writing down our names

Though it was once so abundantly known and loved that the owner didn't even entertain the necessity of writing it's name on these photographs, now this pup exists only within the framework of what we may ascertain from their compositions. This dog came into with the Great Depression, born in roughly 1928, where it lived to be an old dog (at least 11) with a young female child companion in a household with lush foliage and enough money to afford a camera, and as I said before was abundantly known. I work at an elementary school where reminding kids to write their names on things take up about half of my classroom time. I guess one's name to a child seems so permanent and limitless that it doesn't really seem a possibility that without the letters as witness, the identity of their label can waver, dissipate and float away.

bordered

I really like this photograph because of how it's teeny little portrait is framed with a schitzophrenic array of decorative borders--a simple white halo, a grape trellis and assorted ceramic jugs, a snow storm of dotted pattern, a squiggle, a fine line, a bolder one, an under-trimmed mat. I wonder if it can be understood as an exercise to decide upon indecision-- why choose one when you can have more?

mosaic

Went to one of my favorite photograph depots today after not visiting for nearly 1 1/2 years. I went thought my collection this week and picked out a bunch of large portraits which I didn't really have room or attraction for and traded them in for a fleet of new aquisitions, of which these small female portraits were included.

Where am I and what am I holding?

Heard a great radio blip today about shared qualities of Science and Art as the ability through exposure to both to learn something or reassess our place in the cosmos-- where do we come from? who are we? where are we going? Both are also fixated with the meaning and logic of origins.

wearing pants

Today I subbed for a 5th grade class and had a nice time learning more about their classroom. I even got to witness a conversation about what it means to classify assisted pushups as "girl pushups." Their teacher, Naomi, talked about how the terminology infers that girls can't do "normal" push-ups because of gendered weakness. I liked it and saw that the students were interested and invested in making a collaborative vocabulary revision, but wish there had also been a conversation about how it's okay to be physically weak, boys and girls, and that strength can be measured in a myriad of ways. Maybe some more about the unrealistic and unfair expectation that cis-gendered boys should be physically and emotionally strong and impenetrable. I listened to an old This American Life about the term "Sissy" and how more effort is being put into making feminizing words non-pejorative over letting boys be free and feminine.

holding flowers

So many of these small photographs show women interacting with nature in strange and stilted ways! I wish there was a better and less fertility-suggestive way for women to pose with flowers, maybe slung over a shoulder, in the teeth, under the armpit or between the toes?

in their gardens

I'd like to do some more research about women and flowers that shrugs off the pejorative daintiness associated with both. If you have any suggestions of books to read, please let me know about them!

disguised

Awhile back I wrote a proposal to be included in a big public art project called The Cries of San Francisco which is the great big art baby of Allison Smith and organized by San Francisco's art non-profit Southern Exposure. You can find out more about the project through the website by following this link: http://soex.org/criesofsf/?i=home. My proposal was accepted but now I'm struggling to give it wings of it's own because I also found out I'll be unable to be in San Francisco during the actual event. I'm helping three 4th grade boys peddle disguises (our peddler personality is "Masters of Disguise"). The info session for all accepted proposals (about 50?) is this Tuesday night and I'm looking forward to learning more about how I can help the kids prepare and feel confident in their participation.

where to sleep in summertime

Today I found out I got into a teaching certification program I applied for and also that I was awarded a residency from the Saltonstall Foundation in Ithaca from May 16-June 16. Sometimes when it rains it can seem like it's been pouring if it's been dry for awhile. I'm excited but having a hard time making all the different pieces fit together on the calendar.

I like this picture of a woman with a resigned newspaper accross her lap, sitting on a porch bed. It seems like another bed begins in the front left corner of the composition. Everything I love-- her tennis shoes, her shirt, her hair, her look of bemusement.

dirty soles

Occasionally there will be a photograph whose figure is clearly imagining their printed paper form for one particular person who is not myself in 2011. This photograph is totally one of them-- risque shots like these are not common finds probably because not that many copies are made of them and because their recipients prize them dearly enough to not let them wind up in the public fray and also perhaps because shots like these dont get put in the scrapbook with all the reast of the much more typical fuddy-duddy family pictures! I love that the bottoms of her feet are dirty.

on cutting

Morgs and I ended our long-haul of a relationship today leaving us both a little cracked up but looking forward to something new and different. I think this break-up picture sort of sums the feeling up-- when you cut out part of the picture it makes the borders a little bit awkward but it helps direct the focus of where you're supposed to be looking.

Gio Ernest and Glenn Otis Saller

Loretta McCosker

This photograph was put in a box of photographs labeled "MEN" and it felt nice to liberate her from such company.

Four shots from out of the dark

Recently I got an email from an old acquaintance from Wesleyan who was a TA for some photography classes I took while I was there. She asked if I could send her some copies of images I took while a student in her class for a job application and after a little digging around I found these and sent them over. Now they're on top of the pile and I've been thinking about these images and what sort of secrets and premonitions they hold in their images about who I was when I took them and who I'd be five years later. Thiscoming summer is my 5-year reunion from Wesleyan and it's a weird feeling to think of all the time between then and now as a single chapter of my story.

one arm between us

For the day after: a photograph of lovers, disconnected.

coupling

Happy happy valentines day.

small windows redux

More small portaits from Vermont, but these much more lavish and varying in decorative flair. Still the same size though-- for pockets?

small windows

All of these came from my excursions in Vermont last November-- they probably were all produced by the same photographer. When I was in Vermont a few summers ago I noticed that a larger percentage of photographs at antique stores had been originally shot locally than in other towns and cities, certainly on the west coast. I think people are more inclined to stay in Vermont-- there's a strong commitment in communities to be self-sustaining and certainly less draw for droves of young transient up-starters than found the in friendlier climates of the west and opportunities of big city life. Consequently, the photographs also show a visual dialect-- there were droves of very very similar portraits all the same size, same layout, similar cardstock and borders.

coming to a head

Yesterday and today I installed these 100 drawings in the final culmination of a project that I started in the summer. It took a long time because I left town for all of August and then again for November and December! My friend George Pfau helped me get them onto the walls yesterday using a finicky scaffolding set-up... basically a board placed between two ladders. The drawings are affixed to small wooden panels, which are held to the wall with super-strong magnets. The night before installation I panicked because I realized that if something with the earth's magnetic poles get shifted in 2012 (aka the end of the world) that they would all fall down. Then I was reminded that this would be a relatively small concern in the face of apocalypse and felt better. It feels so so good to have finished such a monolithic (polylithic?) undertaking and I'm relieved to be done but also wondering what the next big project will be.

welcome to here and now

Ah.... but here I am in California and ready to make some big things happen in 2011. I've got the commission in Noe Valley to wrap up and also have to finish some new work for the CREAM show in February/March. Things are happening! Happy New Year!