Found Piles

A lot of my recent landscape work has developed into smaller individual series. I will be posting a lot of these series up in their current states, though I am adding to them as I find more of these scenes. So far I have a good set of fences, unmarked paths, views of the Prudential building, empty plots of land and found piles. The Views of the Prudential can be viewed here and the rest will be posted within the next week or so.

As for these found piles, there are several things that have attracted me to them. One of my interest in photographing the landscape is finding scenes that imply recent modification, or that show the shorten evolution of a space. I instantly respond to things that I know will soon be gone, or that will no longer be part of that particular space. I am fascinated with these piles, knowing that they are probably gone now, thus creating a different perspective of the scenes I found them in. I also like to think of these piles as sculptures of removed earth. Though temporary, they represent the strength and foundation of the land we engage with.

Of all these smaller series I have, the piles have tend to be the weirdest in terms of exposure, color and other photo related characteristics. Each image has some sort of strange color shift, light leak, or blown out highlights that have added a strange but wonderful feel to these photographs. I also c-Print these images 4x6 on 8x10 paper, just slightly bigger than the 4x5 negative size. I like that printing these massive piles of earth down to a smaller scale gives them a different life and allows a more elegant experience with them. 

Found Pile: 1, Needham, MA. 4x6 c-Print

Found Pile: 2, Boston, MA. 4x6 c-Print

Found Pile: 3, Jamaica Plain, MA. 4x6 c-Print

Found Pile: 4, Jamaica Plain, MA. 4x6 c-Print

Found Pile: 5, Brookline, MA. 4x6 c-Print

Waiting Days: A Gift From Tina Garvin

A couple months ago I received a small package in the mail from one of my closest friends, Tina Garvin. In this package was a letter and a receipt pad. In the letter she told me she recently quit her waitressing job, the one she had ever since I met her a few years back. When I pulled out the receipt pad and read what she wrote on it, I instantly felt like I was holding some sort of relic. I felt so much history and character in this simple object. I also found it interesting how it was her departure from being a waitress that made this piece so characterized. I don't think it would have the same effect on me if she was still working at this job, especially since I can totally feel her disconnect from that part of her life when I hold this object.

It would be Tina's piece that would initiate the idea for this project in general. I knew there was an importance to holding onto the other objects in this series, but I wouldn't know that reason till I opened her package. Though I am not fully sure how this project will keep developing, I do feel very strongly about the work in it thus far and would love some feedback and ideas for it. Feel free to comment and start a conversation about these ideas with me.

Three Color Receipt Book, Front. Tina Garvin's Retirement Note, 2009

Color Receipt Book, Back. Tina Garvin Passes the Baton, 2009

Waiting Days: The Seven Books of Orders, Schedules and Notes.

I'm a person who has a hard time throwing things away. I have held on to these seven notepads I used for work for the last couple of years or so. I knew one day they might have some sort of relevance to them. The concepts for this series started to developed as I started to look at most of these pieces as sculptural objects. I started to see a lot about myself in this work, about my habits, personality, moods, and secrets. I feel these pieces can give you a strong sense of me the same way we get a sense of an artist by looking at their work.

Please click on the images for better reading and viewing purposes.

Books 1 to 3: Blue, Green and Black Penway Memo Books. 2007/2008


Books 4 to 6: Blue, Red, Black and Green Mead Memo Books. 2007/2008


Books 7 and 8: Gray and Blue CVS Memo Books. 2007


Passages From Books 1 to 3:
Left: Smudged Blue Ink Orders. Center: Four Colored Pen Orders. Right: Six Day Work Week.


Passages From Books 4 to 6:
Left: "Do You Ever Just Want to Steal Old Peoples Cains..." Center: End of a Shift Orders. Right: Poetry & To Do's.


Passages From Books 4 to 6:
Left: Martin Munkacis & Henri Cartier-Bresson. Right: One Blank Page.

Waiting Days: A.M./P.M. Shift

Waiter by day, artist by night. Well, sometimes an artist while waiting tables. Some time ago at work, I volunteered to work a double. I don't do a double often, in fact I can't even remember when this was exactly, since the different cups of coffee I serve as a waiter all blend together to make one large cup. A very large cup. When handing in our receipts and cash at the end of the shift, we do so in these envelopes. I also use them to write my orders down. This is a doubles worth of orders.

"A.M./P.M. Shift" Pen on 41/4 x 91/2 White Envelope, 2009

Upcoming Group Show

I will be a part of this group show along with a bunch of other talented MassArt students. The show will be held at:
Caturano and Company, 80 City Square, Charlestown MA.

Some of the artist (and good friends of mine) on display are:
Bret Woodard
Rebecca Buonopane
Lara Morgan
Corey Oberlander
Ross O'Donohue
Xareni Penichet
Cole Swavely
Natalie Rose
Elizabeth Hayes

The opening is Wednesday, January 27th from 5:30-7:30. The opening is going to be pretty big so you should stop by and support local art.

Current work: September to November 2009

Here is a long overdue post of some recent work. I have been working really hard this term on this current project and have produced a lot of new images. Here is a selection of just a few of those images. Below is my current artist statement for this project, though the statement changes week to week as the work evolves, it will give you a good understanding of what is going on in the work. Stay tuned for more images and more info.

This project represents my curiosities about the landscape and spaces I surround myself by. It’s about stepping forward and examining the reoccurring patterns and common human interaction with the land. I’m interested in finding scenes that imply recent modification, redevelopment, or the shortened evolution of a space.

Though I am stepping forward for my examinations, my interest is about stepping back and using the details that accumulate to create a whole environment. Through these images I search for beauty within cities that envelope once natural landscapes. I am interested in letting the juxtaposition of positive to negative spaces lead from one image to the next, to show the relationship of things we normally wouldn’t perceive. Within that relationship I am also interested in creating a link from the abstract images to the more concrete ones.

As a photographer, collector and image sculptor, my goal is to create a conversation with the different processes I use. Through the use of a camera, a darkroom and at times even a computer, I try to let the intersection of nature and constructed objects meet in my images. I let certain photographs I make lead me to preconceived ideas of my own darkroom creations, in hopes that those ideas along with the surprising elements of my methods speak in my work.

The Photo Archive Blog

A fellow friend and classmate Rebecca Buonopane has recently started an excellent blog called The Photo Archive Blog. This blog is centered around Photography Majors at The Massachusetts College of Art, and the current thesis projects we are working on there. I have a few of my new images on the blog with an interview about the work. There is also great work on there by my classmates so please take the time to see what kind of work is being produced by the senior class. She will be updating the blog several times a week with new artist so make sure to check in from time to time. Congrats to Rebecca on a great start.

The images below are a few samples of the work you can see on the blog right now.

© Rachel Hall

© Ross O'Donahue

© Sarah Roberti

© Erica Frisk

© Kange Bell

© John Steck Jr.

© Lara Morgan

© Meredith Alm

Exhibitions: Lowerdeck in San Francisco

The Lowerdeck in San Francisco is have a great group show starting next week called Familial Ghost. The Show is about different interpretations of family stories/traditions by different media based artist. I will have 15 images in this show from an older series of mine called Was Home. Normally these images are large color c-prints but The wonderful crew at the Lowerdeck had asked me to take slides of the images so that we could project them big on the wall. I was really into this idea because I like the thought of using an old school projector to interpret the stories in my work just as a family would use a projector to show slides that tell their own stories.

If you happen to know anyone in the San Fran area please pass this info along to them. For more info on the show please click the link above. The images below are several that will be in the show. Please enjoy.

The Hallway Gallery in Jamaica Plain & The Starwell Gallery at The New England School of photography

I mentioned these shows before in my blog but now that I got two sided postcards made for them I thought I would post it up here for a more appropriate look at the show. Click on the thumbnails below to see the details for the show. There will be no opening for the Stairwell Gallery at NESOP but there will be a banging opening for the Hallway Gallery show. Expect live music, wine and crackers, a great audience of people and great art.

I realize that the opening reception for the Hallway Gallery is the same night as Alec Soth's show at Mass Art, which believe me, I almost want to not attend my own show for his haha. But just so everyone knows, the Hallway Gallery usually lets it openings run way later then most places would. We will probably be there till 10-11 pm. So after the Soth show please make your way down to JP, it will be well worth it.

View of the Prudential

These images are from a smaller series idea I have been working on that sort of fall in with some of my other landscape work. When I was shooting the empty plots of land for the Missing Teeth series I had noticed that within different neighborhoods of Boston, and even outside of the city, I was still able to still see the Prudential building. I found that to be interesting to me since the Prudential is not quite that big of a building. I'm keeping this in mind with the fact that I grew up in Chicago with some of the worlds tallest buildings, and how easily the view of downtown Chicago could be obstructed.

I became interested in the roll the Prudential started playing for me in my experience with the landscape. How I could be in a different neighborhood or even at a place like Jamaica Pond or the Arboretum, where you feel like your miles away from the city yet at a glance the Prudential building was still peeking at you, reminding you where you are. Not fully letting you escape. I though I would start shooting the different views of the Prudential from different areas, to show that reminder it gives us. These three images below are a small selection from this series. Please click on them to make them larger, since the Prudential is at times way in the background and barely viable with the smaller image.

Exhibitions

This year I submitted several entries into the 2009 International Photo Awards competition and was lucky enough to get honorable mention in the following categories:

Fine Art: Landscape
Fine Art: Self-Portrait
Nature: Landscape

Please click on the links to see my images along with hundreds of other wonderful images form talented artist all across the world.

Also The wonderful people at The Art Of Photography Show just had a booth set up at the Beyond The Border contemporary art fair in San Diego with two of my framed pieces and a small portfolio box of my work for people to look at. I was lucky to have two images selected last year for the show. The booth they had was to market their current 2009 show and to also show the work of some of the recent names they have had in previous shows. It was a great privilage to be a part of the fair and to be a part of the 2008 show. Please check out the current Art of Photography Show here.

New Landscapes: Jamaica Plain & Roxbury