least be interesting. We'll see.

Internationality

John Baucher (Flickr's Moochin Photoman) has been working on a collection of portraits captured through the viewfinder of his Anscoflex II for years. The photo presented here is of Martin McAuley, the youngest person ever to run for elected office in Ireland, with his team of supporters.

Next month John is presenting an exhibition of his photography in Belfast as a part of the Trans Festival in Northern Ireland. He is graciously providing one wall of his show to be used for displaying photographs submitted by TTV enthusiasts from around the globe. I have been given the OK to send some photos from my upcoming View Finding workshop. So anyone that participates in the workshop will not only have a great time, but will also have the opportunity to be in a show in Ireland, and earn the right to call him or herself and internationally exhibiting artist.

Milwaukee's Best

Two days in a row, two lists of artists. Toward the end of next month I'll be showing three prints in one of the many art exhibits included as part of the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival. This particular show, remarkably titled PRINT, will feature the work of Chicago area printmakers:
Carlos Barberena, Christopher Clark, Eric Coleman, Dan Estep, Daniel Falco, Daniel Fleming, Jennifer Hines, Ellen Holtzblatt, Sarah Kaiser (pictured above), Geri Katopodis, Tracy Kostenbader, Patrick Landeck, Esther Mar, Laura Moeller, J. Barlow Nelson, Michelle Nordmeyer, Lloyd Patterson Jr., Thomas Plum, Pete Rangel, and Julie Sulzen

When I get more info on the exact date and location I'll post it right up.

Brainstorm

I was going to update an old post with this info, but since activity has been low around here lately, I figured a new post would be welcome. Here's the info on a show I'm exhibiting in right now:

“A Whole New Mind 2010 BRAINSTORM”. The exhibit runs from May 24 to June 24 in the Visual Arts Gallery at GSU.
Reception: Saturday, June 19, 2010, 5-7 p.m. The gallery is located on the campus of Governors State University at 1 University Parkway, University Park, Illinois.

Here's a list of all the participating artists:
Mario Alberico, Jason Brammer, Vince Carl, Roberto Castro, Christopher Clark, Randy Clark, Michael Costanza, Liz Farnesi, Robert Fields, Kate Friedman, Walter Fydryck, Michael Golan, Julian Gordon, Alan Hobscheid, Annie Hogan, Jeffrey Hirst, Diane Huff, Hugh Jones, Stephanie Kirk, Jeff Kolak, Irina Koukanova, Debra LePage, Harold Lohner, Lorna Fillippini-Mulliken, Jennifer MacLean, Pamela Markman, Keelan McMorrow, Michael Merry, Susan Mulder, Shea Naer, Renee Klyczek Nordstrom, Chun Hui Pak, Paul Rinaldi, Dennis Salaty, Brandon Sanderson, Richard Shipps, Camille Silverman, Michael E. Smith, Sam Smith, Margie Glass-Sula, Patricia Wallace, Erin Waser, Adam White, and John Zilewicz.

The 19th is going to be a long day. Oak Street Ramblers at the farmers market in the morning. View Finding workshop in the afternoon. Then this reception in the evening.

One Block Radius

Room with a Viewfinder

In preparation for the upcoming View Finding Workshop I'll be hosting on June 19th, I put together a new TTV rig. I'm not sure if the images it makes count as actual "Through the Viewfinder" pictures because I've used the condenser assembly from an old Durst M600 film photo enlarger in lieu of a bottom camera. The results are pretty much the same, though this setup has a short depth of field when compared to the Duaflex contraption I've used in the past.

Just to test the rig out I quickly shot the image below. Dead center is the newest addition to my camera collection, a Yashica-44. I have a few rolls of vintage 127 film that I'm going to run through it soon. On the right is the Duaflex IV mentioned above. Over to the left is an Argus "brick" that I've never used because the rangefinder is out of whack and behind that is the top of an Anscoflex II. Way in the back is a Super Speed Graphic that I've only used for 4"x5" paper negatives.

I'm going to try to get out and do a bunch of practicing with this rig over the next couple of weeks so that I'll be ready for the 19th. That workshop is going to be pretty informal and totally free so come by and check it out. If you can't find a suitable bottom camera, I'll have three or four on hand.