Be the Bread

Fiber Optic Spook— Boise, ID

October 9, 2009

I asked my four year old neighbor what I she was going to be for Halloween.

She shrugged her shoulders.

So I asked her what I should be for Halloween.

"A piece of bread!" she said with great exuberance, rocking forward on her toes and clapping her hands together.

A piece of bread. . . that's the best costume idea I've heard in some time.

The Whispers of Michelle Ross

Small Wild Things gets its due this month with not one, but two, venues featuring this collaborative project orchestrated by Michelle Ross. If you're a fan of Tantric paintings, Walter Benjamin, or adults co-opting the games of children then I invite you to take some time and visit these exhibitions.

Homage (November 3 - December 7, 2008)

The Art Gym @ Marylhurst University, BP John Administration Building

17600 Pacific Highway, Marylhurst, OR 97036-0261

Tuesday - Sunday, Noon - 4pm

Preview Reception: Sunday, November 2, 3 - 5pm

Gallery Talk: Tuesday, November 18, Noon

* * * * * 

Small Wild Things (November 6 - November 29, 2008)

Nine Gallery

1231 NW Hoyt Street, Portland, OR 97209-3021

Tuesday - Saturday, Noon - 5pm

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 6, 6 - 9pm

While I have much to say about this project (having seen it in its entirety earlier this summer) I will put off any further commentary (for now) and simply encourage you to come and experience it for yourself.

The Director Directs

Tomorrow may, or may not, wrap up filming for the short film I've been producing with The Company. Last weekend was derailed by a tooth extraction  that was in no way exacerbated by our director's recent flirtation with cigarettes. Don't smoke kids— cigarette smoke eats molars.

* * * * *

I've served as cinematographer for this outing, which is a fancy way of saying I've held a relatively heavy camera for very long periods of time while draping myself over cubicle walls or pressing my body into stucco corners. The Director fancies the exceedingly long takes. When I say long I mean takes so long that they potentially border on the uncomfortable for the audience. Relentless monotony isn't the objective of every take, but used sparingly, it may prove to be a very effective way of conveying the indistinct personality of the lead character. 

I must confess that I find it odd to serve as a conduit for someone else's vision on this project. I've spent so many years working alone on my artwork that it has required some readjustment on my part to not be the peanut gallery every time I hear the word, "Cut." 

At the same time I find it strangely liberating to not be the person controlling the final vision. I power up the equipment, check the settings, point and shoot. In some ways it is akin to my relationship with pinhole photography— I can't really control the outcome so faith is the only confidence I can hold. In this instance my faith rests with my friends, with the script, and with the actors. 

* * * * *

My wife has often pointed out that film is a communal art form. It is inclusive because it is impossible to realize alone, and perhaps this contributes subtly to the magic film works over our culture. We must labor together to create it, and then we choose to sit in a darkened theater for two hours and share in the viewing experience with a broader public. Stories are projected onto a screen so that they might add another perspective, another sorrow, another joy to the chronicle of our own lives. Story telling may be one of the few constants in the history of mankind and the moving image shows no sign of relinquishing its century-long domination of our narrative landscape. 

In two hundred years art history texts aren't going to be extolling our contemporary painters with nearly the same vigor that they'll be studying the cultural relevance of James Cameron or the cut-and-paste narratives of Quentin Tarantino. 

Knowing this has made me seriously consider the frequency with which I should be putting down the gesso to pick up the video camera.

Fine Arts

Fine Arts is the working title for the short film that the Company has opted to shoot this month. After an initial foray into the woods (literally and metaphorically) over the summer we learned a few valuable lessons about undertaking the production of a full length movie. First and foremost we gleaned that shooting a full length movie would make more sense after shooting a few shorter films. We also realized that striped shirts filmed through gently rocking steady cams yield footage that can only be viewed after throwing back a few Dramamine. 

So while there was an initial deflation of spirit around our cinematic endeavors following the weekend in the woods, The Company has come surging back with a lovely little character study that requires very few moving shots, very few locations, very few props, and very few actors. While this may sound like we're caving a bit, the truth is that the film promises to be better for the limitations because no detail can escape our attention. The entire production can be methodically considered, and as four out of four Company members are known for their own particular brand of perfectionism, it's safe to say that we can manage being methodical. In fact, the scale of this film compliments the scale of The Company itself, and we could easily manage it without much outside help if we had to— luckily, help is one thing that we've got in spades it seems. 

You see, we had our pick of actors from a collection of talent pooled by a local casting agency. A bit of cash was gifted to help feed the aforementioned actors. Our musician is still on board for the score. Friends and coworkers have offered to help on their very precious weekends. Why are the Fates suddenly so kind? Well, many a person I know would state that the tide has turned in our favor because this is intrinsically the right project for us to be undertaking now. Others might be more callous and chock it up to the right connections coupled with the audacity to ask for assistance. Whatever the reasons, it feels good to be underway.

The curious can grab the first few pages of the script over at I'm Not Arguing That With You (check the sidebar on the right-hand side of the blog).

The Week

GERALD FIGAL ON FLICKR

I ran across this image the other night on Flickr. It was part of a collection of pictures taken in the Edo-Tokyo museum by Gerald Figal and his images served as a catalyst for me to consider my own fascination with the conceptual implications of the miniature in contemporary art. More to come on this topic at a later date.

THE WORKS OF CLAUDIA ANGELMAIER IN APERTURE MAGAZINE

The lastest issue of Aperture features an article about the reproductive artworks of German photographer Claudia Angelmaier. Her meticulously composed collections of open books turned to the same reproduction of a famous art work succeed on a number of levels: they comment on the fallibility of mechanical reproduction, critique the experience of educating through second-hand experience, continue the post-modern preoccupation with originality born of mimicry, and manage to reference the sparse spirituality of Modernist abstraction. While the addition of the replicated artworks contributes a greater conceptual depth to her work, the photographic compositions that feature only obsessive compositions of white space and colored lines are no less beautiful for their minimalism.

THE FIRST UNVEILING OF SMALL WILD THINGS (SWT)

Last year's artistic collaboration was laid out in its entirety for me this week on the floor of the new Disjecta exhibition space. This sparked an intriguing dialogue about: the longevity of hierarchical relationships, color aversion, classifying artistic "style," breaking and obeying imperatives, the totalitarian grid, and the spiritual implications of reproduction. 

BIG SPACESHIP PROFILE ON LYNDA.COM

With two gaping holes left in my skull from the extraction of pesky wisdom teeth my energy level hit negative numbers and I sought interludes of distraction from the pain at lynda.com. This website is an absolutely fantastic software tutorial site that, for a monthly fee, walks you step-by-step through the intricacies of most major software programs available today. It has been indispensable to me as a graphic design student. Until yesterday, I had limited my viewing to movies related to programs that were stumping me, and not bothered to delve into the interviews and exposes of well regarded companies/individuals. 

Big Spaceship has been a company reverently referred to since my first day in PNCA's graphic design certificate program. The major player in the field of new media, or interactive media, or integrated design, or whatever moniker of the moment that connotes a mixture of web, film, graphic design, and information design. There's no doubting that they are very, very, good at what they do and, while it's light on specifics, the lynda.com expose of Big Spaceship does give a general sense of the culture and structure of the company.

Sadly, without a subscription you can only watch the three introductory videos, which are heavy on the fluff, but you can follow links to some of Big Spaceship's more notable projects and see what all the fuss is about.

Small Wild Things

Copying other artworks is part of any trained artist’s education. I’m not sure if the primary objective of mimicry is to sharpen your own handling of traditional art materials or to instill a crushing respect for all the greats who’ll forever outshine you on the pages of history. I suppose it hardly matters; either way you first feel humbled. . . and then grow defensive. How would Raphael fare copying a Rothko? Imagine Frank Stella tackling a Chris Ofili? No one is exempt from a dose of failure when so many parameters lie outside your own level of training and comfort.

This past week I copied fifteen artworks by one of my former instructors. Or, I should say, I copied fifteen copies of her paintings done by another former student who, in all fairness, was copying fifteen copies done by another artist. In truth, I don’t know how many degrees of separation exist between myself and the original fifteen paintings. I’m just one connection in a collaboration that can most easily be explained as a visual game of Telephone.

I expected this project to feel much the same as the three agonizing weeks I spent trying to recreate Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park color palette. There would be tears, certainly, and a mounting sense of disgust with myself followed by the aforementioned defensive rationalizations for my inability. But from the outset I felt far different than I had expected. These were, after all, my peers, not some patriarchal group of historically vindicated uberartists. A presumptive understanding of my former instructor’s visual tendencies made me suspicious of certain technique and material choices that existed on the fifteen copies before me. The question that confronted me wasn’t along the lines of, “Can I achieve an accurate copy?” so much as “Should I be accurate to what lies before me or what I believe to have been true in the original?”

Being a tad yellow-bellied and prone to obeying all mandates I did as the project rules instructed and recreated what was before me. Upon finishing I compared my replicas with the set I’d received.

They were remarkably different.

Not in size, shape, or placement mind you; those things were spot on. It was the technique and material choices that seemed. . . off, somehow. It was humbling