Tuesday, February 28, 2006

I'm In Trouble.....

Govinda Gallery in DC is having a show of Mark Seliger's new portraits, and one of them is of David Bowie. This is torture. Seliger is one of my all-time favorite photographers,, and Bowie is my favorite, favorite, favorite musician. I don't have an art collection, but I'm really tempted to start one now....

Saturday, February 25, 2006

MOCA DC Erotica 2006 Show

"Scratched" will be in the Erotica 2006 Show at MOCA DC. The opening is next Friday, March 3, around 6 or 630. I'll be there, checking out the other "naughty" works. I have my fingers crossed that most people won't just blindly assume "erotic" means "nude". Yeah, I'm a snob that way.

I really wish this city was more kinky. Sexified? "Colorful?" Something. Either way, too damn conservative.

Sigh....

So while I was waiting to board my flight in LAX on Monday, I stopped by one of those magazine kiosks and bought a few magazines to read on the plane (my Warhol bio was getting kinda boring, and I feel guilty starting a second book when I haven't finished the first.) I caved and bought "Marie Claire". Yeah, yeah, instant brain atrophy, whatever. So I'm just flipping through the pages, and I come across a photo spread they've called "Artistic License," where they have various models posed in different studio-like scenes working with art, but also featuring "breathtaking accessories" (gag). I'm actually looking at it right now. These are the art mediums featured on each page, in order:
1. painting
2. drawing (crayons/oil pastels)
3. painting
4. knitting (lets skip the whole "is-craft-art?" question for now)
5. jewelry/bag making/crafting (see #4)
6. painting
7. sculpture/welding
8. painting
9. sculpture/clay
10. sculpture/exhibition design (?)/something with jewelry

That's it? Really? Art Editors of "Marie Claire", you really couldn't think of any other art mediums? Maybe one that seems to be your bread and butter? Maybe something like PHOTOGRAPHY?! Jeez. I mean, c'mon....glowing white light boxes, color slides, sleek framed prints...you guys couldn't think of any kind of picture that might take advantage of those? Not even the requisite "black-and-white-are-SO-in" photo? Normally, this kind of thing just makes me roll my eyes, but I feel like I've come across so many grant applications and competitions recently that don't seem to include photography in the same category as painting and sculpture. Do we really have to go back to the "is photography art?" question? I hope not.

On a related note, I vaguely remember seeing a spread in another magazine (same flight) featuring models in colorful, faux-bohemian designer clothes prancing around an artist's studio pretending to paint. Hey artists, we're trendy! Huzzah! I'm ready for my modeling debut in "Vogue" now, please. Thanks.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Two Things

1. I updated my website. Nothing major, but I took off some pictures and added some pictures. Every picture category has been changed, if ever so slightly.

2. This whole "starving artist, i-don't-need-money-i-have-art" thing really blows.

That is all.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

More Pictures From LA: Black and White

These are my favorites from the nine rolls of BW I shot while in LA. I need to marinate for a while in order to pick which, if any, are suitable for the website, then I'll update. But again, I'd love some feedback. Which are website-worthy, which are "meh", etc.







Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Back from LA

Mostly enjoyable. I was very sick for most of it (perhaps all of it, I can't tell--and my apologies to the security guard I almost threw up on at MOCA Geffen), but it was still fairly decent. I'm not a fan of paragraphs right now, so here, in numbered form, are some highlights, or at least really memorable things from the trip:

1. Saw "Ecstacy: In and About Altered States" at MOCA's Geffen Contemporary Center. Really quite phenomenal, even though, in retrospect, I feel like I missed a few things because I was incredibly ill. It was about the drug E, rather than the ecstacy more commonly associated with my body of work (poo), but I've never done drugs, which some might argue means I may have missed something, or couldn't appreciate all the pieces fully. Screw that, I still really liked it. I have a few favorites. Fred Tomaselli had a few very large collage-type works involving painting, photo montages of flowers and leaves, and pills. Aesthetically beautiful, and relatively simple compared to the other works, but obviously not because of all the detail. I kinda feel like it was a new, modern interpretation of Impressionism; you stand far away and get one impression, one image, then stand up close and see all the details and pills and see a completely different work. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller included "Muriel Lake Incident", which was a large movie theater-themed diorama that viewers could look into from the side, built to perspective (the movie screen is much smaller because it's supposed to seem far away), inclusing the details of what a darkened movie theater looks like, and the viewer puts on headphones and can hear the ambient sounds of the movie-watching experience, often with humorous results. I'm pretty sure this is just a smaller version of piece that was in the Corcoran Biennial (?) back in 2003, that was built to be large enough so that about 10 people could actually walk into the box and sit down. The smaller one came first, but I like the idea of making it large enough so that it seems like youre in the theater--it's a little more surreal and the audio is a little more believable, and therefore "creepier". There were some other really neat things, like the giant wall that slowly moved back and forth in the room, the faux rain that was captured in a dark room with a strobe light, the MASSIVE, incredibly detailed Bosch-like pencil murals, and the giant mushrooms hanging from the ceiling. I liked it. Now I wish it would come to DC.

2. It was freakishly cold for all but two days of the trip. Not complaining, and it was refreshing at first, but LA is rarely 60 degrees at noon....but I got myself a cool Caltech sweatshirt to make up for it.

3. So being really sick and not being able to breathe means you get to stay in bed a lot, and sleep is very, very good. So is being able to read. I'm about 65% done with my biography of Warhol, even though I don't really like him anymore because of it. I knew he was a bit of a nutcase, but I didn't know how much of a passive-aggressive phony he was. The soup cans weren't even his idea. Bah.

4. Caltech people are very, very cool. 'Nuff said.

5. I had a photo shoot. Eight rolls of color, Nine rolls of BW. I've been working on the color shots today, the best of which have been included below, and I'll work on and post the BW tomorrow. The color shots were taken on the roof of the Physics building, except for one taken in my boyfriend's bathroom. The other bathroom shots were in BW, but I needed to finish the roll of color first. I tend to second-guess my work, and I'm certainly doing it now, so again, suggestions for improvements would be greatly appreciated. Usually, my shoots are indoors, in "softer" settings, but the models get a little hotter and a little rougher. Instead, these were outside in a "harder" setting, and the models were a little "softer". Go figure. So I don't know if these work or not. And no, I didn't photoshop that sky. The weather was incredibly odd. It had rained the night before, was sunny that morning, then got progressively darker and darker, but the sun was still out. You could actually see black clouds progress over the building we were on, which also indicates the order in which I took the pictures. I could also use an opinion on which of the two dark sky/tiny head shots is better. But enough talking. Here are the pictures:








Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Fraser Show, LA, etc

Still in LA. I actually have a nasty cold, but the sun and warmth are helpful. I'll post about LA later. But alas, I did not get into the Fraser Photography Show. I'm not really surprised.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Don't Expect To See Me In A Bikini Anytime Soon, But....

I leave for LA on Thursday. I'll be gone for 10 days. Aside from seeing my fabulous boyfriend for his 22nd birthday, I will (hopefully) have a shoot with my friend K. and a mystery dude, who, it sounds like, will actually perform some naughty acts for me.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

So, I got rejected from some women's show--Dreambox, or something to that effect. Actually, it just occurred to me that my more risqué photos (i.e., basically 90% of my portfolio) have been rejected from every single woman-themed art show I've ever submitted them to. I'm trying not to read anything into that. Screw that, I want to play with the men anyway.

But here's the good news: HEAD Magazine , a really neat online art mag out of London, will run a 16 page feature of my photos in their April issue. Huzzah!

Monday, February 06, 2006

More Photos, More Critiques?

This doesn't mean I think the pictures have gotten better, but I took a nap, so I'm no longer as depressed about the shoot as I was before. Which was bad. Naps are generally a bad sign with me, but oh so helpful. Anyway, here are more pictures:





Critique?

So I had a shoot on Saturday. I LOVE this couple. I really do. They were fantastic. More than fantastic, phenomenal, really. I've known Joe since the sixth grade, and his girlfriend Skylar and I are plotting to kidnap Iman and let her live in my old (but very posh) dollhouse so we can have our way with her hunky glam rocker husband. But I love them. Great people, and very much in love. Great facial expressions, simultaneously tender but hot, everything. So I, being the genius that I am, had to go ahead and ruin all but three shots from eight rolls of film. Well, "ruin" is too dramatic. The negs and whatnot are fine, but the shots themselves stink. So I have these three. I tried to edit them the best I could, but I'm still not sure how I feel about them. I'm can't look at them objectively anymore. I'm just really disappointed. So any input would be greatly appreciated. Do I post them on the site? Do I chuck them completely? Should I give up photography and become an alpaca farmer in Peru? In the meantime, I'm going to figure out which photos on my website are also somewhat stinky and deserve to be removed.

These aren't as "hot" (in the traditional sense) as my earlier things, but I'm playing around with capturing more personality and sensitivity for now. But if the opportunity arises (no pun intended), and I meet a couple who is willing to f*** each other senseless, you better believe I'm taking pictures.

And please, when I say "input", CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is nice. Calling me a "talentless whore" is not.



Sunday, February 05, 2006

Pictures?

I had a photo shoot yesterday. The couple was fantastic, but the lighting situation was a little odd, so I have no way of knowing if the shots are any good. I'll know tomorrow, and possibly post them tomorrow too. What a concept, a photographer actually posting photos on her blog? But they like kissing, so I've been told another shoot is no problem. I have fingers, toes, and other various bits crossed in anticipation.