This weekend of fun was increased by the additions of my sister Stephanie and her boyfriend Tom. We had a lovely time at home, in Zion, and then in Snow Canyon (near St. George). We are getting sad already that we only have one weekend left of Utah awesomeness. But it will be good to get back to the real world as well. I guess?
Zion’s rocks and waterfalls
blog blogs others lives photography
It’s always fun to check out the homes of creative people. Here’s a mother lode from all over the world.
arts funding blog collecting resources opportunities subscription art
I have found two examples (via Exposure Compensation) of artists taking cues from the art subscription model as a way for a community to help fund their work and then reap the benefit of that support.
Dalton Rooney has started a Print of the Month Club. He’s got some interesting ideas: tiered involvement- you can sign up for 3, 6, or 12 month intervals, and he allows subscribers to occasionally skip a month if they aren’t interested in that month’s piece.
CStein is trying out another method- he asks for a monthly $10 payment support, and then at the end of the year you can get two prints from a selection he puts up for subscribers, or you can apply your contribution towards buying any other of his prints (though they are typically more expensive)
The power of collective support can be huge- and subscribers reap the benefit in lower cost works for their collections. Hooray!
artist resources blog contemporary art criticism opportunities
Attention writers! Our newest Flash Points topic, Contemporary Art + Economics, launches next week. This time, we’re opening up the editorial process and inviting you to participate. Have an idea for a post? Interested in what’s going down on Capitol Hill or how the current economic climate has affected the arts closer to home, in your own community? Propose a Flash Points blog post and have a chance to be featured on this site.
blog opportunities others lives
There’s been a bunch of hubub about it lately: NPR, CNN, The New York Times, 20/20, and on. Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert, a couple living and working in Detroit, are generating a lot of attention with their effort to create a new perspective on Detroit: as a place for artists. They are living it too. Because of the unbelievably cheap cost of lots and buildings, they have bought up a bunch in a one block area (two empty lots for gardens, one as their own home, one or two which they bought just because they were so damn cheap- then sold to friends, and one to create a new model of affordable, off the grid living: Powerhouse- which is to become a community art center and artists’ residency program)
Camera Obscura in the Powerhouse
artist resources blog opportunities
The goal of the Rhizome Commissions Program is to support emerging artists by providing grants for the creation of significant works of new media art. By new media art, we mean projects that creatively engage new and networked technologies to works that reflect on the impact of these tools and media in a variety of forms. Rhizome defines emerging artist as artists who exhibit great potential yet are not fully recognized within their field. Commissioned works can take the final form of online works, performance, video, installation or sound art. Projects can be made for the context of the gallery, the public, the web or networked devices.
![[In the Fray]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AJ026_artbuc_DV_20090217180104.jpg)
Arts advocates, from Robert Redford to the president of New York’s Lincoln Center, are celebrating now. But I wonder, in a still, small voice, if this is really such a victory.
For one thing, in the larger scope of things, it’s not much money. Fifty million dollars, in a hastily assembled $800 billion stimulus, is just a bubble on a wave. It’s a rounding error, a random fluctuation. It doesn’t mean that arts support runs deep and strong. The battle for the arts has been going on for decades, and in my view — as a person in the arts myself — the arguments we make aren’t nearly strong enough
blog pictures Utah we make stuff
We had a really great week last week- with three friends here we worked during the days, sled, cooked, ate huge meals, and made ringtones at night. For Oliver’s birthday we all took the day off and went to Bryce after a huge breakfast. Food plays a big part in our lives if you can’t tell and so far, the one downside of Utah has been the restaurants. Granted, we’ve only been to three. And every restaurant we go looking for from the guidebook has been closed.
As we entered a typical steak place on Saturday, a large family one by one looked over at us. Then we were of course seated right next to them. The father repeated about three times in a loud voice, “You know, every time you see a VW bus, I can guarantee there is a guy with facial hair and a girl with braids in it.”
We weren’t quite sure what that meant, but we did know it was directed at us. I don’t think he understood the subtle difference between a regular flannel shirt and a neon flannel shirt. Anyways, some pictures:
We’re proud to announce the artist for TPG10 is Stephanie Dean!
From Dean's series: "Boys/Men"
Stephanie Dean is a photographer living and working out of Chicago, IL. She attended the California College of Arts (San Francisco & Oakland, CA) where she received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Photography. In 2005 she earned her Masters of Fine Arts in Photography from Columbia College, Chicago. Her photographic thesis was the body of work “?Boys/Men?” asking the question of when do modern boys become men. Her written thesis was on existentialism in Robert Frank’s The Americans. She has taught at Columbia College Chicago and is currently teaching the History of Photography at Oakton Community College in Skokie & Des Plaines Illinois.
An interesting compendium put together by Art Fag City of what people are saying about what’s happening in the arts as a result of the recession.
IN REAL LIFE
At Capricious Space
March 7–28, 2009
Art Fag City, ASDF, Club Internet, Ffffound, The Highlights, Humble Arts Foundation, I Heart Photograph, Loshadka, Netmares/Netdreams, Platform For Pedagogy, Private Circulation, UbuWeb , VVORK, Why + Wherefore
An exhibition that invites innovative and independent online art initiatives to each come do a 4-hour residency inside the space of a gallery—attempting to explore how the distribution, production, analysis, and consumption of culture are rapidly evolving in an online context. In particular the exhibition aims to render the labor of these online practices transparent, providing “real life” access to these cultural producers, and overall inspiring public dialogue around their practices.
Capricious Space
103 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(between Bedford and Berry)
718.384.1208
Gallery hours (from March 7–March 28 only):
Saturday noon–8pm
Sunday noon–8pm
Plus special evening events:
Opening and Roundtable Discussion “Browser As Exhibition Space” / Saturday March 7 from 8-10pm
“Docent Tour of Art on the Internet” performed by Tyler Coburn / Friday March 13 from 8-10pm
Closing Party / Saturday March 28 from 8-10pm
Visit the online Calendar of Events for full details.
art and politics blog blogs internet
The Camel Collective began as a loose affiliation of artists, architects, and writers in the Spring of 2005. The U.S. invasion of Iraq, the dominant media’s tacit support for an illegitimate administration, and the hysterical real estate speculation in New York City motivated us to consider how we might orient our individual practices towards collective organization. Our belief in the productive force of collectivity and exchange across disciplines, along with the necessity to address social, political and economic issues as artists is what motivates our activities.
C-M-L is an ongoing online project of Camel Collective. We invite similarly engaged artists to submit works and documents to build an archive available online and distributed in the form of a newsletter. This newsletter includes two main sections—a growing archive of projects selected by the editors, and a bimonthly guest curatorial examination thereof. C-M-L also extends an open invitation for project submissions. Please write us at mail@c-m-l.org.
We intend C-M-L to be a forum that circulates projects—produced for other spaces and translated into web-based documentation—among artists, curators, political organizers, and whoever else might happen by. We enjoy works that refuse the division between the aesthetic and the political, and insist that just as any political practice has an aesthetic dimension, any aesthetic practice has political consequences.
Subscription is free.
artist resources blog good things In Review internet
For the past couple of days I have been discovering Art Slant, as it calls itself the “#1 Contemporary Art Network.”
It is actually pretty impressive in its dynamic content building and the ways in which it connects artists, galleries, events, resources, writers, and even art lovers/collectors. Any information that is added by any one person is added into anything or person that it relates to. Example: If you add an event- the event gets added to the artist’s page, the gallery’s page, the curator’s page.
So artists may have a full page of information with their history of shows and images even if they have not even ever gone onto the website.
There are a couple of things that seem to be unfortunate:
-the inability for it to upload your own blog feed into your profile’s blog
-the fact that there seem to be three categories of profiles and there doesn’t seem to be a way to combine the different profiles: profesional profiles, gallery profiles, and resource profiles. The Present Group now has a profile in each category and though they are connected through links, I would have to manually update
That last one perhaps won’t be a problem for most people. So all in all, I am pretty excited by this website and might, just might, stop updating my terrible, ugly, out-of-date myspace profile as this seems a much better alternative with a much more honed audience. There is also no “friending”. Your connections are made through who you work with- so it isn’t a popularity contest.
art and politics blog good things TPG8
President Barack Obama has established a staff position in the White House to oversee arts and culture in the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs under Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser, a White House official confirmed.
Though it isn’t the cabinet-level position that the petition was advocating for, it still seems like a step in the right direction.
art and politics arts funding bay area blog press reblog State of the Arts TPG8
A followup article to the Town Hall Meeting by Angela Woodall appears today in the Oakland Tribune.
“Just mention Germany or Sweden and most U.S. artists break into a reverie (or tirade) over the kind of support their European counterparts receive from their governments. Here, surviving as an artist takes talent, a do-it-yourself attitude and the patience to hunt down funding.”
blog others lives outside personal pictures Utah
So we’re up and running in Utah and it’s pretty nice. This morning we went on an early morning snowshoe before work. I thought I would give you a litte snapshot.
Our cozy home
Oliver setup our desk. He gave me the window, but also glare. I still feel like I won.
View from my "office"
An early snowshoe and the muddy, muddy road that leads to our house.
blog outside personal pictures Utah
We spent the past couple of days driving out to our new (for one month) home in Utah. Our country has a lot of space. And though some people complain about the 5, I personally love it in the spring. It’s a patchwork of different color blooming trees. And all the recent rain in California brought super green hills and wide swaths of blooming wildflowers in orange and yellow.
Blooms on the 5
green hills
Orange! California poppies?
Camping at Cottonwood Cove, NV Lake Mead in the background
Oliver says that I seriously cut myself every six months. Seeems about right. Luckily, after last night’s tetnus booster I don’t have to go to the ER (hopefully) for another 7 years.
PS- it isn’t as bad as it looks.
Please use this space to comment on the project, to come up with more ideas, or to suggest solutions to these problems. We look forward to hearing from you.
Here’s what we’ve been thinking about and wrote to our subscribers:
We’re used to seeing View Masters in antique stores depicting scenes for children constructed from toys or showing majestic travel destinations like Paris’ Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame. But David Horvitz, in the piece he created for you, re-purposes and reinvigorates this forgotten medium. Like so much of his work, here the focus is on something simple, mundane, but the result is grand. We’re transported to another place as observers; turning inward, we become participants in this quiet moment. Like a conch shell that can return you to the sounds of the sea, “Hermosa Beach, CA” transports you not only to this beautiful place but to that serene state of mind that comes from watching it. This is not an accident, as the resulting emotions are enhanced by the structure through which you experience it. In his proposal he wrote, “Since the slide reel is circular, one can get “lost” in viewing it, having forgotten where they have begun since there is no set start or end. This relates to ideas of romanticism that I am drawn to, of looking out into the distance (giving that view to others), of being immersed in a moment.”
As you may know, earlier this month we organized a Visual Arts Town hall focused on the current situation for artists where we live in Oakland. It was an extension of our last piece “State of the Arts” and it brought together many of the artists who participated in those original discussions along with representatives from the broader art community (local non-profits, private gallery owners and city government officials). Part of the discussion centered around the idea of creating an awareness campaign to impress the value of the arts on elected officials and the public at large. This caused many of the artists in attendance to recoil. Not only do they already know the importance of art, they also understand that art’s power lies in its resistance to definition. The value of art is the experience of it.
This is not to say there aren’t real, tangible benefits to supporting the arts. There are. Arts industries account for 5.7 million jobs in this country and generate $166.2 billion in economic activity. Children who enjoy arts education perform better in all subjects. Neighborhoods that house artists frequently “turn,” becoming some of the most desirable places to live. But at the end of the day that isn’t why we make or appreciate art. It’s to be afforded the opportunity to get lost, to experience a moment, like we do in “Hermosa Beach, CA.”
Best,
Oliver and Eleanor
Annotated Links Hermosa Beach TPG9
David’s Links:
Sunrise, Sunset Calendars and Local Time
South Bay, Los Angeles
La Perruque
New York Public Library Map Division
Other related Links:
Tickets to the Sunset- “A time based solar transaction” They make use of ticketmaster. “Money back guarantee if sun does not set”
Xiu Xiu – The band that David tours with and does projects with
Emily Jacir – an American/Palestinian artist, in her project resulting with the show “Where We Come From” asked other Palestinians from around the world, “If I could do something for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” The artist used her American passport and its accompanying “freedom of movement” status in an attempt to realize desires of people who have limited or no access to their own nation. The exhibition documents in text, photography and video the artist’s fulfillment of these requests across artificial and dangerous borders.
Josh Greene – Another artist interested in financial transactions spurring actions. Greene’s ongoing Service Works project used one night of tips per month to fund varied small projects
Artists working in 3D:
Vladimir makes Vladmasters. She also has performances. A Vladmaster performance is a simultaneous Vladmaster experience. Every attendee is given a viewer and set of disks and then led through the story by a soundtrack featuring music, narration, sound effects, and ding noises to cue the change from image to image. The CLACK of hundreds of viewers turning simultaneously fills the air. Mass euphoria ensues.
Florence Thomas was an Oregon scluptor who was employed by View Master to create and photograph many clay scenes and dioramas of fairy tales, nursery rhymes, comic strips, and other popular childrens stories. The techniques she developed have been put into use by many major motion picture studios.
Georgette Freeman made “contemporary stereo cards” from 1995 to 2002. Her stereo cards utilize the blank back of the card to put the card in “context” where she creates narratives for the work. She continues to teach classes at the San Francisco Center for the Book.
Viewmaster Resources:
Reel mounts from Fresa Volante – based in San Francisco, they are one of the only remaining reel mount manufacturers.
Oakland Camera Club, Stereo Division meets every third Monday at 7:30 pm.The Oakland Camera Club (OCC) was founded in 1934 and is a member of the Photographic Society of America (PSA) and the Northern California Council of Camera Clubs (N4C).
Viewmaster Resource: A repository of View-Master information-information about the View-Master Personal Stereo camera, printable copies of manuals, printable reproduction packets, and a general resource page with info and links to other related sites.
3D Stereo, Inc.: All sorts of 3-D supplies
3D Center for Art and Photography is a non-profit museum/gallery featuring the best in antique and contemporary 3D imagery. The Center houses everything from antique stereocards to View Master, contemporary 3D photography, lenticulars, anaglyphs, and computer generated 3D art. Apparently the home for 3D is Portland, Oregon.
Lego Hello World
I wish all my printers were made of legos.
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google
Images from Life Magazine going back to 1860′s, hosted by Google
Coming Face To Face With The President
Well crafted story about an under-heard point of view.
In California, Pot Is Now an Art Patron
A new funding source for the arts – reaping big rewards and funding many projects. It’s pot.
Notes on Portraiture in the Facebook Age
Celebrity Book Club: A List to End All Lists
Because, well, it’s sortof awesome.
Are "Artists' Statements" Really Necessary?
The pros and cons about that nemesis for most artists.
This to That
You tell it what you’ve got and it’ll tell you what to glue them together with.
Work of art: Online store for buyers, sellers
Not the TV show! Kelly Lynn Jones from Little Paper Planes is interviewed on her project, gives us a cheat sheet to local affordable art resources.