Slideluck

Back in October I participated in a Slideluck Potshow event in Chicago's Wicker Park. Photographers' created slide shows to be projected for an audience to view. The organization's website has recently been updated to include all of the slide shows from recent events. My show can be found at the Chicago III section. I recycled the title and one or two of the photos for my graduate thesis show.

Stacked

Yesterday's Rock the Stacks event was alright. Michael sold a few things. I sold a little less, but I did get to promote Feed's TTV workshop and a lot of people seemed really interested in coming. We also got to hear some good music and talk to both bands and vendors about coming to the Merchant Street Music Fest that we are helping to organize in August. Right now I'm heading up north to take down my thesis show and help with the next hanging.

Thanks Everybody

Here's a list of people that I want to thanks for coming to my reception tonight. This is off the top of my head, so if you aren't on the list I want to thank you too but it has been a long day and I may not remember all of it very clearly: Mike Chandler, Jon, Jaclyn, Barbara Hogu, Diana Lynch, Patty McWilliams, Becki Moffet-Moore and Dave, Sharon Burrink and her Mom, Tiffany Gholar, Sarah Ogren, Jeff Stevenson and Ross, and their friend that I never actually met, Mike Diggs, Don Rocker, Brenda Farris, Geoffry Bates, Diego and Josie who I love and wish I had talked to more, Cindy Van Swol, Jessica Van Swol who I also love and hope didn't feel ignored, Jen Van Swol and Ben, Rhiannon Sallas, Kristina Schmidt, Michael, Kelly and Emmet, Mike Smith and his son whose name I'm forgetting (sorry dude) and his wife (who didn't come to the show but who did very generously send cookies and whose name I forget too), Carrie and Spencer and Westley, Margie Glass-Sula, Pat Nadler, Chelise and Jerry Slowik and the boys, Matt and Wendy and Justin and Mary LeRoy, Mark Foltynewicz, my whole family including Jean Taylor, Mary and Bill Clark, Scott Clark, Dan Clark, Tracy Harwell and Taryn Harwell, plus my niece Lyndsay who came last weekend with sister Cassie and Ryan, Heather Page, Janet Engel, Dave Gribbons whose address I was able to look up thanks to the power of the internet, the two ladies who talked with me about Hopkins Park, and Matt Letasky who I ran into in the parking lot of Gracie's Lucky Burrito Number Two and who I just noticed signed my guestbook earlier in the week when I wasn't around. Thanks for coming and looking at my show dude. That means a lot to me.

I especially want to thank the people who've who've helped me the most over the last few years: Heather Page, Carrie Ohm, Jeff Stevenson, Javier Chavira, Bastien Defriches-Doria, Jessica Van Swol, and Michael Costanza.

A Whole New Brushroll

I haven't been producing a lot of new work lately since I'm wrapping up my big show. Tomorrow night is the reception so I hope to see you there. Today, besides cleaning up around the house, I got the promo cards for the View Finding workshop I'm doing in mid June. And Michael, with support from local hero Bill Yohnka, managed to secure the Library for a screening of This Is What Democracy Looks Like. Saturday, Micheal and I are going to be representing Feed at the second annual Rock the Stacks concert at the Kankakee Public Library.

Then on Sunday I'll be taking down my show, after which I'll probably help hang the big juried Brainstorm show that Jeff Stevenson organized for the GSU gallery. So far, the list of people that I know for sure were accepted into that show are: Jason Brammer, Roberto Castro, Michael Costanza, Liz Farnesi, Julian Gordon, Annie Hogan, Hugh Jones, Jeff Kolak, Debra LePage, Lorna Fillippini-Mulliken, Shea Naer, Paul Rinaldi, Richard Shipps, Michael E. Smith, Margie Glass-Sula, Erin Waser, and John Zilewicz. When I find out more of the exhibiting artists I'll add them to the list. The jurors for the show are Chicago gallerist and photographer, Susan Aurinko and MCA Associate Curator, Tricia Van Eck. After that show is over, as far as I know, I won't have any real reason to go back into that building ever again. Right now I'm going to get back to cleaning even though I broke my vacuum and had to order a whole new brushroll so I can fix it.

P.S. I'm posting another picture that I took last summer and never used for anything.

Mish Mashter

Today, my sister Cassie and her boyfriend Ryan came with my niece Lyndsay for a preview of my show at GSU. We hung out there for a while and then headed outside to walk around the sculpture park for a while. It was a beautiful day.
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Later, I learned the date for the 2010 Worldwide Through-the-Viewfinder Photography Day is June 19th so I decided that TTV would be a good, simple, free workshop to do with Feed now that I'm finished with the thesis prints that have been keeping me so busy lately. This TTV workshop and another event Michael is planning will be Feed's resurrection after a few months of relative inactivity. Michael's event has something to do with Stefen Robinson, social anarchy and Noam Chomsky but I'm not really sure of the details. I think it will be at the Kankakee Library though, and may involve a film screening.

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The other night I posted a new show at Captive Werewolf, so you should check that out. It consists of a series of drawings by Andrew Smith from the United Kingdom, near Oxford. I think the next show will be a selfish one, showing off a few of my own prints. But after that, it will be back to business as usual, so if you want to be considered for exhibition on the site, let me know.

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Submissions have been coming in for the Littlest Print Exchange. We've got about thirteen confirmed participants now, mostly those coming back from last year. As with Captive Werewolf, if you'd like to be considered for inclusion, check out the blog for guidelines and send in a portfolio.

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I don't have any pictures at all related to the topics above so I'm including a picture I took at the county fair last summer. If it was at all in focus, It would probably be the best picture I've ever taken. In my defense, the setting was under a dark tent and I has a slow film in my camera, maybe 100 speed. This forced the usage of a large lens aperture, which means shallow depth of field. Since I was shooting candid pics quickly and casually, I didn't have time to focus precisely, so I just estimated distance and shot away. Anyway, even if I had the time to properly focus, my ancient Bronica has a focusing screen which is most likely out of whack.

The Weekender

Today I patched up the walls and hit the spackle with a little paint to clean the gallery up a little bit. I called Facilities Management yesterday asking for someone to vacuum and it still isn't done. They have union rules about who can do it, but if no one has vacuumed by tomorrow I'm going to do it myself. After painting, I took some time to shoot a few pictures of the space with my work in it. I've photographed a lot of other people's shows here in the past, but it felt weird to do it for myself. The place looks pretty good in pictures, especially the ceiling. I'll be back again tomorrow and Sunday just to keep the doors open in case anybody wants to get in.

Open for Biznazz

I spent the afternoon hanging my show. The whole thing took around three hours. My camera battery went dead after about two hours. Sorry. The preceding show came down a little early so I was given the opportunity to go up a little early. I'm going to have the gallery open this weekend so come on by, check out the show and, more importantly, keep me company.

Another Mother

I picked up the last batch of mat boards from Jerry at Frame World today. I guess I could have cut them myself, but Jerry has the right tools and the practice needed to do it right. Plus he's a new business owner and could probably use the patronage. I wouldn't have saved that much money doing it myself anyway. So after that, I spent most of the rest of the day putting frames together. The other night I was having a lot of trouble with specks of dirt inside the glass. After cleaning up my workspace and vacuuming two or three times, dust on the glass really hasn't been much of a problem. I think I'll have all of the frames finished tomorrow and ready to hang for my show next weekend. I think I might want to go back to the store for some smaller frames sometime this week. Right now I'm going to get back to framing.

Print Day in May

So, I snuck into the print studio at GSU yesterday even though I'm officially done there. I just had one more print I wanted to get finished before I moved on. I also wanted to take part in the International Print Day in May event. I got in around noon and, over the course of only six hours, I coated and burned ten screens, printed an edition of 14 prints, and cleared all those stencils off. This was a serious marathon session for me. In the past, finishing a complete edition of ten color prints took closer to twelve hours. I guess the time constraint was good for me. My back was killing me by the end though.

I was trying to put together a video documenting the complete process, but someone else came in to print and I started to feel self conscious about taping myself. Photos on Flickr are going to have to suffice. Today I'm trimming down prints, cleaning them up and, finally, adding signatures and numbers. Later this week I'll start doing some framing for my show opening on the 17th.

Photo Not Available

Tomorrow is International Print Day. Like Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, the intention of print day is to get people around the world working separately together. I'm going to sneak into the print studio for what will probably be my last weekend of printing there. I'm going to take a few pictures and maybe shoot some video throughout the day. After this, I need to get equipped to do some work at home. I've been avoiding setting up a workspace here, adding more mess to what is already a pretty messy situation.

Just in time for the Print Day, I've announced the 2010 version of the Littlest Print Exchange. The prints are going to be even smaller than last year. This time I've proposed a theme based around the concept of the cliché, which I just found out is a word, like "stereotype", taken from the world of printmaking. In print terms, a cliché is the french word for a printing plate cast from movable type. Over multiple printings the plate wears away and, ultimately, it becomes unusable.

I also posted a new show at Captive Werewolf.