Say cheeze.....blog highlight

Oh, the photobooth. Documentation at its finest.
Who didn't love the movie Amelie, whose narrative centered around the photobooths of Paris...

Visit Photobooth.net if you share an obsession with the old school version (not Apple's!!!)
Did you know there is an annual photobooth conference? Something you will learn by going to this site.

Happy Friday!

a kids eye-view of the landscape

I was really happy with this spread in the Woodstock Times last week which highlights a project I have been a part of for the last few months. As a collaboration with the Woodstock Land Conservancy and Bill Miles, an artist in the current exhibition at CPW "Landscape Forever" and CPW- we visited 50 6th graders at Woodstock Elementary and talked with them about landscape photography, gave them Canon digital SLRs to shoot with, and curated an on-line and in person exhibition of their work.

To be honest, I am not normally comfortable working with that age group. (It is lame, but true.) But, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this project was simply because of the talented group of students I got to work with. Give them a tool to be expressive and they will not only use it, but will often go beyond your expectations. Great lesson for me. I hope thie kids learned something too.

Check out CPW's Flickr site here to see more student work. (go to on-line exhibitions)

lovely interview

My friend Joetta Maue has been interviewed and featured on the blog Making the Art Seen. Her work is so refreshing, honest and beautiful and I could not be happier to see this wonderful piece on her.

She has a lot going on right now- solo show in MA, group show in Brooklyn and more- so check this interview out to learn where to see her work.

art party time...

Two great exhibitions at CPW. Join us for the opening reception tomorrow, Saturday January 9th, from 5-8pm. There will be an artist talk given by Justine Reyes at roughly 6pm and a panel discussion with all the artists in Landscape Forever at 7pm.

I guarantee good conversation, great art and wonderful peeps.

local exhibition

The beautiful, intriguing and haunting work by Geoff Miller will be on view at the John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY.

We went to graduate school together at UMass and I have always been a big admirer of the complexity of his work.

From Geoff's website:

Geoffrey Owen Miller is a Brooklyn based artist who explores the sociological meanings of iconic imagery. Through various methods of painting he looks for ways to create spaces for the viewer to actively re-insert themselves in the identification of the icon. By complicating the image through various means of controlled and uncontrolled mark-making, the viewer is pushed to consider the context and definition in their search to identify what they are seeing.

The mind seeks to create closure of form by means of context, experience, and learned biases of perception. In the fractured repetition of his imagery we still try to see what we have been conditioned to see, and that is where ones own perceptual filters can emerge. Those subconscious tendencies we color our perception that then shape our culture and institutions.

Dividuals explore the divide between the individual and the group. While Gilles Delueze states with concern that “[i]ndividuals have become ‘dividuals,’ and masses, samples, data, markets, or ‘banks,’” Arthur Koestler sees our whole-ness or part-ness as dependent on the point of view. Instead of the atomistic view of distinct parts, he proposes the concept of a Holon: a unit that is simultaneously a whole and a part.

Artist spotlight: Hu Yang

image by Hu Yang

When viewing ICP's most recent exhibition, Dress Codes, I was not blown away. There is, of course, amazing artists represented within the show- Martha Rosler, Hank Willis Thomas, Lorna Simpson and many more. The curation, overall, felt a bit didactic and did not push too many new ideas out into the world. Maybe too many curators were involved and it felt a little modge-podgey? Or, fashion might just not be my thing...

But, I did discover a gem. Hu Yang is someone I have been exposed to once or twice but I really got a sense of his work in this show and I am impressed and excited.

Very nice multi-media piece made by the New York Times can be viewed here.

In early 2004, photographer Hu Yang began documenting the lives of ordinary Shanghai residents. He originally planned to include 100 households in his survey, but over the course of the year 500 families allowed him to interview and photograph them in their homes. Unlike the New York Times' Faces of Shanghai slideshow, which focused on the middle class consumer culture, this project covers Shanghai residents from a surprisingly wide range of backgrounds. From poor migrant workers to expats to billionaires, nearly all of Shanghai is represented.

While Hu Yang says he hoped to demonstrate some of Shanghai's social problems, such as the gap between the rich and the poor, he presents his work without editorializing. Every photo could stand alone as a candid family portrait.

Happy Holidays

my recent acquisition, thanks to 20x200. Oh, the Starn Twins. You two are so cool. and now you are mine...he he he he....

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! Off to see family for a few days...and hopefully get a little R&R, but will report back to the blog soon! Have a wonderful time doing whatever it is you do!

Love & Light.

starting to lose it, need to relax.

nice images, eh? wish i had the book they came from....

The Circus: 1870-1950

...would help with my current insanity.

exhibitions i want to see while in nyc...

Tanya Marcuse
Corset with Silk ribbon, 1880s, from the series Undergarments and Armor, 2002–2004
© Tanya Marcuse
Courtesy the artist and Julie Saul Gallery, New York
can be seen in Dress Codes.

Dress Codes: The Third Triennial of Photo and Video at ICP. Tanya Marcuse is one of the many amazing artists represented. I had the opportunity to work with her this summer on a workshop and she was brilliant. Love her work. Always inspired by the triennials. Ecotopia (the last one) was o.k. but I still think Strangers (first one) was incredible! I am hoping Dress Codes is even better.

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn at the Whitney.

Looking in: Robert Frank's The Americans at the Met. Marking 50 years since this was published. Wow.

Robert Frank (American, b. Switzerland, 1924)
Funeral—St. Helena, South Carolina, 1955
Gelatin silver print; 15 5/8 x 22 7/8 in. (39.7 x 58.1 cm)
Susan and Peter MacGill

Barbara Crane and Michael Wolf at Aperture Gallery.

Paolo Ventura Winter Stories at HASTED HUNT KRAEUTLER.


so many more but this is a nice start. anyone have other suggestions for me?

Photograph © Robert Frank, from The Americans

NYFA MARK10 and website

I am so happy to announce that I have been accepted into the New York Foundation for the Arts MARK program.

A brief description from their website:
MARK is the New York Foundation for the Arts'(NYFA) new statewide six-month program for visual artists who want a unique opportunity for individualized focus on the professional side of their creative practice. MARK is designed to address the concerns of artists living outside of New York City while providing them with a new network statewide. Participating artists can expect MARK to spark goals and help to define concrete steps while providing individual and group feedback on how to better present yourself.

What this means for me is that I get a time, place and platform to learn how to self promote, better articulate my ideas, and discover who the audience is for my work and try to tap into it. Mostly, I look forward to meeting the other artists who have been selected and hearing their feedback, seeing their work and developing new friendships, and connections with my beautiful Hudson Valley community. This definitely feels like a step in the right direction for me.

On this note, I have been working on my website and am ready to share it. It is far from completed (lots of work has not been posted yet and the design is still questionable) but I am ok with it being seen as an unfinished project. So, please, if you have any feedback or suggestions they would be greatly appreciated. You can check it out here.