urban ku # 56 ~ good for what ails you

The Glenmary • click to embiggenAfter my recent 'episode' with upgradicus- dementia, it was a relief to know that the wife had scheduled us for a quick weekend getaway to the southern tier (NY along the PA border). Even though the trip included a 4+ hour car drive with the 30 month-old, the teenage girl and a visit with the college-boy, it nevertheless seemed to be just the respite I needed.

I was able to include a visit with a wonderful couple - the Werners - whom I get to see all too infrequently. Years ago, their kids and my kids were playmates and, lo and behold, the 30 month-old was able to play with some of the very same toys which his dad and the Werner kids played with all those years ago. Man, does time fly.

The surprise of the trip came late Saturday evening when the wife ensnared me in her carefully planned trap - an involuntary overnight commitment to the (formerly) Glenmary Home for The Insane, The Nervous, and Drug-habitue in Owego, NY. - a beautifully restored Italianate structure circa 1857. The warden ... er, I mean, proprietress, puts inmates ...er, I mean, guests, well at ease in very comfortable cells ...er, I mean, rooms and common areas. The grub was good too.

There wasn't a computer or box of software in sight. Troubling thoughts of postmodernism v. modernism, artist's statements and meaning melted away during a pleasant Sunday morning stroll around the 'yard'...er, I mean, grounds. My commitment at The Glenmary was a gracious reminder of the joys of pre-digital life and, for that reason, the Polaroid seemed the perfect camera of choice.

civilized ku # 18

Red wheelbarrow with water and shadow • no embiggen - it's a polaroid

Even though this is a Civilized ku, I'm feeling anything but civilized at the moment. I'm sitting here on the Group W bench - along with all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! - feeling downright mean and ugly myself. And, just like Arlo, 'I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.'

Who do I wanna KILL? The bloody sods out there in the software world (Adobe in particular) who always mess with my finely-tuned print parameters when 'upgrading' Photoshop.

I always resist upgrading. There has to be a damn good reason for me to move from one version of an app to the 'next best thing'. If I have something that is working for my needs, I hang onto it with a near death-grip. I never want to let go because I know the pure agony I'll face with an upgrade. And that agony is almost always associated with color management.

I just upgraded to CS2, not CS3, CS2. Why? Becasue CS was working just fine, thank you very much. BUT, because of client issues - most are using the CS2 Suite - I have been unable to open files (InDesign, Illustrator) which were created in CS2 in CS. So..... a couple weeks ago upgrading was inevitible.

It was not until this AM that I got to "testing' print output from PhotoShop. And, of course, nothing works the way it used to. My test prints look like they were made by an idiot. Now, I know I'll eventually get this figured out - I always do. Nevertheless, 'I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.'

Update on Friday, April 20, 2007 at 01:09PM by gravitas et nugalis

I'm better now. I've taken my meds and things are looking all bright and cheery. My prints are in the ballpark and all that's left to do is to find the right seat.

(real) urban ku # 55 ~ beauty and truth

The 'real' Pittsburgh, PA • click to embiggenThe view of downtown Pittsburgh from Mt. Washington at night was named by USA Weekend Magazine as #2 on its list of the 10 Most Beautiful Places in the U.S.

Indeed, the view is quite beautiful. The place itself is an entirely different story. USA Mag declares Pittsburgh to be '...one of America's most scenic ... communities', but I've gotta tell ya that I don't know what they're thinking. From the photography-wise point of view, the city has a number of places from which, at the right time of day/light, a nice picture can be had. That said, if the photographer where to look around at his/her immediate place, the view would not be so rosy.

If you remember from urban ku # 53, Pittsburgh is considered a very large 'canvas' in the U.S. graffiti community because of its abundance of empty and dilapidated residential and commercial buildings. In addition to this reality, it's mandatory to note that the city is also dotted with ravines and gullies - much like the one pictured here - which, upon not-so-close inspection, are revealed to be 'public' dumps for all all kinds of refuse.

I could go on about the decaying infrasture - bridges, streets, city steps (in a city of hillsides, a story unto themselves), etc. but I won't. My purpose is not to bash the city of Pittsburgh. I lived there for 15 years and will be the first to admit that it has much to offer but, amongst other things, scenic beauty is not one of them.

And, to the point, photographs which suggest otherwise simply aren't dealing in truth.

BTW, the hilltop neighborhood, Mt. Troy, depicted in the attached picture is where we lived. There was a nice view at the end of our street.

(real) urban ku # 54 ~ contemplation

Contemplating the meaning of art • click to embiggenIt has been opined that '...the central core of the post-modernist gobble-de-gook (or post-post-modernist, if you prefer) is that if you make photographs that are considered "pretty" or depict an "idealized form", you are not, by definition, "thinking"? If all of your work is not a horribly obvious metaphor for how bad the human condition currently is, then somehow you "don't get it". So said Paul Maxim on ku # 471.

IMO, this statement does not represent the 'core' of postmodernist art/photography. It is more representative of the 'lunatic fringe' of postmodernism. As I and many others have stated, postmoderism is not easy to pigeonhole. It really doesn't have a rigid and defining set of operating principles. In practice, postmodernism is so diverse that it has been described as being simply 'pluralistic'.

In any event, in my recently stated 'manifesto' for what others have dubbed a "New Landscapist', I have called for a more 'hopeful' form of critical thought. One that is not afraid of things beautuful (although the notion of 'traditional' beauty will be challenged). One that starts to move beyond the self-referential 'visual navel-gazing' excesses that have dominated much of postmodern - but far from all - art/photography.

In that light, consider this poem, titled "August 24, 1961', by former Secretary-General of the U.N., Dag Hammerskjold;

Is it a new country
In another world of reality
Than Day's?
Or did I live there
Before Day was?
I awoke
To an ordinary morning with gray light
Reflected from the street.
But (I) remembered
The dark-blue night
Above the tree line,
The open moor in moonlight
The crest in shadow.
Remembered other dreams
Of the same mountain country:
Twice I stood on its summits,
I stayed by its remotest lake,
And followed the river
Towards it source.
The seasons have changed
And the light
And the weather
And the hour.
But it is the same land.
And I begin to know the map
And to get my bearings.

PS - the mural in the right-hand picture is titled 'The Two Andys' - Andy Warhol and 'Andy' Carnegie, both Pittsburgh natives.

(real) urban ku # 53 ~ artists and non-critical thought

This area is popular • click to embiggenOn Sunday past the kid and I were relaxing over a noon meal at one of Pittsburgh's diners of note, Ritters (the place where I took the eventual-wife after she picked me up in a bar), when I stumbled across this article in the Sunday paper. The headline was something along the lines of "The Biggest Graffiti in US History". How very sensational.

A little background: Pittsburgh is considerated a very large blank slate in the greater U.S. graffiti community. The newspaper article stated that this was so because, "...Enforcement was considered weak and the abundance of vacant warehouses and cramped hidden alleyways ... offered a canvas for many miscreants wielding a spray can."

The word 'miscreants' kind of set me off. See if you can follow.

To say that Pittsburgh has an 'abundance of empty warehouses and cramped hidden alleyways' is a little like saying there's some water in the ocean. The city has been in a state of decline for more than 3 decades. In addition to the massive population loss following in the wake of the demise of the steel industry, the city losses population nearly year - last year the only U.S. city that lost more population was New Orleans.

As a friend of mine opined, 'We don't need a natural disaster. We make our own.' The 'disasters' he refers to are those created on a long-standing and ongoing basis by an utter lack of creative imagination by both the elected leaders and the population at large. They face monumental hurdles in the task of trying to re-inventing a place that has been economically devastated and very little creative problem solving has been evident.

The results of the population loss and economic decline are everywhere visibly evident in the neighborhoods which surround a jewel of a downtown. Abandoned houses, businesses, warehouses, churches and schools are on prominent display. They constitute a dismal visual presence. Add to that the fact that Pittsburgh has more bridges than any city but Venice, Italy and you indeed have a 'blank slate' that, IMO, is the perfect and appropriate canvas for 'miscreants'.

Apparently, it has never occurred to anyone in Pittsburgh who matters that the city might benefit greatly from becoming known as the graffiti art capital of the U.S. Of course, that would require that someone be able to distinguish the true 'miscreant' from a serious graffiti artist.

Miscreants are the jerks with a spray paint can scrawlings racial slurs, vulgar comments, and all-around nothingness on occuppied homes and businesses, buses, cars and/or anything else that strikes their fancy. As unbelievable as it my seem to unimaginative 'authorities', there actually are responsible graffiti artist who select their canvas with some degree of common sense and discretion. Not all, but some.

Seems to me that the powers that be in Pittsburgh need to loosen up a bit and get away from hide-bound notions of the past.

Update on Friday, April 20, 2007 at 01:32PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comments: Aaron wrote; from Eric Vondy on my Graffiti image posted on flickr ... "On the progressive side of things the small ex-mining town of Bisbee, Arizona has become an artist community. There they have actually seperated graiftti into street art and graffitti. So street art is encouraged but then bad street art is not. So the random guy spray paiting his name on the wall is still disliked but the random guy spray painting a message on the board is often OK'd."

FY I- my new Epson 18000000

My new Epson printer • click to embiggenA picture of me and my new Epson 18000000. It's a beauty.

The wife and kids have had to move out of the house, but now I can make 15,000 40×60 prints an hour. The ink and paper costs are a bit steep. However, at least as far as paper is concerned, I live in a forest so there are plenty of trees around to harvest. The thing that I hadn't thought of though was what a real bitch it's going to be to sign and number an edition of 60,000.

Stay tuned, though. I'll be publishing an in-depth review of the Epson 18000000 for all those who may be considering the purchase of one. BTW, I got mine at Best Buy - great sales and service. They even threw in the other guy in black as a bonus.

Update on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 03:59PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comments: Jimmi Nuffin and Chuck Kimmerle wrote;

1. "... I was thinking about getting Epson 18000000, but, when I realized that the bonus was a "guy in black" instead of a "black guy" I had to rethink my decision."

Hey Jimmi, don't think too long. The bonus offer for the-guy-who-sleep-under-the-printer is only good until the end of April.

2. "Looks like it only has 6 or seven inks and not a roll paper holder to be seen. Ripoff."

Chuck - actually, the 'locomotive in the livingroom', as the wife has affectionately dubbed it, has 8 inks and a varnish applicator. Also, with the heat it generates, we save a bundle on heating oil.

The noise it generates is something else again. The wife won't let me print after 10pm (even though she and the kids now live in the garage).

urban ku # 52

Enjoying the view * click to embiggen

Thanks to all who took the time to comment on the artist's statement topic. I'll be back to home base tomorrow, assuming that weather permits reasonable travel. I'll also be posting some real urban (big city) ku from my trip to Pittsburgh. I've been following, camera in hand, the 'biggest graffiti bust in US history'.

urban ku # 51 ~ artist's statements and critical thought

Grand View Motel • click to embiggenLet's get right to it.

Featured Comment: On ku # 471, Bret Kosmider wrote; "... Perhaps I could glean that meaning out of your artist statement but there's nothing compelling me to read it since I just assume that they are "pretty pictures" and nothing more ...."

Caveat - Bret, although the following is instigated by your comment, it is not directed at you personally.

Sure enough. Without reading my artist's statement, that might be a valid assumption - as valid as any assumption which anyone might make without reading my artist's statement. There's the temptation on my part to quote that thing about what happens when one assumes, but let's not go there. Let's be more thoughtful than that.

My first question back to you all is simple - knowing that an artist has taken the time and made the effort to extend to the observers of his/her work a glimpse into who he/she is, their motivation(s) and their intentions, why wouldn't you read it?

In consideration of the fact that, in all but the most propagandist of art, meaning is at best elusive, why wouldn't you read it?

Unless one assumes that all art is, in fact, merely decorative - pleasing to the eye and soothing to the psyche, why wouldn't you read it?

Unless one flat out doesn't give a damn about the person behind the curtain (shutter), why wouldn't you read it?

Unless all that matters is what you think, why wouldn't you read it?

There is the persistent notion amongst many who dislike or are suspicious of artist's statements that they are nothing more than transparent and rather feeble (and often deliberately obstuse) attempts to make important work that is otherwise devoid of merit. At times, perhaps this is true. But, an artist's statement is like the art itself - you can take it or leave it as is your wont. One is free to judge it and the artwork on their individual or collective merits.

Knowing that, and, if one believes that the best art works on 2 levels of understanding - the denoted and the connoted, why wouldn't you read it?

Critical thought relies on an open mind which seeks to gather as much information as possible on the topic at hand. So, once again, why wouldn't you read it?

Perhaps, upon first observing the pictures of other, one doesn't wish to be 'influenced' by what the artist has to say. Fair enough, but, once one has observed the pictures, why wouldn't you read it?

I just don't understand the near revulsion many have for the artist's statement.

Comments please.

Update on Saturday, April 14, 2007 at 04:58PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Paul Butzi wrote; "One of the reasons why many/most people don't pay much attention to artist's statements is that they know, from first hand experience, that artist's statements generally fall somewhere between outright lies and post facto rationalizations for the work..."

my response: I am certain that some have written self-serving 'post facto rationalizations'. No doubt. But using this as a rationalization for dismissing all (or most) artist's statements is rather ridiculous.

Not to mention that this atttitude dismisses the possibility of self-discovery by artist when viewing his/her work after or during the ongoing process of its creation - call it 'post-facto self-realization'. Many artists, myself included, use the process of creating art as a means of self-examination and discovery - a means to discover something that he/she does not already know about him/herself and the world about them.

My artist's statement contains at least one 'post-facto realization' about myself and my work which came from an observation about my work made by another. I have taken that revelation and folded into my ongoing cognitive motivation for and understanding of what I am doing. The fact that I have included this revelation/realization 'post-facto', or more accurately 'secundum-facto', does not make it a post-facto rationalization.