ralph eugene meatyard+++++

///the art institute of chicago is exhibiting RALPH EUGENE MEATYARD july 2- sept 25///




over the years I have become obsessed with photo history and MEATYARD has definitely left an impression on me. I encourage anyone in the chicago metro area to stop by this amazing show and take a look for yourself.

here's what the art institute had to say about the show:
"Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925-1972) has been on the fringes of photographic history- so much that he inserted one of his own prints into his personal copy of Beaumont Newhall's classic History of Photography, which did not include him. And yet his impact on photographic practice, belatedly recolonized, has been significant. An optician in Lexington, Kentucky, Meatyard sustained a life-long interest in visual perception. Well read and deeply connected to a circle of poets and philosophers, he made photographs rich in literary allusion. Meatyard's photography was not accidental or documentary, but rather deliberate, often staged, and searching for inner truths rather than ephemeral surfaces.

In his last decade, Meatyard kept returning to the tropes of dolls and masks, often photographing his children posed in abandoned houses and landscapes. These pictures put an uncanny spin on family photographs, exploring the contrasts between youth and age, childhood and mortality, intimacy and unknowability, sharing and hiding. For Meatyard, dolls represented a physical human presence, whether employed in a scene alongside people or instead of people. He used masks to universalize his sitters rather than make portraits of individuals. Masks reflect the faces we all put on for the camera; indeed, Meatyard's last project before his untimely death was The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater, a project based on the common snapshot album but featuring friends and family all wearing masks. Drawn from the photographer's estate, this focused exhibition- all works made before that iconic project- examines dolls and masks across different bodies of work as a window onto this enigmatic photographer's larger practice."

Admission:
Adults: $18
Children, Students, and Seniors (65 and up): $12
Children under 14 are free. Members are always free.

Museum Hours
Monday–Wednesday, 10:30–5:00
Thursday, 10:30–8:00
Friday–Sunday, 10:30–5:00


do yourself a favor and go.

update

WEBSITE UPDATE/////

finally, I did a much needed website update. I added a little, changed a little, and took a little out. there's a new set of galleries and some images have been added to old ones. more will be added once I scan more work. hope you guys like it, give feedback.

Lorna Simpson

April 2, 2011

"Renowned for photographs, videos and text-works that challenge narrow, conventional views of gender, identity, culture, history, and memory, Lorna Simpson discusses her process and her most recent work, placing it in context within the larger span of her practice. Over the last five years, Simpson has been creating works that draw from an archive of photographs from the 1950s, complicating the historical images by creating her own replicas of these, posing herself to mimic the originals. The MCA Chicago organized Lorna Simpson's first traveling museum exhibition in 1992, and most recently featured early works by the artists in the exhibition Rewind 1970s to 1990s: Works from the MCA Collection. Her work is included in the upcoming 2012 MCA exhibition This Will Have Been: Art, Love, and Politics in the 1980s. " -mca chicago site.

I was lucky enough to catch Lorna's talk here in chicago. She spoke a lot about her transition of work as well as her side obsessions.
While in Seattle attending Pilchuck Glass School, she came across the work of James Van Der Zee and noticed the details in the picture- the vases in particular. In class she would recreate the vases and then photographed them.


9 Props, 1995, Waterless lithographs on 9 felt panels, 47 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches overall.

JAMES VAN DER ZEE//
With each image of the vase, Simpson would describe the Van Der Zee image in text below. This is how the image is present.


The text reads:
Woman with a goldfish bowl., 1923, James Van Der Zee

A woman wearing pearls stands behind a bouquet of flowers and goldfish bowl.

Her right hand rests on the rim of the bowl, as she gazes at a painted image of a butterfly in flight.



Wigs II, 1996-2006, Waterless lithographs on felt.

HAIR ABSTRACTIONS//
What most people have seen of Simpson's work are pieces from her felt series. In the talk, she commented on how the wigs are 'surrogates' or unoccupied hair. They were a topic of gender, society of masculinity and femininity. Her point was to raise the idea of how malleable gender and appearance can be.



Easy to Remember, 2001, Video installation, 16mm black-and-white film transferred to DVD.
2 minutes, 35 seconds, sound.

EASY TO REMEMBER//
This video piece is one of my favorite works by Lorna Simpson. While in school, I had only seen still shots or clips from the video but during her talk, we were able to watch it in her entirety. The mouths are all humming the same tune, John Cold Train. but with each person, the characteristics of the song change. Naturally, some take different keys and attitudes. They were filmed at different times, listening to the song through headphones, simply reacting and yet flow so well together. I love watching how anyone brings something different to the table because of who they are which is why i'm fascinated by this piece and what it says about people by comparing them in this style.



Cloudscape, 2004, Single-projectioin video installation.
Video transferred to DVD, 3 minutes, sound.
Performance by Terry Adkins.

CLOUDSCAPE//
Terry Atkins stands in a room wearing a suit and whisling a tune. As he continues, smoke begins to fill the room. By the end of the song, you lose visual of Atkins and when he finishes, the video goes in reverse. The smoke then creeps back to where it once came from and his whistle, now played backwards, turns into a different song with a different mood.


Corridor, 2003. Double-projection video installation, video transferred to DVD.
13 minutes, 45 seconds, sound.

CORRIDOR//
The final work that she discussed during the talk was 'Corridor', a video piece that contrasts the basic daily life of an african american worman in 1860 to 1960. The woman is played by Wangechi Mutu, whose work I suggest you take a look at.


Head B, 2008, ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches. (left)
Head G, 2008, ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches. (right)

HEAD DRAWINGS//
I have never been able to master the art of watercolors and inkwash drawings but I admire it extremely. This collection of work is something she did that follows the her interested in hair and it's purpose and possibilities. I love these so much and even though she says they she can't draw, I can't stop looking at them.


///////////////////////////////////
If you haven't checked out her work, do it. she's talented, amazing, and such a lovely person. I was so nervous to talk to her but somehow I got the courage to ask her a question during the talk and mumbled like an idiot. I stayed after, thanked her and spoke to her for a moment. Lorna Simpson can now be added to the list of amazing photographers I have met before dying, joining joel peter-witkin and arno rafael minkkinen-- so amazing.


-c

baltimore.

baltimore has brought good luck and growth. my dad is as strong as i've always believed and has come from his surgery like a hero. i'm so proud of him.
i've met some really amazing people here and also realized that i have some amazing friends that care and support me. i love you guys.

i realize that wasn't photo-based, but it needed to be said.
here are some phone images i've taken while here... i've become a real chase jarvis apparently.

thinking outside the postcard

The idea of straying away from sending basic emails and postcards came into my life while attending Angela Faris Belt's Fine Art/Marketing class almost a year ago at the Art Institute of Colorado. She forced us to actually be creative with our marketing, who would of thought. As photographers, graphic designers, cinematographers, etc., we put so much effort and thought into the final product, we sometimes loose sight that our product is only as good as we market it. If you plan to get that incredible job that everybody else and their grandmother wants, you need to stand out.
While in class, we looked over examples of marketing pieces that would make your contacts give you a second look, become curious, or even find you too funny to not look spend a second on your website. That's the goal in the end, isn't it? You can send out emails to 100 people and odds are that maybe 7 will actually click your link and check out your work. not really good odds.
My point is that you have to do more and think more. You may have breath taking work, but if you don't do something creative to get your name out there, who cares. I have been really interested in marketing lately and researching what other people have done to execute a strong, creative and successful marketing plan.

And honestly, even if their not successful, they're still trying. But again, be careful, you don't want to put something horrible out there with your name out there. No matter how big this world is, the art world talks and news travels fast.


Clint Davis
Photographer, ex-art director.
http://clintdavis.net/

Here’s an excerpt from Davis’ blog –

Hello? Hi? Can you hear me?!? HELLO!!!!…. (crickets… frogs… distant coyote howl)

Sometimes it may feel that no matter how hard you try, getting a client to look at your work can feel like whispering in a circle of vuvuzelas. Introducing my trojan horse; a brick-sized-self-promoting white box.

Fortunately my previous job as an Art Director for national magazines put me in the position to receive self-promotion mailers from aspiring photographers. Most of the promo pieces were 4×6″ postcards with a picture on one side, and printed addresses on the other side. Stale, non-personalized, and probably frayed at the edges, the postcards rarely made it from the mail room to my desk. But a box?!? A freakin’ box??? NOW you have my attention. Maybe it’s just me, but when I get a box in the mail with a hand-written address, a slow fuzzy feeling comes over me and my eyes open 43% more than usual. YOU good box are coming back to my desk for a thorough dissection.

Above all I wanted to make a self-promotion mailer that wouldn’t get tossed in the trash right away. Considering the caliber of ad agencies, magazine photography editors, athletic teams, and select others that will receive this mailer, that is a tall order to accomplish.









Danny Cohan
Photographer
http://www.iwanttobeyourassistant.com/

I Want To Be Your Assistant from Danny Cohen on Vimeo.

Timothy Bailey
Phographer
http://www.timothybaileyphotography.com/

In his own words,
For the last 6 months I’ve been working on creating a promo that would turn peoples heads… AND ITS FINALY DONE!! It all started by sitting at coffee with my sister Hillary Bailey and trying to come up with a concept to introduce myself and get my work in front of some people that might like to work with me. Haha so we came up with a book safe concept cause I shoot humorous and epic narratives… So we thought a book would be a good way to tell a story!!

So I started doing research on how to get all the items for the promo and started designing the logo’s and layouts and figuring out all the different pieces needed to make this happen. So one of the the main things I needed was drawings of some of my images but since I can’t draw I asked a good friend Dylan Reeker who happens to be an amazing illustrator to make some drawings of my images for me. After a lil back and forth we came up with the look of the drawing and I couldn’t be happier with what he came up with!!

Once I finally got all the items needed I called a good friend of mine Jeik Catlin Ficker Williams of TANLINE PRINTING (tanlineprinting@yahoo.com) (who happens to be an amazing screen-printer and came up with amazing solutions for the problems that come with having a big imagination!!) So I explained the project and he was in… Luckily for the price of homie-hook-up haha so I made several trips to his house were we screen printed the cozies, books, sunglasses, stickers, and boxes!!! I think we did something like 2500 prints all together!! It was pretty crazy and a tedious task…

After finishing all the printing I started packaging each book which included… sunglasses, a cozy, two ice coffee packages, a call to action free t-shirt postcards, 7 postcards with my images on them, 4 tattoos, and a business card. Everything I put in the book is was meant to tell people a lil bit about myself… For example I only drink ice coffee, I have Tattoos, I drink beer, and I like crazy sunglasses!! So I started the daunting task to package all these packages and I couldn’t have done it with out the amazing help of Michelle Casey after three long days of packaging building boxes and labeling each package we finally made it to Fedex at 3am on the third day and sent THE CRAZY BOOK PROMO out!!

Now I guess I wait cross my fingers and hope that people are interested in working on some sweeeettt projects in the future!!

TIMOTHY BAILEY









theres will be more to come later, hope some of these help inspire you to think a little differently about how you wanna get your name out there.

-c

scanner is up and working and inspiration has it's second wind

I finally got my scanner to work which means i'll be able to continue with my workflow as I used to when I was a student of AI.
Ai kids, you have no idea how amazing it is to have the equipment at hand that you have there as a student, be prepared when you graduate.

I'm really excited to start working again and getting things out there.

test shots- PETA: lingerie football league

some from the vault.
here are some shots Jimmy let me have from when i was assisting for him


These shots are from the light tests when we photographed the Chicago Bliss from the Lingerie Football League. I also included the final shot below.





the final product:



the shoot was for a peta advertisement against fur, obviously. It was pretty awesome and there were a ton of people on set. I had a lot of fun hanging out with the girls. they are really brave to what they do, i mean, i've played full-contact sports but with pads and protection. they are wearing basically nothing and can kick ass- honestly!

hope you like the update.