my sunday local artist ramble

image by Carla Shapiro

waking up this morning to the sound of hail balls hitting my window was surprisingly relaxing. I think I am just happy to have a day off to lay in bed for an extra few minutes. what a better way to spend my sunday morning in bed than to post another local artist ramble from my trusty 6 year old powerbook (kisses to the computer gods that this laptop is still operational).

As I consider all the interesting local artists I have encountered lately, one in particular comes to mind. I ran into her last night at an event for the Woodstock Land Conservancy and so I would like to briefly speak of her work today.

Carla Shapiro lives and works in Chichester, NY. I was exposed to her through CPW in which she has been involved on a number of levels- she has received a fellowship in 2003 and most recently she was featured in Landscape Forever an exhibition curated by Dion Ogust. After meeting her several times and speaking to her about her passion for teaching, we decided to host a workshop in the summer of 2010 in which she will instruct called "Portraits: On location". This workshop will help students to get a creative portrait (for assignment or project) on a location in a short period of time. The class will visit a nursing home and each student will be assigned an individual to photograph. Carla has been photographing the aging body for many years so this location suits her well. I think this will be an incredibly informative workshop.

Carla's work is about connecting to the world around her on a deep and meaningful level. May it be people or places, her images demonstrate a compassion and understanding of the cycle of life. By using experimental techniques such as toy cameras, she is able to add a layer of mystique to her images and is able to express this warmth without the expected cliches. Carla's images are complicated and peaceful all at once- which is such a realistic viewpoint.

Take a look at Carla's website here to get a more comprehensive view of her work and have a Happy Sunday!

book wishlist

Don't judge a book by its cover- bla bla bla. Forget that! This book sold me with its cover. Colorful, whimsical and intriguing- I need it! Add Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage, 2009 (Art Institute of Chicago) to your booklist too.

This book has inspired an exhibition at the Metrapolitan Museum of Art in NYC until early May. See more images and read more about the exhibit here. I cannot wait to see it.

Copies of Playing with Pictures can be found at the Met store here.

fragmented and re-imagined- curtis mann

The Whitney Biennial 2010 is upon us and I would like to share the work of artist Curtis Mann, who will be featured this year.

Curtis Mann's work is so intriguing to me. It is my understanding that he uses found imagery and enlarges them to produce a new image. He then uses bleach to erase some of the image and essentially create a completely new one. For one of his projects he used images which originated at sites of conflict such as Gaza, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon etc. which were found on photo-sharing websites such as Flickr.

This process enables him to change the way in which we read and interpret these scenes. I see fragments of a place, of people and have to approach the image with my senses fully aware to decipher what it is I am looking at.

I was exposed to Curtis' work through Jen Bekman and bought a piece through the wonderful 20x200 print program (the image below). I was intrigued by the transformation these images had gone through. They seemed so personal- as if they originated from his own personal family photo collection- and when I found out they were not, I was very surprised.




See Curtis' perspective on art, life etc... on his blog featured here. Or check him out at the Whitney Biennial which is on view until May 30th.

all images by Curtis Mann.

book wishlist

This is the start of a brand new weekly post titled "book wishlist". think of it like a liz book club. i will be posting about both books that i wish i had and books that i have seen or own that i think are important. I will laways include a link to where the book can be purchased. It may often be amazon, abe books, the strand online, photoeye, aperture or icp.

Today's post is about Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard (Steidl & Partners, 2009). Did you know Walker collected postcards on his many travels? Even long before his photography became part of his professional life, he was building quite the inventory of the travel cards.

In the end he accumulated over 9000 cards. There was an exhibition at the Met last year highlighting some of the most interesting.

Buy the book here.

alternative venues for your viewing pleasure

image taken from Slideluck Potshow

Challenge #1: So many artists, so few spaces to show work.
Challenge #2: Such a limited audience go to see art in person
Challenge #3: contemporary work is not always meant to be hung on white walls

Solution: alternative venues.

not such a new concept, but an exciting one none the less.
alt. spaces for exhibiting art has been explored as long as art has been made (non profits to coffee shops to sides of buildings etc...).

as artists, we have so many wonderful organizations accessible to us who are coming up with new and different ways to bring art to the people.

here a just a few examples of the many institutions, organizations, individuals and publications working to create new ways to get work out into the world and expand the

Humble Arts Foundation: is a non-profit organization that is committed to supporting and promoting the work of new art photographers. The New York-based nonprofit serves the international art community by way of exhibition and publishing opportunities, limited-edition print sales, twice–annual artists grants, and various special curatorial projects.

Founded in 2005 by amani olu and Jon Feinstein, Humble has been a pioneering hub for showcasing new fine art photography, and has served as a resource for collectors, galleries, museums, curators, photo editors, and bloggers internationally.

One of the many wonderful exhibitions affiliated with Humble is 31 Women in Photography at Affirmation Arts which is coming up in early March and is co-curated by Charlotte Cotton and Jon Feinstein.

Humble has a very open submission policy - worth checking out.

_______________________________________

Slideluck Potshow: a non-profit organization devoted to building and strengthening community around food and art. Aspiring, Undiscovered and very accomplished artists, photojournalists, painters, designers, sculptors, fashion and fine art photographers all show their work alongside one another in a relaxed, egalitarian, and spirited atmosphere. This slideshow format offers emerging artists a unique forum and opportunity to reach new audiences. Past participants include: Elliott Erwitt, Shepard Fairey, Chris Buck, Alec Soth, Martin Schoeller, Elinor Carucci, Alistair Thain, Edward Burtysky, Doug Menuez, and Phil Toledano.

At each Slideluck Potshow event, the slideshow exhibition is preceded by a potluck-style dinner. Attendees bring food and drink, as the evening begins with two hours of dining on the home-cooked delights of the participants, while drinking and mingling. The potluck gives presenting artists and event attendees the opportunity to interact with each other in an informal atmosphere that encourages dialogue about the artwork to be exhibited.

Slideluck Potshow was founded by advertising and editorial photographer, Casey Kelbaugh, in 2000.
You can even find recipes for the potluck here.

Keep an eye out for Slideluck Potshow Woodstock coming July 17th!!!! Submissions will be due mid-June.
______________________________________________

Visura Magazine: an on-line, invitation only magazine featuring personal projects selected by the artists. The goal of this magazine is to be true to the artist's voices.

A very passionate group of people run this online publication- and work very hard to keep each issue coming out.

Some artists featured in the latest issue #7 are Larry Fink, Donna Ferrato, Jeff Jacobson and many others.

Every issue includes a "Visura spotlight" which highlights a student or emerging photographer.

my sunday local artist ramble

image by Stephen Shore

Across the river and through the woods is a wondrous place called Bard College. Within the realm of Bard's campus some of the art world's most talented educators reside. One of them is one of the most iconic names in contemporary photography (at least in my world)- Stephen Shore. He has been the head of Bard's photography program since the early 1980's.

Since I was in high school, photographs depicting the cultural American landscape was something that intrigued me and Stephen Shore's work was very much a part of that genre. His unfiltered, comical, and poetic look at the 20th century landscape represented everything that i understood about the world. The most visible landscape photographic work, to me as a young person, was Ansel Adams...and his landscape pictures are lovely and in some circumstances they are even breathtaking- but they were not from the world I saw in front of me. I believed that there were more metaphorical layers to the landscape than I was seeing in the art historical context- and it was not until i was exposed to contemporary work like Shore- Owens- Sternfeld-Klett etc... that landscape photography truly began speak to me.

Shore has a really interesting history. He started making pictures so young and found an audience for them very quickly. As a young person he hung out with Warhol and took many images of that scene (see below). There are several beautiful portraits in this series but my favorites are the environmental portraits which show the factory in all its glory.

Stephen Shore

Warhol with 'Silver Clouds' in Factory
1965-1967
Black and white photograph
19 x 12 3/4 inches
edition of 8

all content copyright 303 Gallery, New York, 2010

Stephen Shore's book Uncommon Places is in my opinion one of the most important photo book ever created. Mostly because it gave the next generation of artists the ok to creatively explore our society's cliches, contradictions, weirdness, sprawl and all the ugly that oozes to the surface of our landscape. It is not going to produce a perfect Ansel Adams- but it will create a new kind of beautiful. One that comes only with individual perspective and freedom. One that exists to explore instead of simply satisfy. Shore is like the Dean Moriarty of the art world- on the bus and ready to go.

image by Stephen Shore

303 Gallery represents his work which you can see more of here.

happy v-day

Card made by up up creative.

for love or money or both?

painting by Carmen Herrera

Never have I considered the possibility of being able to make a living from my art. Truth be told, I still can not grasp that idea. People who are able to do that are amazing to me- or they have big trust funds- either/or, it seems far from my reach. Despite these feelings, I have been contemplating ways to make it happen for myself. I know that I am in love with what I do- and have been since I was 14 years old- and yet the concept of having a career as an artist is overwhelming to me. I know that in order to attempt it, you have to put yourself out in the world in the most vulnerable way possible. Sure, I am as stubborn as it gets but rejection is scary. And maybe that is just it- making a living in the arts but not through my art is safe. I get to be around what I love but I do not have to risk so much in order to do it.

Being part of the NYFA MARK program I am starting to learn about different strategies to succeeding as an artist. First, of course, you have to determine what success is for you. Harder question than you might realize. I ask myself it and I come up with a different answer every time. So many definitions of success run through my head: Being happy-supporting myself-getting gallery representation-exhibiting often-having a lot of studio time-etc....

I found out about the amazing story of Carmen Herrera through the reading material given to me through this program. She is one of those rare examples of someone whose passion for art finally paid off with "success". Not until she was in her 90's were her paintings "discovered" by the art world. Because the art world often focuses on the trends rather than art as a whole- her work did not find its relevance until recently (you can see one of her images above). She was supported by her husband for most of her life and was able to be a studio artist because as she put it, "she had to".

This story is almost too romantic for my taste, but i am inspired. Mostly, I am happy for Carmen who deserves to be recognized in this way.

You can view the NY Times picture slide show here.

what up winter

not very much snow fell so far today but a few more inches should be on their way. I did get a chance to walk in the woods a bit this afternoon. the property here is so rich with interesting views, wildlife, and plants.

i hope everyone is having a nice winter day- staying warm and being inspired.

wet your plate in 2010

Came across this image yesterday hidden in the deep valley of digital files- it was taken by a CPW student during a weekend Wet Collodion wokshop taught by Michael Mazzeo in 2008. I always come across so tough in pictures- which is funny cause I an as soft as a bunny : )

The exciting news is Michael will be returning to teach in 2010 for a 3-day workshop called Blackening your Fingertips: Wet Plate Collodion! He is incredibly talented and is a great person to learn this unique process from. No question- it is hard work- but when you start making plates on the second day you will be so inspired.

Curious about who else might be teaching this summer? The schedule will be on-line in early March so sign up for CPW's email list to be notified. I promise- it is a killer line-up with new faces and class topics....