It’s not enough that 20×200 has been getting all sorts of press lately (NY Times, Houston Chronicle, WIred Magazine just to name a few), or that they’ve featured some big shot artists like Brian Ulrich. They now have added to their accomplishments an edition by two people in the highest level of art stardom, Mike and Doug Starn.
I am really bummed to have missed out. I was in meetings during the middle of the day when the announcement came out, and I’m sure it sold out in minutes- everything was long gone by the time I got to it. I will be waiting with my trigger finger on my mouse for part 2 of the edition, and just hope I am lucky enough to be at my computer when it is announced.
This is a crazy time of year in the academic world, so I’ve let up a little on the blogging. However, if I have any readers in the local area, I want to let you know that Catherine Chalmers will be speaking at Eastern Michigan University in the Halle Library auditorium tomorrow (4/8) at 6pm. I’m excited to have her coming. It should be a fascinating talk. Be sure to say hi if you come (I’ll be the one introducing her).
Spent the morning at the Detroit Institute of Arts. For the past month, I have been trying to get there to see the Julie Mehretu exhibition, and I finally found a window of time to do it. I’ve heard Mehretu speak before, and seen her work reproduced, but have never been able to see it in person. The full scale pieces did not disappoint.
As an undergraduate math major, I’ve always been attracted to Julie’s ability to distill larger patterns into discrete chunks, and think her work is quite brilliant (the MacArthur Foundation apparently agrees with me).
I also spent some time in the contemporary galleries and am appalled to report that there was not a single photographic piece in the five galleries of “contemporary” work. The DIA is opening a “separate but equal” photography gallery in the museum on some undisclosed date in 2008.
I drove home from school today in a snow storm almost identical to the one in which I made “The Seeming Impenetrability of the Space Between” (yes, I’m aware that spring began a week ago, please don’t rub it in).
Wow. I am stunned and ecstatic by the outcome of my 20×200 edition. In my most optimistic hopes I saw the small edition eventually selling out, but never in anything close to 28 hours. Thanks to everyone who made it a success- Liz and Amy for their blog postings (I hope I am not missing any other posts- much to my continued annoyance pingbacks are still not working on my blog), everyone for their comments and encouragement on my blog (for 12 hours I actually received more legitimate comments than spam!), and of course everyone who snatched up a print- I hope you enjoy it (I think you will).
If there are any high rollers out there who missed out on the small edition, there are still plenty of prints left in the larger sizes…
Which is worse, ego surfing, or neurotically watching the remaining prints go down on your 20×200 edition? I never really took to googling myself, but with Wednesday afternoon being work time for me when I’m usually glued to my computer, I’ve found myself guilty of the latter. Thanks for everyone’s support!
I’m going to get away from my computer now and enjoy what’s left of the day- it’s supposed to be cold again tomorrow with snow forecast for later in the week.
Great news! I fixed the broken locking mechanism in my camera…
This morning when I came in to work it was in the low 20’s, and there is around 4″ of snow on the ground right now. The projected high over the next two days is 50°. That means the 4″ of snow will become 4″ of mud. Gotta love Michigan.
Here are a few recent images of our winter here, which has had an abnormally high amount of snow (which I must say is preferable to the continuous snow/freeze/thaw cycle we’ve been getting for the past couple of winters:
Andy Adams from Flak Photo was kind enough to post another of my photos on his site. I’m really excited to have one of my new photos from Somewhere in Middle America featured. It’s always a nice confirmation when new work is well-received, and I’m excited to have continued support for my work from Andy.
I’m at the end of a 10 day east coast world-wind tour. Last weekend we drove to Alexandria, VA for my mother-in-law’s 70th birthday, then a bit farther south down the Shenandoah Valley four 4 days of skiing and snow activities with the kids. We’re ending it by visiting friends in Akron, OH this weekend, then back to Michigan on Sunday. With a sick kid that has given us no sleep all week and some multi-hour white-knuckle freeway drives through blizzards, I can’t say I’m going to be returning well-rested, but hey, there’s always summer.
Here I have been spending the last month or so thinking no one was reading my blog (this might still be true), and I come to find out that two of my blog’s features related to some of the best aspects of blogging- comments and incoming links- have not been working.
I believe the comments are now working due to the re-emergence of spam comments (the lack of spam should have been my first clue that comments weren’t working in the first place). Incoming links, however, are still not showing up. This is what I get for trying to manage my own blog…
I’m really disappointed to think that I might have missed some comments from people. If you post a comment in the future and don’t see it show up, please let me know!
It seems most of my posts dealing with news related to the larger photo world begin with something along the lines of “in case you haven’t heard.” There are some good reasons for this:
1. I am usually not the first to find out about said news.
2. It usually takes me a little while to actually get around to writing about it here.
So, for those one or maybe two people out there that are reading my blog alone in the ever-growing world of photo blogs more timely and in touch than mine, I will keep reporting news of interest as I find out about it.
So, in case you haven’t heard, Jorg Colberg, writer of the Conscientious blog, has started offering portfolio reviews for $75. In addition to already proving he has a great eye for photography through the quality of work showcased on his blog, and some degree of influence in the photo art world (he co-curated a fantastic show with Jen Bekman last summer) it sounds like Colberg is taking a very thoughtful and conscientious (sorry for the horrible pun. I just couldn’t resist) approach to this new endeavor. Liz Kuball has a detailed account of Colberg’s review on her blog, and it sounds like he is providing a level of feedback that is difficult to come by. I would be jumping at the chance, but alas, he has disqualified Critical Mass participants from participating at this time.
I am constantly frustrated by my inability to find good avenues for productive feedback on my work. While I have lots of close artist friends, I have very few close photography friends that can provide critical suggestions for my work. Portfolio reviews like The Meeting Place or Review Santa Fe are great in this respect, but they are very expensive, and promoting work is often the first priority of attendees, which can make open discussion of the work’s shortcomings difficult. Colberg is providing an interesting alternative, and I am most curious to see how it all develops.
