making moves

I got a job teaching glass blowing and a studio and I’ve been photographing a lot

here are some new images

some pictures i took at the end of break

i cant remember who said this

“the best part of us is not what we see, its what we feel, we are what wel feel. We are not what we look at. We are not our eyeballs. we are our mind. People believe their eyeballs and theyre totally wrong. That why i consider photographs extremely boring– just like muzak, nonoffensive, charming another waterfall, another sunset; this time colors have been added to protect the innocent. It just boring. But that whole arena of one’s experience- grief, loneliness– how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? this is what you are, not what you see. It all sitting up here, I could do all my work sitting in my room, I dont have to go anywhere”

WELL SAID

the windgate 2010

So now that the semester has finally ended and I have had time to sleep I have to start and finish my windgate nomination proposal. I think I’ve been avoiding it because I really reallly reallly would like it, and I’m sure everyone else nominated feels the same. I’m terrified of finalizing it because then its no longer up to me but up to the judges if what I want to do with the $15,000 is good enough

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’d want to do with the money, or simply what I’d like to do in art if money wasnt and option and this proposal wasnt even an issue. I’d deffinately like to travel and take glass classes to perfect my skill while still being able to produce photographs. Right now I’m looking at The Glass Furnace which is a craft school in Turkey that has a class taught by Chris Taylor who’s work studies ‘the journey’ how the mind understands it and twists it and how our mind affects the way we view the places we visit. He not only uses glass but also photo, video, sound, text, readymades, and sculpture. I think taking a class with him will not only improve my glass skill but his mind and ideas have a direction that I think we would both benefit from discussing.

I’d also like to go to the glass art society conference, to see the new up and coming ideas in glass.

thats as far as I’ve gotten but I’m deffinately happy with my decision to travel to turkey.

“there oughta be a law” by William Ecenbarger

Washington, D.C., July 4, 2509: The General Services Administration today announced completion of an exact replica of the United States’ Capitol building—designed from C-SPAN videos that recorded debate in both houses of Congress in the early years of the 21st century.

The grounds surrounding the Capitol have also been faithfully reproduced. There are bushes, which were beaten around, and a row of haystacks in which members of Congress used to look for needles. The driveway is paved with stones, none of which was unturned, and there are three bandwagons in front of the building upon which they frequently climbed. There are no fewer than seven flagpoles for the running up of ideas.

There are slippery slopes and level playing fields to accommodate whole new ballgames. Directly in back of the building is a lake from which the tips of icebergs protrude, and anchored there is a ship named Titanic, whose deck chairs can be rearranged.

Several handsome doors, which were always open and upon which opportunity tended to knock, lead to the restored Capitol’s interior. Near the entrance sits a small waiting room for ideas whose time had come. The first floor also contains a gymnasium where lawmakers could exercise their prerogatives and a pediatrics ward for the babies that were thrown out with the bath water.

The kitchen features a large bakery, where the ancient solons prepared half loaves that were better than none, pies in the sky and cake that they could have and eat too. There’s an abundant supply of salt, which lawmakers often took grains of, and pans that once held flashes. An oversized pantry accommodates hundreds of pork barrels. A huge butcher block was used to trim fat from the federal budget, which was sometimes cut to the bone. Geese were frequently cooked here.

An attached barn is a veritable Noah’s ark of busy beavers, proud peacocks, sly foxes, mad wet hens, gored oxen, slow-paced snails and ducks (some sitting, some dead, some with water running off their backs). The video debates indicate that the most common animal of all was the bull, which was taken by the horns before it was loosed in the china shop, where it had a tendency to defecate, about which lawmakers often exclaimed. Pigs were kept in a poke.

The stable housed horses—some of a different color—with carts before them. Some of these animals were changed in midstream, and there were even dead horses that, sadly, appeared to have been beaten. Spurs of the moment hang throughout the stable. Although there is a separate room for one lone 800-pound gorilla, it was rarely mentioned. The kennel housed many old dogs, some that wouldn’t hunt and others that couldn’t be taught new tricks. If sleeping, the dogs were allowed to lie—unless they barked up the wrong tree. A special holding pen was reserved for “Blue Dogs,” a breed that went extinct long ago.

The basement storage area includes shelf upon shelf of Pandora’s boxes, both opened and unopened, and many cans of worms. There’s a grindstone to which noses were put and bins of brass tacks.

From his office directly across the street from the restored Capitol, Speaker of the House Maxim Bromide said that making such good use of the videos was a stroke of genius. “From time immemorial,” he went on, “our nation’s legislators have had a way with words and always managed to hit the nail on the head. It’s high time we preserve this national treasure. Nothing succeeds like success…”

very new

very rough

Tadaaki Kuwayama

I love love love these photos

Tadaaki Kuwayama has this red couch and photographed it all over the world. He has people sit in the couch and asks them a series of existential questions. The responses of all the participants emphasizes the bonds between all human beings and how much stronger they are than our differences.

I like his concept but I also think the photographs are extremely attractive…I am kind of doing the same thing with my marble piece, I’m installing it in different places and photographing it in the space and capturing how it changes the places perspective….

here are the list of questions that the people sitting in the couch are asked:

What makes life liveable for you?
What makes life unliveable for you?
What is your definition of happiness?
What is your definition of unhappiness?
What was the most interesting thing that ever happened to you?
What was the worst thing that ever happened to you?
What was the worst thing that you ever did?
What is your biggest fear?
What do you wish for most?
What or who would you most like to be?
What is your definition of work?
What does love mean to you? (Friends, family, same sex, opposite sex)
What kind of importance do you attach to other living beings?
What or who do you believe created the universe?
What is your expectation after death?

and here are the pictures

picasso was smart

“My mother said to me: ‘If you become a soldier you will be a general. If you become a priest you will be the pope. If you become a politician you will be the president’ I became an artist so I became Picasso”

artist statement

In my work I am interested in exploring language and the way people communicate with each other. Language is a basic structure in all cultures and although it allows human beings to express their thoughts and ideas to others it is also extremely limiting. I often try to express the space beyond speech, where language fails us, and convey the ever frustrating feeling of being at a loss for words. While people search for the words to represent their ideas the world is constantly making advancements in our methods of communication from the Morse code to telephones and more recent advancements such as cell phones and video chat that allow us to communicate with opposite sides of the world. As the opportunity to communicate with more and more people expands I feel that our ability and desire diminish.

In our new age of technology we can communicate with almost whoever we want but I think that people are listening less and less. Conversations seem like more of an opportunity to state our point the loudest and when a response is being received the listener is already formulating a response. I think this inability to communicate with the already difficult issue of languages incompleteness can become extremely isolating and detrimental to the growth of new ideas. In my art I hope to express the importance of true communication and not just speaking. I want to make the viewer slow down and think about the way people express ideas to others and how listening with both our eyes and ears is still a necessity for the existence of true communication.

I use glass and photo to convey these ideas. Photography gives me the opportunity to directly represent the world around us while glass allows me to create my own expression of it. I use both together to express the seriousness of these ideas with humor in order to first draw the viewer in with comedy and then let them realize the underlying concept.

Lorna Simpson

I was first drawn to Lorna Simpson’s photographs because of her use of repetition and the series of photos she took of the someones mouth. I also really like the way she used text, I think a lot of people use text in their photos but never successfully pull it off. I think it usually looks forced or unnecessary but I think her placement and the way she uses the text is what makes it so successful. A lot of her photographs have to do with discovering your identity and holding onto your heritage.

I think her photographs are simple and beautiful. None of her photographs show much of the subject matter, but still are successful and interesting pictures.

here’s some of her work