When You Meet a Kindred Spirit

Two weeks ago, during the JC Artists Studio Tour, I had the opportunity of greeting a collector I had met during last year's tour. Even though we had only met several times I felt as though we had known each other much longer. We bonded over our similar cultural and educational backgrounds and I recognized him as a kindred spirit. He happily reported he had been so inspired by meeting artists last year that he fulfilled his long held desire to open a small gallery in our up-and-coming neighbourhood. The gallery recently had a very successful opening. When I met the owner last week I had a chance to tour the space. We had a wonderful discussion about potential projects and collaborations (and I'll post the details once they're confirmed).

The piece above is from a series called Family/Memory that I started when I was a student at ICP 2 years ago. It was recently acquired by my new patron/collector and has given me the needed impetus to continue the series.

Deadline for Critical Mass

The deadline for Photolucida's Critical Mass is tonight and I just finished editing my entry. I submitted my most recent project Isolation/Identity and hope the portraits present a strong and cohesive body of work.

From Photolucida's Blog;

Introducing the Reviewer's Scrapbook!

Here in the States these days, it's hard to turn on the tv or radio without getting an earful about that particular day's political winners and losers. I suppose it makes sense when it comes to an election and one office up for grabs, but I worry that the competitive tone extends unnecessarily into the rest of the world. Here, for example, with Critical Mass.

One of our goals with Critical Mass is to emphasize its function as a resource and not necessarily a competition. The idea, from the beginning, was never about tabulating winners and losers, but to create a resource for contemporary art photography, allowing photographers from anywhere to get their work seen by editors, curators, and other people who actually use photography. Critical Mass was designed as a way to play matchmaker and then reward some of the photographers who everyone agrees are great with well-deserved monographs that automatically go into the collections of every single person involved. Ultimately though, it's not about the books, but about a process that allows everyone who enters to have a fair shot at having their work seen by people who actually use photography.

This year, in addition to the monographs, we've come up with an idea to celebrate the differences of opinion jurors may have by adding a "Reviewer's Scrapbook" section to our web site. This becomes a place where we can emphasize the individual tastes of select Reviewers. We've got lots of great reviewers but Laurel Ptak, for example, is going to have a significantly different list of favorites than Brooks Jensen, isn't she? The idea is simple- we're selecting 12 reviewers and inviting them to keep a folder on their desktop of their favorite images. After the voting has taken place, these images will then be turned into web slideshows, with one new slideshow coming out each month.

So far, invitations have been extended and are still coming in. Let's see, as of this moment, 86 hours before the deadline for Critical Mass entries, the following jurors have confirmed that they're willing to keep and share their scrapbooks:

Andy Adams, Flak Photo
Paul Buckley, Penguin Group
Roy Flukinger, Harry Ransom Center
Rob Haggart, APhotoEditor.com / APhotoFolio.com
Whitney Johnson, New Yorker Magazine

We'll keep you posted as more confirmations come in. I tell you, we're excited...

Isolation/Identity exhibit as part of Jersey City Studio Tour

I've been neglecting my poor blog as last week I had been preparing for my exhibit as part of the Jersey City Artists Studio Tour. From the Jersey Journal:

ART ON THE LOOSE

From barks to Barack, studio tour hosts variety

Monday, October 06, 2008

CHARLES HACK

JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

"With 600 registered artists showing at 90 venues, this year's Jersey City Artists Studio Tour held over the weekend was the largest in its 18-year history, Jersey City Art Curator Greg Brickey said.

Brickey estimated the tour, which attracted 10,000 visitors this year, has added 100 artists each year during the last four years.

"There is a whole new population of young hipsters here and a lot of them are artists and musicians," Brickey said.

Visitors to Van Vorst Park could pick up a portable radio from a desk and listen to a composition by sound artist Damian Catera.

Catera placed microphones around the park to pick up live sounds, such as people talking and dogs barking, and created his own music that was transmitted from one of three low power FM radio transmitters in the park.

At a former warehouse at 150 Bay St. in the Powerhouse Arts District residents threw open their double doors to their cavernous live/work loft spaces to show diverse works. For example, Canadian photographer Daphne Chan's portraits explore the feeling of isolation of her subjects and Cheryl Renee Riley's wall hangings and furniture are inspired by African art.

Brickey said some of the tour's highlights included the first exhibition at the Beacon complex of a sculpture curated by Jim Pustorino of the Victory Arts Project.

Another highlight was Jersey City artist Ron English's wall-sized exhibit "ABRAHAMOBAMA" that fuses the faces of Abraham Lincoln and presidential hopeful Barack Obama shown at the Canco lofts on Dey Street, he said."

About an hour before the studio tour ended on Sunday, a reporter stepped into my studio, perused the art, peppered me with questions while he frantically wrote in his notebook, then ran out. The whole thing took about two minutes. I wasn't sure what would come of that so thank you to Charles Hack for the shout out.

Participating in the tour was, as always, a great experience and this year was the best. It was the first time I had exhibited work from my project Isolation/Identity so I was curious and a little nervous about the reception it would receive. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive which was balm to my ears and made all the hard work worth it. When that feedback is accompanied by a sale, it's even better (and goes a long way to supporting and producing new work). You can never predict who will attend a studio tour so I was pleased to meet many artists, photographers and collectors. Hopefully some of those connections will lead to good opportunities so I'm crossing my fingers for now.

More from Isolation/identity

I'm continuing with my Isolation/identity project. The image above is a woman I met while in Amsterdam. The morning light filtering into her dining room had a wonderful quality so that's where she was photographed.

Isolation continued

I've been shooting my recent project in colour but when I go to a subject's home, I always bring a roll or two of B+W film just in case. Somehow a certain look, or background or lighting will compel me to use the latter. Not sure how these portraits will be incorporated into the final edit, if they'll be part of the project at all, but it doesn't matter right now.

New photo from Isolation/identity project

I've been continuing my project on isolation/identity. I've been thinking about the nature of isolation and how we can be considered separate or "other" based on so many random factors, such as culture, or language, or our appearance, or sexual orientation or mental illness. Is this "otherness" something tangible or obvious? Does this immediately put someone into an "us vs. them" mentality? How does the idea of separateness express itself?