Escaping Artist

Seems like all my material explanations begin with, I scanned it first and then….I think I used the scanners upstairs more than the painters or printmakers, I would pass their enormous studios with arms piled full of images and paper, and the machines would have the same preview I left the night before. Scanning is usually more time consuming than people think, and generally far less complicated—my professors seemed to think it was either a very tricky process or like using a copy machine, which can be a very tricky process. I scanned slides for the office last summer, a ridiculous waste as the new slide scanner was hooked up to a very old, incredibly slow computer, and thankfully this summer that has been rectified. I have been working for my old ‘advisor’, converting her slides into digital images, scanning the lectures she gave out of state this summer. It has been nice to see the lecture artists without having sit in, and to see the progression of her textiles beginning in the 1980’s

Slide scanners are obviously different from the large, flat bed Epson’s I use (and want), and like all my knowledge I know what I have needed to know for my own work and little outside of it—why these kind of jobs are good for me. I generally set my “target” size and scan to the scale am printing, but the slide scanner scans the actual size of the slide at a high (4000) resolution, which seems to make sense for uncertain later uses. The program the scanner uses is quite willful, and unlike the Epson preview it simply does not allow you to make changes, seems you can request it nicely to do, or not to do, certain things, and hope for the best. It took me a long time to figure out the correct way to insert the slide—how many possibilities could there be?—but it is counter intuitive and when put in the wrong way it simply crops the slide down, for some reason unknown to me. I let it do just what it wanted, thinking it probably knows best.

» Read the rest of this entry «

The graduate office finally sent me the approval notice for my online thesis, meaning the PDF is in the VCU archive and readable for all. I also had to make a few hard copies for the c/ms office and other various peoples, so there is also a bound version of it if anyone besides M wants to buy it from LuLu. Unfortunately it will come with a blank front signature page because I can’t tolerate the page number nightmare of trying to upload a new version, but otherwise it is very nice copy (despite the strangeness of LuLu’s sale preview). I can also email a PDF for anyone who would rather read it that way. Keep in mind I am posting this notice because friends and family alike have been asking to read–and those that have read want the final version–“precarious loss”. So, take what version you like, I only want to know what you think, if I have not already heard at length, in return. Comments can always be posted below…hint, hint, hint.

VCU Electronic Archive

Paperback Version

(on Dominique Nahas)

A few weeks ago I had a meeting with the critic we “voted” on to write the essay and description in our thesis catalog. Since I don’t waste my time going to GAA meetings I had no idea the critic had to meet with us, I was somehow under the impression he was simply writing an essay as a sort of credible decoration to our badly color balanced images (this idea being based on viewing last years booklet). It was sudden and unexpected when one of the grads came around with a sign-up sheet telling me that ’so and so was here’ and ‘when did I want to sign up’. It was my understanding that painting had him the day before us and sculpture the day after, but other than that I had no idea who this “critic” was or what I was supposed to show, since my show was not yet up. I hung some work the night before and went in the next morning unsure of what to expect but rather unconcerned as well.

Following my meeting, needless to say, I did some research. So and so turned out to be Dominique Nahas, a NY based critic who is currently the critic-in-residence at MICA, reminding me of Volk’s role at VCU. All good art programs need a well connected critic-in-residence. I am also going to assume, although I could not find much biographical information, that Nahas has a degree (probably more than one) in Philosophy from somewhere prestigious. After my meeting, which went so strangely I was forced to prowl the school in search of gossip, I found out how he had behaved with others. There seemed to be mixed reports, some grads thought he was interesting, pretentious, mean, etc. One nameless printmaker in the second round was told that her problems were now his because he had to write about her work.

» Read the rest of this entry «

At least one person is thrilled that we are moving to New York, and that would be Gregory. I always feel rather disconcerted when talking to him, I choose my words and meanings very vaguely, I think this is why we have such miscommunication. We spent a good amount of time talking about life in general this week, my future prospects I suppose he would call them, he told me if he were a “lovely, talented young photographer” he would want to live in Sunnyside Queens. He asked about my thesis and wanted to know what artists I was including. Laughing, I told him a lot of old, dead men, and then qualified it with, they might not all be dead. He shook his head and said that I need to be looking at women, young women.

It was a point I had never thought of before. Not only do I have to put myself within a medium specific category, and in line with its given history, but I also have to consider a gendered history of that medium. I don’t tend to think of myself as a woman in the context of “art”, only within the context of the world. I never realized photography was masculine, or rather I never considered it more masculine than anything else—most professions are, even ballet is ruled by men. They get all the freedom it offers, they break all technical rules, they are the directors, choreographers, and teachers. From Volk’s point of view I can see that it is very important that I follow in line, and break specifically with, a tradition that is suitable to me as a person, and that my sensibilities as an artist and my aesthetic of making should follow accordingly. He often comments that I am very strange, but when I ask why he never really says. What he sees, who he sees, must look very incongruous with what he thinks he ought to. When I started thinking about it I wondered if “people” is the place where women have made a their own tradition in photography, and that is why Gregory thinks I should move away from objects, landscape, etc. and photograph people. When I think about the women photographers I know and am interested in, they all photograph people in some manner or other.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Friday Nov 16th

1.) Friday morning started off very cold at Madison Square Park where there was an installation of Roxy Paine’s metal trees.

2.) Artists Space seemed like a more interesting place to show work, more for younger emerging artists.

3.) The Drawing Center also seemed like a somewhat more alternative place to show. The show that was up was Alan Saret, a minimalist who draws with handfuls of colored pencil.

4.) Ronald Feldman Gallery was interesting, the work was a strange plant like video with photographs.

5.) Envoy contained the closest thing to a textile, which was a show of large paintings with textile like patterns placed across the painting.

6.) We ended at Pierogi 2000.