Underwater

Researching deep-sea diving images recently. Am very taken with these early tests of underwater photographs, where they haven't quite got it figured out yet

Also, these photos, of dives in the Bay of Alexandria. The first image is incredible.

More here

the who what when where whys of Google

Google's autofill asks the 5 w's

The Things of This World

Saw this awesome lecture with Kay Ryan, and I love this poem:

Wherever the eye lingers
it finds a hunger.

The things of the world

want us for dinner.
Inside each pebble or leaf
or puddle is a hook.
The appetites of the world
compete to catch a look.
What does this mean?
and how does it work?
Why aren't rocks complete?
Why isn't green adequate
to green? We aren't gods
whose gaze could save,
but that's how the things
of the world behave.

Also really enjoy this Robert Hass poem, Meditation at Laguinitas:

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=177014

polaroids

Things I find while taking walks.

Show

below, an embossment of the gallery wall
below, two photos of the same wall in the show, but with different lighting

Fan Drawing: Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri.

Video below

All of the books I own. 8th photo down, a drawing made by the fan

Below, "wall transfers" made by doing a rubbing of a wall and transposing it onto the opposite wall using masking tape and graphite.

Show pics

An ink jet printout of Neil Armstrong on the moon - I went over the printout and tried to match the tones with an ink wash, but as I overlayed the wash, trying to recreate and match the image, the ink jet print spread and bled. This is the back

Exquisite corpse drawing, done with Rachael, 30 minutes a day in the gallery, on the gallery wall, Tuesday-Friday. Check out David Homer's flickr account. He was so awesome as to take photos of our show. Thank you David :)

Wild Horses of Fire

Discovered this "poetics" blog. Looks interesting:

http://whof.blogspot.com/

Also, a show of Ad Reinhardt's (his drawings and notes) that would've been nice to see:

http://www.woodwardgallery.net/exhibitions/ex-reinhardt.html

well bust my buttons

I found this old photo of Buster Keaton, and I love it a little bit. The tension between the shiny, diminutive Oscar and Keaton's gruff, solemn demeanor. And that jaunty little hat...

a formal feeling

Have been thinking about Emily Dickinson a great deal now today, especially after reading her a lot yesterday, specifically the poem After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes. Here's the final stanza:

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --

Am thinking about how she uses the em dash...as both a pause and a breath, both a breathing out and breathing in, both a connecting thread (e.g. to the next line)/point of potential, as well as a repose or blackout. Feel there's a strong relation to the way I'm working with some of my drawings, attempting to invert the positive and negative space, back and forth.

Here's the rest:

After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Been doing a lot of ink washes lately. This one and many of the posts following are some of the washes. I've been pulling stills from scratchy videos posted on youtube. Here's Marilyn

women drawings

Vivien Leigh, at the moment of a camera's flash, accepting her Oscar for her role in Gone With the Wind.

Judy Garland, right before her last performance.

Letters to a Young Artist

I love this book, put out by Art on Paper.

"A lot of the stuff I learned about art and being an artist did not come from visual artists; it came from writers like Keats (in his letters) and composers like Ned Rorem (in his diaries) and oudoorsmen like Ray Bergman (who wrote about fly fishing for trout). So read as much as you can and get into the thick of life whenever you can -- learn a foreign language, learn things about other people, go places and do things that have nothing to do with art -- because it's the stuff that has nothing to do with art that has everything to do with art."

-Joseph Grigely

And, a few pump-up words of advice from Xu Bing:

"I have always thought that to be an artist, the first thing you must do is clarify what art is and what its principles are. Specifically speaking, you must identify what an artist does in this world and what relationship exists between yourself, society, and culture. And even more specifically, you must determine your particular commutative relationship with society...

Everyone has strengths and limitation. Those who know how to work also understand that whatever limitations they meet can be transformed into things that are useful to them. Using a limitation well transforms it into a strength. Wherever you live, you will face that place's problems. If you have problems then you have art. Your plight and your problems are actually the source of your artistic creation. The majority of young artists who come to New York to develop their careers are eaer to enter the mainstream. But, they have to spend time working other jobs to supposrt their costs of living here. It may seem like you are wasting time that could be used for creating art, but you needn't actually worry about this too much. As long as you are a true artist every field that you are engaged in outside of art circles -- living and working -- will produce treasure, which sooner or later will be used in the creation of your art. It is not important to plunge headlong into this mainstream system. "

The Ginger Years

The beginning of a collaboration between Joanna and I. Carrot Top meets a new top.

Rauschenbergian

I work every day and I never know what I'm doing...If you know something you have a responsibility...I don't think any honest artist sets out to make art. You love art. You live art. You are art. You do art. But you're just doing something. You're doing what no one can stop you from doing. And so, it doesn't have to be art and that is your life. But you also can't make life and so there's something in between there because you flirt with the idea that it is art. The definition of art would have to be about how much use you can make of it. - Rauschenberg

Sleep of Reason

A drawing done by looking at and attempting to draw Goya's Sleep of Reason etching. I white-out imperfect or inaccurate lines, doing this again and again till the white up builds up and I can't draw over top of it anymore...

I reflected that all things happen to oneself, and happen precisely, precisely now. Century follows century, yet events occur only in the present; countless men in the air, on the land and sea, yet everything that truly happens, happens to me. – Borges, Garden of Forking Paths.