Scouting The Engine Shop

Oh, this place looked like a real good place to make a commercial photograph....agree or disagree?

The T Is Silent / Pep Talk

This text/email exchange between Caroline Favrot Lee and Yvonne was published on CFL's blog " The T Is Silent" and is titled "Pep Talk". I thought it was universal and touched on so many things, I asked her if I could re-run it here.

A text message on 1/19/10 4:19pm, continued via email.

CFL: Do you think making art is really that important?

YVONNE: Yes, i think art is more important than looking at/appreciating art sometimes.
Lots more to say about this though . . . What prompted this?

CFL: Larry Sultan's Memorial service - he was so convinced that art making was so damn important- it seems it was the only thing he was sure of- he questioned everything else obsessively - I was always in awe of this stake in the ground, this bedrock of faith. I often would sit in his class and wish I could feel as committed to making art, that I could Believe like he believed. I wish I could have the same faith in art making. I think maybe one human is only allowed so many strong convictions - maybe we only get one a lifetime and I have mine and he had his. Maybe that's just silly ... I can't tell at all -He said, days before he died that his life was important, he was lucky because he was able to touch culture, grazing it light like a feather and creating ripples well beyond his lifetime which had nothing to do w/ fame.

You think that's true? I hope so - he was so awesome, I'm really sad he's gone.

YVONNE: Never heard him speak about making art but to hear you talk about what you absorbed from his classes makes me excited to hear what he thought about it. I'd love to hear more, both what he thought and what you got from it. As for faith in what we do, I feel like that's a little different from why I think making art is important. definition of faith is a belief not based on 100% definitive proof, no? It's more like a hypothesis, that is, a guess based on certain information received. whole point is to get closer to what is true, hypotheses and faiths can be abandoned when and if appropriate.

Maybe he had proof? That making art (for him?) was certainly and without a doubt important. Sounds like it.

Also, I don't think we get one conviction a lifetime. Hope not. Hope I get many that continue to be revised as I get closer to things as they really are.

Wanna talk more about this. Miss you. Think it's awesome you're discussing this. Reminds me why I think you're dope. One of many reasons.

Hugs to you,
Yvonne

Read more on The T Is Silent HERE.

Out Of Control Photo Nerds

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Kids make 'blad out of Rice Krispies.

Then it looks like they frost it.

They are my heroes.

Thank you so much, Rebecca Leach and Thomas Dagg.

Friday Blog

So a very quiet blog this week, huh?
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Bunkering down and working on new stuff, new website, new blog look, lots of tech-y behind the scenes stuff. But you all will know when it's done....pretty soon....
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The family is away this week, so between shoots my suburban home is now a hipster live/work loft, working 'round the clock....just eating ramen and drinking mountain dew to get stuff done.
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Just letting you know...

Who Lives With Your Photographs?

jacob strummer miles first birthday, brooklyn n.y.
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The work we all do for our jobs have a clear arc to them- they are usefull and created for a purpose: illustrate a story, sell a product, depict a person...that type of thing. But the images that really mean things to us...where do they end up? Who lives with them? Who owns them? Do they just reside in viewer's brains, sitting there and influencing future photographs? I dunno, but over the past week I've been asking that question amidst the fundraising auction of last week and a future exhibition we are getting ready for next month in a foreign culture....who wants this stuff? I just gotta ask.
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Now with my last big project Sex Machines : Photographs and Interviews ( 2006 ), it was clear who was attracted to the project. It came out as a book, we did lots of events to promote it, tried to get lots of press to promote it...when you do that you really learn who your audience is. The alternative weekly journalists loved to write about it...it hit that combo of pop culture and art and weirdness that they seem to embrace. The bookstores that dug it also had a bohemian bend to them: these places embraced the book and sold it next to Dan Clowes illustrated books and Peter Bagge's comix. In my head the book was on someone's coffee table, being used to roll/cut drugs on, and most likely being used as the centerpiece for a night of laughter, people saying WTF...and hopefully something deeper. As a piece of literature you can revisit and go back to, something you could open and close...there it seemed to feed people. As far as prints that people hang in their home...well....the number of sales there can be counted pretty easily. Zero!
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Now with Echolilia....do people want to own this stuff? Do they want to hang a picture of your kid in their home? Some do. Brooke and Jimbo Embry drove back to LA with a massive print of "Screen Door & Nest, 2010" on Friday night. And then we have Eric Miles and Brenda Milis, photo literate folks, who sent this shot over last week that just floored me, above. There is an image from Echolilia framed and pretty, haunting their son's first birthday party. This kid is gonna live with this shot and its gonna be in his brain. There is something about that...that this cluttered view into my cluttered life is something that is feeding people on a daily basis. That idea is something that just seems kinda profound to me.
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Give It Up For Loni Photography Auction

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Here are some images from the GIUFL photography auction up for bidding now.
Buy photographs by great artists and have it go directly to a great cause...and you will get the work at a great price. Grab that massive print of TA's "Nest, 2010" at a killer price!
What more do you need to know?

View the work and bid on the facebook page for Give It Up For Loni HERE.
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photographs top to bottom: Raymond Meeks, Andy Anderson, Erik Almas

Checkbook Ready?

feliz with 30 x 42 "nest" print

Had a great time on Wednesday working on the 30 x 42 print of "Nest" and then hustling it over to Erik Alma's home. E.A. is hosting an art show/fundraiser/blowout party for Give It Up For Loni on Friday with a silent auction and more. More info to come for sure here, but visit the Facebook page to see work in the show. Read some more HERE.

Love, And Then There Is Valentine's Day Too.

New Futon, 1998
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My reps are crafting some promotional campaign for the upcoming holiday and asked their photographers to dig into their archives and find some images on the theme of Love. Yikes. Pretty big topic there, and a hard one to do well. Like in music and movies, this Love thing is so complex and hard to define it is usually trivialized, simplified, and dumbed down because it's just easier to deal with in that form. That idea of "silly love songs" is right on. Here is this thing that is multi leveled, infinitely complex, and as easy to grasp as the birth of the universe, but people need to talk about it, so it's gotta be put into some simpler package or really we'll never get anywhere. Ha...are ya'all with me? See what I mean?
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I sent them these two images with this note of explanation:
I think the picture of the heart is about Valentine's day. I think the picture of the extension cords is about Love. cords is about Love.
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But then I gave them a third option, an out-take from the project Sex Machines, which is what I think we'll end up using. More on the entire Tidepool series in the days ahead.


Kid In Alley With Heart, 2000

How Fun Is It To Show Old Work?

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Well...its not. But I do take advantage of every opportunity I get. One thing can lead to another and another and its interesting to get work in front of a new audience...this time a new culture.
But it lacks that feeling of " a test". Showing new work....now that has the feeling of " a test".

On my to do list this week is a bunch of stuff, but I'm looking forward to making a big print of "Screen Door + Nest " for GiveItUpForLoni, a fundraiser/art show put together by Erik Almas in his SF home. I want a print for me...and I want a print for the event...so I'm gonna find a hole this weekend to get out an print it.

This weekend we ( my kids and I ) were preparing 40 x 40 prints for the trip to Hong Kong for the exhibition curated by Isaac Leung at Videotage, and I snapped a shot before they shipped. Here's a list of the artists:

Johannes Grenzfurthner (Austria)
Kyle Machulis (US)
Paul Granjon (UK)
Shulea Cheang (France)
Katrien Jacobs (China)
Ellen Pau (China)
Timothy Archibald (US)
OhMyBod (US)

More on that show when it opens in the spring...

This Is How It's Done

TB created a challenging new series of still life photographs and needed a name for the series.
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The history of photography is filled with great titles: " The Ballad Of Sexual Dependency" by Nan Goldin, "The Pleasures And Terrors Of Levitation" by Aaron Siskind, " The Last Resort " by Martin Parr. With me, I always thought the best part of the series on my relationship with my son was the title which came from my wife : "Echolilia".
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The other night over dinner 5 children ranging from 2-9 were throwing out the titles to his series: Meat Flowers! Garden of Meat! The Butcher Of Barrows Road! Floral Carne! I snapped a pic with my phone to document the moment.
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This is how it's done. Everybody's got an opinion. See the series and more HERE.

Curve Ball

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We launched this email campaign yesterday, kicking off the year with a photograph of myself sent to 6000 or so creatives around the country. I don't think I even took the photograph...it may have been with a self timer or one of the crew snapped it. Snapshots from the shoot are the thing in this Facebook hungry time we are in, and Sz and I and Shannon always shoot lots of images of each other, photo nerds that we all are. So here we are, promoting TA with a picture of TA. It was an idea that went thru the entire arc: I originally laughed at...then I thought about it...and then I actually got excited by it.

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Tidepool Reps is now Brooke Embry and Kate Chase, and consultant Diane Eames is working with us as well. Lots of new ideas, lots of curve balls coming at us and from us and this feels like the first one.

Screen Door + Nest 2009

Just got a bunch of images back from SF retoucher Laura Johnston that we were working on for the American Photography and PDN contests. She really brought out the summer muggy feeling of Screen Door + Nest 2009, this image I put together as the summer wound down to a close.

Dickerman Prints : Baron Wolman

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Last week I found myself at Dickerman Prints putting together some images for the contest season and was lucky to find this really striking exhibition of the work of Baron Wolman.
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I was so into it I had to snap some photographs with my cameraphone. It's rock and roll photography of course, but the prints and images really have never looked so absolutely luscious. It just shows that technology can be great...it can help bring out the humanity in these historical images. Visit the show while it's still up...Dickerman's site is HERE. Baron Wolman's site is HERE.
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Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin, photographs by Baron Wolman.

First My Hand, Then His Face

Dad's Hand And My Face, Elijah Archibald 1/10