Le Couloir

January 3, 2005

The doorway to my first classroom is on the left of this photograph. It was located in a decaying Methodist Church in Southern California. There were many times that I walked this hall and would look up at the glowing red EXIT sign thinking, "I know nothing about Sartre." 

Perhaps this was brought on by the darkness of the hall or perhaps I was reacting to my employment at a French school. I doubt that it matters. I have yet to pick up any of his writings.

* * * * *

In the foreground darkness on the right side of the image there was a door to a long narrow room stacked with teetering piles of grimy keyboards and PC towers. An ancient man with a nicotine stained beard would periodically emerge from this room and gargle noisily with hydrogen peroxide in a small water closet down the hall. The water closet had been painted a dramatic orange many years ago, and when the sunlight pushed through the dingy window the thick peels of paint glowed tangerine. 

Even in its decrepitude that little room radiated color, but I learned to admire it from afar, finding the frequent presence of blood mixed with peroxide-spittle in the sink basin to be more reality than I cared to face.

Gma

January 2, 2005

As a child you think of adulthood as an opportunity for unmitigated freedom. As an adult you think the opposite.

Looking Back

January 1, 2005

Four years ago I resolved to undertake a daily practice. For one year I would capture a short film each day using my Photo Phazer. The Photo Phazer was my first digital camera. It was designed for children and took deplorable images that, at best, could be printed 4" x 6." It was also capable of taking 60 seconds of video, and by video I mean 60 crummy photographs in quick succession which were displayed one after another to create the illusion of video (essentially employing the same principle that creates the semblance of movement in animation).

These daily films were my first foray into cinema. They were silent. And they have been swallowed by the hard drive within the last PC I'll ever own. I'd hoped to share them with you, but in light of their corporeal absence, I can only offer you a single image from each film. 

You see, after downloading each minute-long movie into the PC, I'd isolate one shot of the sixty to use as a representative still if I ever managed to exhibit the project. As I neither possess the films any longer, a fact that only further entrenches my views about the danger digital media poses to the historical record, nor did I manage to keep up with the demands of making a daily film beyond May of that year, I fear that the only exhibition of this five month obsession will be here.

Which is fine. I'll walk you through a few memories and you can marvel at the banality of my: 

a) existence

b) aesthetic inclinations

c) photographic equipment

Although, I must confess that it is just those failings that make a few of these pictures compelling. Perhaps, over time, you'll come to agree.

The Symmetry of E

A few months ago I worked on creating a calling card for someone lucky enough to have both their first and last name begin with 'E.' Now, the letter 'e' isn't necessarily exciting en and of etself,* but when such symmetry exists it provides an immediate design possibility that, at the very least, must be attempted.**

I began by playing with the arms of the uppercase E as branches on a tree diagram that would lead to words that described qualities of the client. This only really makes sense with a sans-serif font and, as I had two E forms to work with, the potential existed for six lines leading to six qualities. After laying this out in a variety of ways I realized that the idea was conceptually bloated and inappropriate for the immediacy of a calling card.

On to the next idea— an abstracted cloud formed from a staggered stack of E forms. I chose Ed Benguiat's Edwardian Script ITC because the sweeping capital E had a lyrical and classic feel, which makes sense considering the fact the Benguiat was a consummate musician who designed his typefaces in the old days when you actually had to put pen to paper to realize a font (as opposed to electronic stylus to Wacom, or pen tool to virtual art board, or however it's done these days).

The resulting shape struck me as fantastically elegant and I loved it unconditionally.

Too bad it looked like a black rain cloud. And black rain clouds are depressing. They make for very poor calling card iconography. Changing the color didn't really help either and in the end I had to accept that I'd created a lovely little design element that would only be useful in some future design project. Then I became depressed; verifying that black rain clouds really are a bummer.

In the end, another design featuring floral dingbats became the calling card and I shelved the cloud. But I can't let it go. It has taken up residence on my desktop until I find a reason for its existence. Perhaps someone will eventually want a project that emphasizes silver linings.

*The worst alliteration ever.

**Although such immediate design solutions can also be traps if you can't shake them and experiment with other ideas or forms.

Mull-It

I wouldn't want to be accused of being stingy this holiday season so I thought I'd pass along a bit of information related to hot wine. I also want to give credit where credit is due, so I'll provide the recipe that served as the foundation for our experimentation, and I'll also state upfront that all of the ideas you read here came from my gifted wife— I'm just the messenger. Finally, I want all the kiddies to remember that, although some of the alcohol undoubtedly burns off through the heating process, this is still a drink for mommies and daddies.

There are as many recipes for mulled wine as there are names for this seasonal beverage: to the Germans its Gluhwein, to the French its called Vin Chaud, and to our Nordic friends its Glogg. Searching the net using the different names will yield different recipes. As my wife and I were introduced to this beverage by French friends one blisteringly cold night in Joshua Tree we started by searching for "Vin Chaud" and discovered this recipe from About.com.

Through a bit of trial and error we came up with the following modifications to the recipe:

WINE— The quality of the wine makes a difference so you should strive for something that is relatively inexpensive but not rotgut. We are partial to an Italian table wine called Antica Osteria that has been available at Whole Foods recently. Beaujolais tastes great too, but brought about acid reflux in the more sensitive stomachs.

COGNAC— No. No Cognac. See the "acid reflux" mentioned above.

VANILLA— The missing link to the Ms. Franklin's otherwise good recipe on About.com is vanilla extract. Give a small splash of vanilla to the mix and your wine will really sing. Well, not really sing, that's a figure of speech, but it makes it taste a whole lot better. On that ill-fated overnight at Joshua Tree our friends had insisted on vanilla for the wine and, for some reason, my wife managed to remember that all these years later. 

It goes without saying that your cinnamon shouldn't be so old that is was shipped by caravel. Also, you'll need to come up with a way to strain the wine so people aren't sucking down cardamon pods; after a few light burns I can recommend a wire strainer with hooks and a handle that allows it to rest over a small pot that is set on low heat to keep the vin chaud.

So dust off your mugs and get to the Glogg! Just remember, hot wine doesn't last as long as you'd suspect it too so plan on making more than would seem prudent.

Recap

You'd think that two weeks of inclement weather would have compelled me to blog more; after all, my car was under 26" of snow and my winter vacation was extended by four days, but alas I found myself with far too many seasonal commitments to take time to type. Furthermore, as the days progressed my back log of topics to blog about ballooned into a frustratingly insurmountable number. Paralysis set in. As did the mulled wine, and two weeks drifted past.

As I value you very much, dear reader, I will summarize some of the major tidbits of recent experience:

1. With thirty pounds of clipped cedar branches and four unexpected days off I refined my seasonal garland creation skills. Every lintel in the public area of the house was treated to fresh cut evergreen boughs, prickly holly, and many strands of white lights. They cast amazing shadows on the ceiling at night when the white lights were left on to cheer the hearts of pedestrians who might be peeping through our windows on their cold journey through the snow.

2. During numerous bouts of insomnia I uncovered a slew of websites devoted to free Photoshop tutorials, free PS brushes, and free vector art. These searches were driven by a recent need to create very specific vector art for a holiday gift project. More on vector art and its inherent awesomeness in some later post.

3. The aforementioned insomnia might have been slightly aided by a blossoming interest in hot spiced wine which, mysteriously, disappears at a far faster rate than the same wine served straight from the bottle. Now that I have a basic Gluhwein recipe under my belt I may devote next year to devising a mathematical equation that explains the rate of wine disappearance in relation to the temperature at which it is served.

4. This Christmas brought an abundance of photography related swag to your truly, perhaps indicating that I have been a better behaved person this year than in others. My excitement knows no bounds, and as soon as I've geeked out on camera-specs I will be heading out for a day or two of experimental shooting in the PDX area. 

5. I can't seem to shake Blonde Redhead from my, um. . . head. If you aren't familiar with this band then today is your lucky day because you can both discover their music, and do so for free, by downloading a number of jaw-droppingly good tracks off CNET.

I hope the holiday has been a happy one for you and yours. Let's all turn our thoughts now to the year ahead and how, at this moment, it holds nothing but promise and glory. 

Winter Revels

Saint Lucy's Day (Lucia) procession. Sweden, 2007.

Photo courtesy Fredrik Magnusson under a Creative Commons License

When the stage is dark and everyone waits; that is my favorite moment of a theatrical show. Rarely does a production live up to my hopes for it in that hushed anticipation. 

Anything is possible before the beginning.

* * * * *

In the dark of the theater this past Friday night there are towering aspens backlit by an undulating field of soft "Northern" lights. The stage has the blue cast of moonlight and all cell phones have been set to vibrate. We wait for something to happen.

From the dark of the wings sounds a collection of human voices imitating the shrill calls of hungry animals. Their cries die down into a haunting harmonization that is then shattered by similar calls all around the theater. Behind and above me the answering calls settle down into a chilling harmony of tones and Portland's Christmas Revels begin.

If you're unfamiliar with the Revels let me share the briefest of explanations. Each year in cities around the US a group of musicians, dancers, and actors put on a stage show featuring a mash-up of Christian and pagan holiday customs from some European culture. The show is quite a production, with elaborate costumes and complex musical arrangements supporting a tenuous plot based upon winter solstice fears and the redemptive power of children and audience participation. Anachronisms abound, Morris dancing is a must, and there's always at least one person on stage whose smile seems cemented in a Botox-induced mockery of joy. Nevertheless, the music rarely disappoints and there are always some fascinating staging tricks employing different percussive sounds and lighting. 

* * * * *

This year the theme for the Revels was based around "A Visit to the Scandinavian Northlands." Much of the story was an amalgam of gnome lore and an epic poem of Finnish folklore penned in the 1800's entitled The Kalevala. It contained a very amusing mummer's play (an English/Irish tradition) and the audience favorite Lord of the Dance (lyrics written in 1963 to the tune of the Shaker song Simple Gifts) despite the fact that neither of these things have an origin in Scandinavia. Thankfully, the show contained a number of very quiet moments, such as the mysterious Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, which featured a dark procession of archetypal characters and the subdued rutting of antlered men. St. Lucia's procession was also depicted well although some of the magic is naturally lost when electronic candles are used for her crown.

Apart from the bracing opening the finest thing about the Revels this year was the music of the Karelian Folk Music Ensemble. This acoustic trio originates from an area that straddles the Finnish and Russian border. Every song they performed, be it for dancing or for crying, stirred up a deep resonance in me. These three men were the authentic heart of a show attempting to present a sense of yule in inhospitable Northern climes; they had no real need for artifice or costuming because they were of the place they presented. Without them I might have left entertained, but not moved. 

* * * * *

Upon returning home a rare snow began to fall accompanied by a bitter wind. I couldn't help but think that a few bars of music must have escaped the theater to call the winter out.

Requiem

Wrapper

I enjoy wrapping gifts. I might enjoy wrapping them more than I enjoy making them (and, at the risk of sounding crotchety, I don't like shopping for them whatsoever).

I've made a unique birthday card for each of my students for the past three years now. Sometimes they follow a theme. For instance, last year all of the cards were adorned with dabs of watercolor and decorated with different Spirograph designs in an assortment of colored inks. Once, I drew two-tone portraits on mat board of famous historical figures that I thought might inspire the student.

Last night I completed a card using india ink and watercolor pencils* which was quite nice, but I was especially proud of the wrapping job— a simple combination of a magazine advert, sticker waste, and adhesive letters. 

In some ways though, a wonderfully wrapped gift can be a downer if the item inside doesn't live up to the grandeur of the packaging. I've witnessed this problem before and it can dampen the mood. At such times I always comfort myself with the thought that I'm just providing another subtle lesson in the spiritual vapidity of the consumerist paradigm.

*Watercolor pencils are the artistic refuge of the draftsman playing painter. A wonderful medium that has saved me many times.

The Lord's Gyre

Gustave Dore's depection of Dante's Paradisio, Canto 31

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Last night I dreamt that I was standing on a sidewalk in an empty night. 

From the impenetrable darkness I heard a child's voice begin the Lord's Prayer. Each word seemed to gather whispers off the sidewalk, and these whispers, speaking in time with the child, multiplied and magnified as the prayer continued, entwining my feet in a vortex of sound. The air around me quickened as the ever-widening spiral of voices gained a stormy momentum, and it seemed the whole of humanity was aiding and assisting this one child's words. In a moment the prayer had wrapped about my knees, and then it encompassed my sternum, until the tempest of voices, in ever expanding numbers and circles, rose over my head and into the darkness above.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Here then, is my confession: I never once looked up in the dream to witness the prayer's trajectory. My eyes remained rooted to where my feet contacted the Earth; at that spot where the first murmurings of prayers voiced for twenty centuries rose to support a lone child in the dark. My cells were expanding and my lungs no longer supported me. My heart felt like an organ pumping life down a million passages into the surrounding dark. But I never looked up. 

And so I remain tethered; to be greeted by another grey dawn.

20 Minute Layers

The three most important things I took away from my Photoshop classes at PNCA:

1. Blending modes (found in the layers palette) may follow some set of arcane parameters, but you don't need to bother knowing anything about them so long as you're building your image in a reactive manner— that is, you're not aiming for a specific outcome but are embracing chaos as integral to your design.

2. You need fodder. Alot of it. 

And you can't rely on the low-res offerings of a Google image search to provide said fodder for you (for both practical, and ethical, reasons). The fodder you need should contain high-res images of all manner of subjects, textures, and colors. Even more importantly, rich fodder really needs an array of hand-made paint textures, tea stains, ink splotches, and scratched negatives that have been scanned into the computer.

Now, as I've been both photographer and painter for years, compiling such a library of source material was simple. After a few hours of scanning I had enough potential layers to last me a decade. Perhaps even more exciting was the realization that the aesthetic quality of this fodder was of little importance. Mediocre images of rocks and lichen could be blurry, poorly composed and underexposed; it wouldn't matter one bit when these images were applied as a blended adjustment layer to another image. 

3. Know thyself. Infinite possibilities can lead to endless tasks, so without a solid sense of your aesthetic leanings you could end up working on one image for months.

If I'm working toward a deadline I'll start a project with a vague sense of what I'd like to convey and some imagery that might work together toward that end. 

However, if I've just got a few minutes that I want to put toward playing with an image, I'll simply start layering textures and tones at various levels of opacity until I see a direction emerge. This is more an exercise in intuition than Photoshop technique, and while not all of the images are destined for any life beyond the hard drive, they are a good way to jump start the right side of the brain.

The photograph below was the starting point for the image above. I played around with it for about twenty minutes before moving on to other things. Other things like typing this. 

I don't believe this image is finished yet. The left eye seems oppressively heavy, and there's not enough visual noise to disguise the string. But a starting point has been established and the direction found. All I need now is another twenty minutes.

The Thread of Truth

The week I went to Wordstock I also took my students to the World Forestry Center to see the Wolf to Woof exhibit. Being a responsible teacher, I previewed the entire exhibit the weekend prior to the field trip. Being a dutiful artist, I brought along my camera. Without a tripod I was only able to obtain a handful of photos, and of that handful only a very few were of any visual interest. They are currently available for scrutiny at Flickr.

I must confess that I love photographing museum displays— the subjects don't move, and with the right depth of field an entire dioramic fiction can become reality. Depending on my mood I might gravitate toward photographing those displays that can be easily mistaken for some scene outside the climate controlled exhibition hall, or I might feel more inclined toward those displays that fail utterly at their illusion. Those failures, once committed to the still image, become beguiling sources of wonder, as the viewer's inclination (despite the proliferation of Photoshop) continues to lean towards accepting photographic images as expressions of truth.

Now that I think about it, whether founded or not, museums also have the aura of truth wrapped about them. Our visits to them are meant to provide a curated experience endorsed by the diplomas and dissertations of experts. More than any other cultural institution we expect nothing short of complete veracity from a museum, for without the assurance of truth, they become nothing more than mausoleums we must pay to enter: tax-dollar vampires that preserve the past from the ravages of fire, time, and context.

I suppose the thread of implied truth could be construed as a tenuous connection between photography and museums, but it is the thread I unwind when I visit an exhibition, and it is the thread that I follow back out into the daylight when I start feeling oppressed by the hushed white walls and gleaming vitrines that fill my viewfinder.