martin klimas

What does music look like?

This: http://artistaday.com/?p=15263

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Martin Klimas is amazing.

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edward weston

Edward Weston is a photographer that my classmate Josh mentioned to me during our last critique in class. Weston has a series entitled Natural Studies that captures very intimate details of various vegetables or plants or other objects found in nature. This careful and scrupulous examination of otherwise mundane objects is a similar process to what I undergo in creating the drawings I’ve been working on this semester. An artichoke is the obvious vegetable in common that we’ve both used, and I recently added a drawing of a pepper cut in half to my arsenal, but Weston’s peppers – all contorted and provocative (and seductive?) – are, in my opinion, the most interesting of the bunch.

Artichoke, 1930

Pepper, 1929

Pepper, 1930

Pepper, 1930

Chard, 1931

Shell, 1927

All images (C) 2005 Cole Weston, from http://www.edward-weston.com.

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Though photography is one of the few media I have not experimented with much, I feel like if I were a photographer, Weston would certainly be a huge inspiration to me. His high-contrast and crisp photographs accentuate the natural crevices, unique shapes, and subtle textures of each object, and the relatively close-up shots indicate his attention to detail.

I imagine that the thought process I go through while drawing my fruits and veggies is similar to that of Weston when he sets up his shoots and takes however many rolls it is photographers take. Though I’m not sure how spontaneous he was or how meticulous he was in choosing from his various shots, the overall vibe of the photographs is one of a certain dichotomy: he is tightly controlling the revelation and exposure of the intricacies of these objects, but the objects themselves are in their raw natural state – which is inherently uncontrollable by humans.

This is the same draw that attracted me to using only produce (fruits and vegetables) as my subjects. They have evolved the complex and intricate patterns of veins and leaves and segments and seeds for specific and essential biological purposes. Appealing aesthetics and gorgeous patterns are simply byproducts that I am representing through pencil (re-“produce”-ing – get it? don’t worry – I eliminated this as a possibility for the title of my show, which will be revealed soon) that are much less important than the actual functions these structures serve when considering them from a scientific perspective. I am obsessively doing my best to accurately portray these tiny details, but the details themselves of these foods grow and form naturally are completely out of my control.

I’m not trying to flatter myself by comparing myself to such a successful photographer, but I do feel at least some sort of connection, or at least appreciation, for his powerful photographs of such simple objects.

Bonus: they’re black and white, which I know some people hate, but it makes me feel better about my graphite monochromatic drawings and abandonment of color, which is quite the turn of events compared to my saturated 24-color Sharpie marker explosion and rainbow dot system last semester.

MoMA: Talk to Me

The works featured in the Talk to Me exhibit at MoMA are fantastic and so, so inspiring.

paul shortt

Paul Shortt’s Missed Connections project is ridiculously creative and simply awesome.

In this video, he returns to the locations at which these missed connections took place and has the posts read in different voices playing over the shots. Listening to the posts read aloud is a completely different experience than both reading them and rewriting them, as I’ve been doing on post-it notes for my own project. Hearing the words and these thoughts that the authors of the posts probably haven’t even said aloud themselves elevates the project to a whole new dimension of voyeurism and borderline creepiness. The video also emphasizes the loneliness inherent in the posts, as the shots are devoid of people and slightly dizzying, with the camera swaying around not-so-smoothly just as anyone would if they had just lost sight of that certain someone. It’s great.

Shortt also has a series of photographs of recreated missed connections that I really love. He returns to the site where the connections were missed and rewrites the text using the found materials there, his media of choice ranging from birthday cake icing to lipstick. These really transform the plain jane text on Craigslist to something so much more tangible and real, as if we are now a third party following the tracks of both the author of the original post and the person sought after. These interventions also play up the slightly funny undertones of each post. Perhaps I’m just insensitive but even the most heartfelt and sincerest of posts emote some degree of humor by virtue of being on the internet, especially considering the minuscule chance of that person ever finding the post, and the even more microscopic chance of that person reciprocating the feeling. Nevertheless, the posts are super sweet and so are Shortt’s recreations.

Price Chopper

Goodwill

Barnes and Noble

Loose Park

Jimmy John’s

Starbucks

I don’t want to be a copycat but adding some element of sound is really appealing to me right now, despite my lack of any technological ability whatsoever. Even if it’s just reading the times of the posts and not the whole thing, or having the sounds of a subway announcements or tracks, or something else dealing specifically with the limited setting of the subway system I’ve chosen, I think it would jazz up the entire project.

Returning to the site of a missed connection is also a great idea. My original idea for my project was to collect the same subset of missed connections I have been (on the NYC subway system) and to actually go on the subway and collect photographs of people who I think fit the descriptions. I wanted to use an instant camera (Fujifilm Instax) and then write the same serial number and quote that I am putting on my post-its. Several problems got in the way, the most notable being 1) I don’t live in NYC and can’t just skip my senior year of college and 2) I can’t afford a new camera, let alone the ridiculously expensive film that I would need to buy for 1000s of photos. I’m thinking maybe I can record some sound bites in the city over winter break maybe? And incorporate them somehow? Who knows. I have no idea.

Anyway, I’m so so happy I came across Shortt’s work as it’s given me inspiration to push my work further than what I’m doing now and to experiment more freely. I know that I have to majorly step up my game from this point forward.

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artist’s website: http://paulshortt.com/

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