Sunday, October 30, 2011

You talk about simplicity. When I first made photographs, they were too plain to be considered art and I wasn't considered an artist. I didn't get any attention at all. The people who looked at my work thought, well, that's just a snapshot of the backyard. Privately I knew otherwise and through stubbornness stayed with it. 
- Walker Evans          

Photo of the Week

Self-portrait by Eugene Goodale ⚜
Self-portrait, a photo by Eugene Goodale ⚜ on Flickr.

Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism


Via Flickr:
Josiah McElheny, Endlessly Repeating Twentieth Century Modernism, 2007

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Walker Evans Quote

WALKER EVANS:

"Take Atget, whose work I now know very well. (I didn't know it at all for awhile.) In his work you do feel what some people call poetry. I do call it that also, but a better word for it, to me, is, well - when Atget does even a tree root, he transcends that thing. And by God somebody else does not. There are millions of photographs made all the time, and they don't transcend anything and they're not anything. In this sense photography's a very difficult art and probably depends on a gift, and unconscious gift sometimes, an extreme talent."

From American Suburb X

Friday, October 14, 2011

Degas and the Nude - I need to be able to take the pictures home.


Last week I spent about 1-1/2 hours perusing this wonderful exhibit. I got to the museum right at opening and because it was a members only preview a crowd hadn't developed yet. Degas is a favorite and I'd been anticipating this exhibit for some time. Without exception the pictures were both beautiful and interesting. I took in all that I had energy for and soon recognized the difficulty in absorbing so much work in such a short time.

It occurred to me that in order to fully appreciate a work of art you should be able to experience it on a daily basis - hanging on your wall - that an exhibit such as this is really only a cursory exposure to such wonderful work.

The relatively inexpensive catalog only suggested the qualities of the originals. You need to rely upon your memory quite a bit. One of the remarkable things about catalogs from photography exhibits is that the catalogs are quite faithful to the originals. Paintings and drawings suffer immeasurably.

So I will without a doubt go back to this exhibit several times and have to be satisfied with the catalog.



Monday, October 10, 2011

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The 1960s

the bike room ramp

Set of photos from 1960s project

These photos were made in and around the neighborhood and schools (Huntington School and South Junior High School) of my childhood.