Brush

Bottle Brush at the Veteran's Memorial— Eagle, Idaho

October 9, 2009

Click on image for larger view.

Further evidence that the light in Idaho can be every bit as crisp and theatrical as the light of the Willamette Valley.

The Seductive Properties of Beauty as Rationalized Through an Unsanctioned Reference to an Undeniably Greater Photographer

Veteran's Memorial— Eagle, Idaho

October 9, 2009

Click on image for larger view.

I read an interview with Keith Carter many years ago that percolates to the front of my mind every time I take a picture like this. In that interview he relates how, one day, he was out looking for images to photograph when he happened upon an old grave yard. Knowing full well that it was impossible to enter a graveyard with a camera and not leave without a roll of cliches he stopped himself at the gate.

And then he went inside and shot some film anyway.

Mormon Cricket

Mormon Cricket, Hulls Gulch Reserve, Boise, ID

October 9, 2009

Most of these massive insects had long since swarmed their last in Boise's Hulls Gulch. As we hiked we primarily found them chewed up and expelled in great piles of desiccated coyote scat. My brother-in-law snagged this dark lady from the trail side as we meandered back through the sage and bottle brush.

It is easy to imagine how horrifying it would be to experience them in the thousands: swarming over every surface, always on the move to avoid being bitten and consumed by the hundreds of thousands that are behind: the hundreds of thousands that are anxious to devour the weak and the slow. . .

Active, Adventurous, and Beautiful

Compass at the Dee Wright Observatory, McKenzie Pass, Oregon

I've returned from a week long trip through the geological wonders of Central Oregon. This is the third time I've taken this trip, and the second outing with students in tow.

For those of you who grew up with a public school education the idea of setting out with your teacher for a week long camping trip probably seems incomprehensible. The organization, money requirements, and liability complications would render such a trip impossible. Yet, I would argue, that it is just such thoughts and limitations that have neutered our public schools in the past three decades. Ultimately, I believe our inability as adults to free ourselves from such fears will contribute greatly to a dramatically diminished economic and cultural output in America.

The fact of the matter is, there is no better way to instill in a child the magnificent power of nature than to let them experience it first hand. Hiking to the top of cinder cone volcanoes in 98 degree weather only to descend through a 6000' lava cave that is 40 degrees on the same afternoon does more to nurture a child's imagination than any classroom demonstration or diagram. In order for education to be lasting and meaningful to a child, it must be composed of experiences that inspire and enliven— it must be active, adventurous, and beautiful— in short, it must be all the things that we believe our children to be.

D is for Durable

M is for Muir, 2009

acrylic, leafing, toner, tea, and wax on panel

7.375" x 7.375"

Click on image for larger view.

When I'm on field trips with my class I don't get too many opportunities to take photographs. The reasons for this should be obvious. However, and here is the great irony, the only times I tend to travel are when I take field trips with my class. Oh wicked conundrum!

* * * * *

I learned very quickly that only the most durable camera will survive a road-trip with a class of adolescents. That fancy new DSLR would certainly be the most versatile camera, but it would hardly hold up to falling out of the back of the van when the cooler lid is thrown open carelessly in the pursuit of snacks. So, I opt for indestructible over versatile, and always bring my trusty manual Nikon FE with a first-gen Lensbaby. The Lensbaby, while exceedingly limited in what it can do, has no glass components. That means that 70lbs. of lumpy duffle bag can be thrown on top of it and nothing much will happen to the simple plastic bellows.

* * * * *

M is for Muir was taken in the California Redwoods as we wound our way down to San Francisco. The students were completely immersed in ensuring that the quiet majesty of the Redwoods was anything but quiet so I took a moment to fixate on a few of the fallen giants that bordered the path. As usual, some yahoo had felt the need to deface the soft orange bark of a 200' long nurse log and that is what I ended up photographing. I'm still a bit unsure as to why I compile so many images of initials carved into trees— I suppose because defacing a tree is not all that different an act from taking a picture. Both claim that one tiny presence shared a moment with something much greater.

Scratching the Sky

Tease and Tremble, 2009

acrylic, toner, leafing, graphite, india ink, and wax on panel

7.5" x 7.5"

I've returned to torrential downpoars and oppressive skies. For the past three days I was at the Oregon coast, which is notorious for foul weather, and nary a drop of precipitation sullied the trip. It just goes to show; in western Oregon, no matter where you are, it's only a matter of time until you get wet, and you can't predict the where or when.

* * * * *

A year ago I stood alone in a large field outside of Grant's Pass. Just out of sight ran the Rogue River, which put a murmur and birdsong in the morning air. I came across a stand of thistles and spent some time watching them waver in the wind. To me, they are a most aesthetic plant, with a linear nature that always cuts a dramatic silhouette against the sky. I never tire of photographing them.

That morning I was feeling a bit pressed for time. Soon I would have to be back at camp and packing up for a day on the river. I shot a few careless images as the clouds gathered overhead. I thought to myself, thistles are how we should card the clouds of the sky, and then I walked away.

Jalama Beach

April 20, 2005

So what's my excuse for not having Photo Phazer imagery the past two days? Simply put: technological difficulties. 

You see, the Photo Phazer can only store one 1-minute movie at a time, so if someone were to, say, go on a camping trip to Jalama Beach on the California coast for a few days, then that person would only be able to capture one movie for the entire trip unless they were lucky enough to own a laptop at the time (which they weren't). Ergo, only one bit of video must suffice as a record for the entire trip.

Well, one video and two eye witnesses. The eye witnesses would probably give you a much richer narrative than this one parting shot (taken as we drove away from the secluded little beach).

The eye witnesses would probably mention "toaster forks." I'm sure that the highway death of one Toyota Camry would come up. As would getting stuck in traffic with Jake Gyllenhaal. And then there's the midnight raccoon raceway, the bleeding tree, the wind, and the crypt. . . 

If only I could have captured more on film.

Founts

February 27, 2005

I believe this fountain is in the Descanso Gardens in La Canada, California. It is one of dozens of fountains I've photographed in the past decade:

A fountain silenced for the autumn in McMinnville, Oregon.

One of many ornamental fountains at the Huntington Gardens in San Marino, California.

The fountain outside of the Santa Barbara Mission in Santa Barbara, California.

The Trevi Fountain tourist trap in Rome, Italy.

I don't quite know what it is I'm trying to capture when photographing a fountain— something about the play of light on the splashing water combined with the more tactile qualities of sound and coolness I suppose. I haven't really succeeded yet, but that hardly discourages me from continuing the quest.

I'll close with this image of a small pond at Descanso Gardens. For some reason it manages to convey a sense of stillness and chill that transcends the flattened photographic format. It was an effortless photograph that received very little of my compositional consideration, which is undoubtedly why it's so much more successful than any of the images above.

Color Shifts

February 24, 2005

On this day in history my mother bought her first digital camera. We stood on the bank of the Boise River as I explained the various settings on the dial at the top. I took a few test images:

. . . and then I handed the camera over to Mom. With the trusty Photo Phazer in hand I shot yet another short film of the flowing river. When we got home I downloaded the various images from the two cameras only to realize that neither of them were at all accurate in depicting the true color of the river that bright afternoon. Mom's camera had pushed the blue of the water to a peculiar intensity and the Photo Phazer had, quite naturally, robbed the current of color. 

Colored Bands

February 23, 2005

OK everyone, let's test your chain-restaurant interior design scheme recall. In what super-fun eating establishment would you be likely to find this dramatic use of red and white stripes?*

For a person who doesn't profess to love working with color when creating artwork, I do seem to have a fixation with capturing it on film. Contrast, as well as vibrancy, tend to catch my eye— like this doorway to a pump house on the Puget Sound. The textural difference and graphic quality of the colored bands is emphasized by cropping in and denying any sort of larger contextual information.

Only years later (January 2008, to be exact) would this pump house image filter back into my consciousness. I stood on the steps of the ostentatious Il Vittoriano in Rome and realized that I really should have flipped that negative.

Hint: Think "flair."

The Form and Function of Place

February 22, 2005

It's amazing how differently a place can present itself. Equally amazing to me is the differences within ourselves that can transform the way we receive a place, or a moment in time. During this visit to Boise the skeletal trees along the river seemed more alive to me than if they'd had all the budding greens of Spring atop them. At one point a fierce storm rolled toward the setting sun, and the whole copse along the shore erupted into a firebrand.

The splendor of this moment burned itself in my mind. But, when it came time to translate it as a drawing, with months of time and hundreds of miles between the now and then, a different sentiment emerged. It became less an expression of color, and more a reflection on sharing in that dramatic tableaux with my father. Somehow the color became irrelevant and only the sharp contrasts between black and white remained. That, and the drifting into shapelessness away from the center of our perception.

Riparian Reflection

February 21, 2005

This is the steely gray of the winter day working across the surface of the Boise River. My father and I took a long walk along the water to enjoy the colors and lines of the season. The trail drifted in and out of inner suburbia; sometimes hugging the water line and engulfing us in reeds and brush, and at other times taking us along busy roads or under overpasses. Like all urban waterways it softened the harshness of the manufactured landscape and made me wish that all cities had the good fortune of having a river to tend so that, in turn, they could be nourished.

Letterboxing

I'm going to describe something to you and you're undoubtedly going to think it very quaint. Nevertheless, I'm a bit of an old soul in an increasingly vapid world, so nostalgic adjectives are rarely a negative with me. I'm going to tell you about something I was introduced to a few weeks ago that has flitted about my mind ever since. It is called letterboxing, and it has produced an entire secret world that exists all around us everyday.

Letterboxing apparently began on the bleak moors of Devon, England that are now part of Dartmoor National Park. Legend goes that a Victorian-era gentleman out walking the soggy ground placed his calling card in a bottle one day and left it to be found by other hikers who also placed their cards in the bottle. Slowly, this singular act, gave birth to an eccentric pastime wherein modern letterboxers create personalized rubber stamps that they carry with a small logbook and a set of clues. The clues, which can range from straight forward orienteering directions to cryptic stories or puzzles, lead to small water-tight boxes that also contain a carved rubber stamp and a small logbook. Upon finding the box the letterboxer stamps their book with the stamp found in the letterbox, and then they leave an impression of their personalized stamp in the logbook found in the box. In this way, both the letterboxer and the box contain evidence of a successful deciphering of clues. The letterboxer goes home with another stamp that will serve as a snapshot of their time that day, and the box carries a record of all those who've visited before.

In essence, letterboxing is an amalgam of hiking, orienteering, craft, and problem solving. It is a treasure hunt that permits the hunter to also create their own treasures to hide. Many letterboxers not only hunt for stamps, but also fashion their own letterboxes to stash away at favorite locations. Clues in England are apparently much more closely guarded than clues in the States, where simply visiting www.letterboxing.org allows one to search for boxes state by state. The stateside letterboxing phenomenon is very young and can be traced back to a 1998 article in The Smithsonian about the hard-core letterboxers of Devon. 

While American letterboxes might be more free with their clues, most do still abide by a set of principles established by our friends across the Atlantic. In short: letterboxing should follow a 'leave no trace' policy in order to protect the natural world, private property and hallowed grounds should always be respected, and spoilers who post pictures of stamps from various locations deserve no less than to become pariahs of the online letterboxing community. Furthermore, every letterboxer should take care to protect the secrecy of box locations, even to the point of lying to other hikers who may inquire about what you are doing sitting in the middle of a muddy trail making rubber stamp art. 

As I'm relatively new to the hobby I feel that I should honor the mildly goofy entreaty for secrecy and avoid posting my actual stamp and trail name with this entry. Instead I will share with you this awesome drawing from our household collection of juvenilia. If you can decipher what would happen to this flightless bird were it to go on a hunger strike you'd have the key to my secret identity.

Art vs. Hobby

Comments are a pretty rare thing on this blog. I have a few hypotheses as to why this might be: readers are afraid I'll chastise them and launch a tirade about the Internet diluting the collective intelligence of mankind if they type something utterly inane like "LUV it!" (I might), nobody 'luvs ' anything I write (quite possible), or perhaps nobody reads this blog (the most likely theory). So when a comment does appear it is a puzzling moment for me. I ask myself, "Why would someone take time out of their precious life to sit down and type their thoughts on to a computer with the sole intention of tossing this information out into the electronic ether?"  Then I have a 'one hand-clapping' sort of moment.

A good friend of mine posed a series of exceedingly thoughtful questions in his comment to my post about the real world struggles of exposing a piece of artwork to a greater public. I've included an excerpt from his comment below:

While I'm not trying to be facetious, as I read this post I couldn't help but think that if you had replaced 'art' with music or sports or fishing or gardening that you would simply be describing a hobby. Yet most people don't associate hobbies with being activities that "stamp meaning onto their mortality." I'm wondering what, for you, separates making art from being a hobby and being an activity that instills meaning in one's life. Where do you draw the distinction between the two? Or, even if you're willing to call art a hobby, do you think the significance it brings to the artist's existence is less if not recognized publicly? How is the meaning stamped exactly?

These questions have scratched away at my waking hours for the past few days and caused me to seriously consider the origins of some personal beliefs regarding art and the making of art. I must confess that upon seeing the sanctimonious station of art hypothetically dropped to the corporeal realm of hobby I grew a bit offended. Countless people have joined me, and will continue to join me, in significant monetary debt to attain a college degree that certifies them as a professional artist. I don't see anyone seeking out a BA program in model railroading. Nor can I conceive of anyone accruing as much financial burden in order to push for a monumental scale to their macrame projects (and, if someone did, they would be labeled an artist anyway). But such a visceral response falls prey to a cultural value system that erroneously correlates monetary worth with spiritual/societal/personal merit. It is this cultural value system that has isolated art from the general public in the first place and contributed to the ivory tower that I'm so quick to initially defend. However, if the importance of art was based solely on capitalist dogma then I would feel little compulsion to classify myself as an artist, so I can't rely on my degree to create the dividing line between art and hobby.

Perhaps it is easier for me to dissect the idea of a hobby then it is to directly quantify the essence of art. I have fewer assumptions about hobbies and hobbyists than I do about art and artists. A hobby is something that a person pursues in their leisure time because it brings them some joy, satisfaction, or proves distracting. Many hobbyists regularly engage in their past time of choice after the other obligations of life (employment, family, social service, etc.) have been met. Like artists, hobbyists tend to enjoy relating with other people who share their particular interest, and more often than not, the hobby itself requires a special set of tools and/or skills. So on the surface, there are many similarities between artists and hobbyists.

* * * * *

It is the way that an artist perceives the "other obligations of life" mentioned above that begins to separate him/her from the hobbyist. For the artist nothing trumps the compulsion to create. The making of art usually precedes some, if not all, the other obligations of life. For example, creating art is the only employment an artist ever feels at peace with because it is the thing that holds the majority of their attention. An artist might have a perfectly well paying, socially respectable, job with good benefits, but if that job isn't the making of art then it will always be viewed as a barrier to making artwork. For the artist, 'art work' transcends our narrow cultural definition of work (i.e. the simple exchange of time for money): it is imbued with a spiritual fulfillment that a simple paycheck will never be able to provide.

Many people go to college to become nurses, firefighters, social workers, teachers, engineers, etc. because they have a deep commitment and passion for their particular industry. These people are allowed to work in the field that inspires them and receive a straight-forward paycheck because society happens to value their work. Undoubtedly, some of them will have hobbies as well, but they aren't looking to overthrow the source of their paycheck with their hobby because the hobby isn't what fulfills them spiritually; that's the role of their job. 

I think most artists would be over-the-moon if society would afford them the opportunity to pursue their passion with a bi-weekly paycheck, but this has never been, and I suspect never will be, the case. Instead, truly committed artists are forced to scrimp and show; always on the lookout for handouts from the public or donors, while trying to market themselves to galleries that promise a periodic sale. This is an exhausting way to survive at the poverty level, and it comes as little surprise that some of our best contemporary artists entered the art world with a healthy trust fund to feed them as they created— they became influential and culturally important because of, not despite the fact, that they had the luxury of time to develop as artists.

While I've fixated a bit on employment here the desire to devote oneself to art doesn't just affect perceptions of monetary labor, it can also impact decisions made about family and social service. Certainly there are many artists who manage to have families as well as make art, but there are reasons that Michelangelo referred to his artworks as his children, and this directly correlates to his prodigious creative output. Many of the artists I know do have meaningful relationships but I bet that most of them would also refer to their creative practice as a sort of relationship: one that will span the entire course of their life.

As for social service, well, herein lies the greatest difference between the artist and the hobbyist. In the 2oth century, with the rise in academic opportunity across the class divide in first world countries, a new sort of perception about art began to take root. At the outset of the 1900's the artist was no longer a valuable provider of a requested commodity: photography had taken over the role of physically fixing time and place in tangible form and the painter/printmaker/draftsman was left with a skill set in need of new meaning. The artistic world fended off redundancy by responding to, and exploring, new perceptions of time, space, and emotion (specifically within the Cubist, Futurist, and Dadaist movements). Larger than life personalities like Picasso and Duchamp came forward to champion an expressive depiction of reality that cameras couldn't manage and almost overnight art became the purported world of cultural visionaries. Instead of being a product of culture, like nearly all art prior to the 20th century, artists became instrumental in producing culture, and this message got disseminated through colleges until it became part of public perception. So today, whether or not contemporary culture has any interest in what artists are doing (which, I must be honest, is highly debatable), the artist continues to operate under the assumption that the proper role of the creative individual is to work towards shaping culture— hence the perpetual push to show artwork to the greater public. The hobbyist has no such social imperative to share their hobby or have their hobby challenge the status quo.

* * * * *

But what do I mean by art "stamping meaning onto [an artist's] mortality"? The answer to this question would undoubtedly vary by artist, but for me it has nothing to do with public vindication or financial success— I seek those things out of obligation to that perceived societal expectation mentioned above. Rather, making artwork focuses my complete attention, in fact my whole being, on a single moment or perception. As a thunderstorm is raging outside at this very moment it seems fitting that I use the image at the top of this post as an example.

Long after my father and I stood on his tiny balcony in Boise, ID and watched the sunset turn the bare branches of a quivering copse of trees a fiery orange against the roiling black of a summer storm, I sat in my studio and relived that moment hour after hour. As I worked on this drawn recreation of that experience my thoughts wandered all the tangents that erupted from that one instant. I found myself pondering the effects of time and distance on parents and children. I considered the Biblical story of a burning bush. I contemplated the effects of contrasting extreme lights and darks and then I teased that metaphor out farther. I remembered other storms that had rolled through my life and I anticipated storms to come. In short, I completely altered any future complacence I might have experienced towards storms, sunsets, groves of trees, visits to Boise, and prophetic visions. In developing this drawing I had developed myself and made my own experience of reality deeper and more magical. 

As the sky bangs and cries outside right now some part of me is still out on a little deck considering the majesty of nature with my father. My life has been stamped with this impression, and it is only one moment of thousands that I will ink in my lifetime. 

California Flickrs

I've posted a few selections from my recent trip to California (along with some overly pensive comments) on flickr. Drop by and see the amazing Nikon D80 capture pictures in even the crummiest of light. 

Remnants

I've been away for a few days. Much of it I was sitting; although there was a bicycle ride. I rode through the deserted streets of a trailer park and watched the setting sun turn scrubby desert hillsides purple. Most of the trailers had a color cast akin to the concrete they rested on. One single-wide had been lovingly painted a rich lavender color with plum trim. It was a bright bit of punctuation at the end of a lifeless street. My ride was brief, but it took my mind away from thoughts of ghosts and mortality— it made a few minutes of my visit simple.

* * * * * 

At other times, when all the sitting got to be too much for me, I would wander about my grandparents' trailer home and take pictures. Only the most precious of objects are allowed a life now: pictures of family long passed and snapshots of those that still live on. Plaques, certificates, toys, saints and paintings. These are the items that serve as touchstones for memory. They clutter dusty shelves and whisper tales to me that are more fabrications of my imagination than fact. 

* * * * *

I begin to generate a different perception of time the longer I stay and this, in turn, compels me to take more photographs. It is the only control over time that I can wield— this shutter, these moments that I compose, they will protect me from loss. I will print them out and pin them to the wall like a collection of butterflies. My negligent memory will be thwarted by these specimens of perception and I will not grow old. 

Rockin

There are some things that humanity has historically been unable to resist. Gold. Silver. Puns. So I’ll just succumb and state that the Rice NW Museum of Rocks and Minerals is a real gem.*

On my second visit I was no less impressed with their vast collection of bewildering specimens from the clutches of the earth. Minerals that look as downy as cotton, as soft as ermine, as poisonously pigmented as American Apparel, fill case after glass-fronted display case in the untouched rambling 50’s ranch home of former logging baron Richard Rice.** A boulder sized thunder egg with an opal center greets visitors to the NW Mineral Gallery and one room in the main house cycles through different UV lights to demonstrate the hidden phosphorescence of some otherwise banal looking rocks. In the basement you’ll not only find the sweetest linoleum floor ever laid, but a fantastic collection of petrified wood (including petrified pine cones). I posted a few more pics on flickr should you care to explore why mineralogy has informed every hipster painter in the Pacific Northwest for the past five years.

If you have a weakness for small scale museums of oddities and obsessions then I highly recommend that you check out hiddenportland.com which has put together a charming little brochure of the finest rarely visited haunts of PDX.

*I’m not the only punny one. Check out this article where they manage to get in, “It will rock your mind and salt your appetite.” Why would they write that? And how could they follow it with the fact that the museum is only “a stone’s throw off Highway 26”? Funny how puns are only funny when you’re the one making them.

**Fact check please. I believe this to be true from some informative labels I read on my first visit but I was also monitoring twelve children during that visit and must admit the possibility that this may have weakened my recall.

The Company Shoots

My weekend consisted of three days filming with The Company in the foothills of the Oregon coastal range. Thus far, The Company consists of only four diverse dreamers harboring the vision of a full length movie. Nevertheless, I suspect it will bloom into many more folks than that by the time we’re through. Grandiose labors of love tend to attract other dreamers. The various trials and tribulations, from the screenwriter’s perspective, can be followed at I’m Not Arguing That With You.

For my part I was asked to get lost. I lay down in spider webs and organic detritus. Dirt was kicked upon me by those closest to me. I was made to cry.

And this was just the test footage.

Road Trip Proofs

Flickr and I have been strangers for too long. Therefore, I spent the morning culling a few images from my recent jaunt to the Bay Area and offering them up to the masses.

As I was traveling with adolescents I felt it safer to bring my hearty SLR with Lensbaby as opposed to my frail but versatile digital SLR. Such foresight was rewarded when my camera was mispacked atop a mound of duffel bags and fell out of the back of the van before we even left the school driveway. Twenty minutes of personal panic ensued when my shutter failed to work, but eventually I realized that the batteries had been jarred in their housing and needed to be reset.

One of the most amusing things about using only a Lensbaby on a trip is that you are constantly explaining to people why you can’t take a group picture in front of the fountain, forest, waterfall, wild animal, etc. Despite many profound insights into the history of lenses, the artist’s vision, and the ingredients of the sublime I’m inevitably given a frustrated “what’s the point” look that silences any further explanation. I’m not offended. People are welcome to want prosaic group photographs just as I’m welcome to photograph moss and lichen. In the end, who can say which will provide a finer recounting of experience?

Absence

After feebly attempting to coerce comments out of you and coming up with so little response you may have believed you’d been party to my leaving the blogosphere for good. No such luck! I have been absent, to be sure, but for many a good reason which I will present in brief:

1. I had to produce nine painted paper-mache Commedia dell’Arte masks.*

2. I was uncovering the mysteries of “layer styles” in Photoshop in order to finish my assignments for the dubiously named Photoshop Expert class I was taking. To date, I would characterize myself as more of a Photoshop user than expert.

3. I was planning a graduation ceremony.

4. For nine days I was part of a class road trip in which I guided eight adolescents down the state of Oregon and into the Bay Area.

5. I only just returned from a three-day teacher retreat on the Salmon River.

6. I was finishing a web site for a client that had to go live before any other computer-related activities could take place (such as writing this for you to read).

My hope is that these will all serve as adequate excuses for my absence. I wouldn’t want to set a bad example and have you decide to disappear for the next few months. After all, this summer has big things in store for me and mine— it would be a shame for you to miss out.

* With the help of family and friends who were guilted into service by a desperate and sniveling moi.