Here I was, just minding my own business doing a little shopping for me and the cats, when what do I see but the retired general and former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, signing copies of his new book.
Category Archives: News/Announcements
Shoot at the Renwick Gallery – Part 2
Here is a series of illustrations of the operation of the room. This shows the room getting brighter as Nick sits on the cushion (see, you do get to see his face after all!). Nick’s installation consists of a long, narrow room with the walls covered in elongated hexagonal tiles (each of which Nick made, and hand signed on the back!) . The floor and ceiling are covered in mirror tiles. The opposite end of the room from which you enter is rounded, and at the focus of the hemicircle, a mirror-based seat with a white cushion is located. In the ceiling is a series of LED lights. Sitting on the cushion triggers the lights and music, which build in intensity for approximately one minute before fading out.
Here is a link to the Renwick Gallery’s exhibit announcement:
and here is a link to Nick Dong’s website:
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Here are three more images of Nick, up close.
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Shoot at the Renwick Gallery – Part 1
On Friday morning I had the great honor and opportunity to go to the Renwick Museum of American Crafts (part of the Smithsonian Institution) to photograph an installation piece by a friend of mine, Nick Dong, an Oakland, California based installation/mixed-media artist. His piece, “The Enlightenment Room” was chosen to be included in the Renwick’s “40 under 40” exhibit showcasing 40 hot and talented artists under the age of 40 working in “craft” media. Nick’s installation consists of a long, narrow room with the walls covered in elongated hexagonal tiles (each of which Nick made, and hand signed on the back!) . The floor and ceiling are covered in mirror tiles. The opposite end of the room from which you enter is rounded, and at the focus of the hemicircle, a mirror-based seat with a white cushion is located. In the ceiling is a series of LED lights. Sitting on the cushion triggers the lights and music, which build in intensity for approximately one minute before fading out.
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Here is a link to the Renwick Gallery’s exhibit announcement:
and here is a link to Nick Dong’s website:
I tend to be a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to my artistic tastes, but I was truly impressed by Nick’s installation piece. Every component was extremely well thought out and seamlessly integrated to produce a singular experience.
Artomatic installation complete
Ok- I’ve got my wall finished. And with hours to spare! Isn’t it purty?
Installation at Artomatic in Progress
Here’s my exhibit, in progress of being mounted.
Promo Postcards for my exhibit at Artomatic
My promo postcards arrived via UPS today. They’re awesome! The printing is outstanding, as is to be expected from ModernPostcard (http://www.modernpostcard.com). I got them 6.5 x 8.5, as there was no price difference between that size and 5×7. 500 should be enough to last me through Artomatic and still have leftovers to send out.
Feedback on the card design, both front and back, is welcome. I trimmed the white space on the back when making the JPG to save on file size.
Modern Postcard is a great company to deal with – they provide you with design templates for both front and rear in a variety of application packages (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark to name a few), and provide very simple instructions on how to prepare the files and how to transmit them to get the best results. You can even download monitor ICC profiles for proofing to be sure what you envision matches what they print. Are they the cheapest? No, but they are top quality, and you don’t have to agree to get daily spam emails from them in order to have postcards printed at a discount unlike some other printing firms (cough,cough, vistaprint, cough, cough).
Updates – Artomatic, Upcoming Classes
Well, everything is coming together, on time for once. I just picked up the new hard-copies of my Introduction to Platinum/Palladium Printing manual from FedEx/Kinko’s today. They look very nice. I hope the students will enjoy and appreciate them. It is 29 pages, spiral bound, profusely illustrated and with plenty of white space for note-taking. If anyone wants to buy a copy, email me and I can make the arrangements. They’re $30 each. Class is all set to run on Saturday, and I’ve even met a couple of my students already.
My picture frames for the Artomatic show arrived last night. It was a bit odd because the FedEx Ground guy not only left the packages themselves on the front steps, but he/she ALSO left a hang-tag on the door to tell me that the packages had been left on the front steps. Never you mind that you could barely open the front door to the house for the boxes; somehow I also needed to be reminded that the packages were there and needed to be taken in. Over the weekend I bought the paint for my wall – I got a gallon of flat black interior paint, that SHOULD be enough. My postcards are set to arrive on Friday – I’m getting antsy to see them!
I also had my first faculty meeting at Glen Echo Photoworks last night. It was very productive, and I’m looking forward to being a regular participant there. I’m especially psyched to find out that it is possible to arrange a human figure study workshop – given the general demographic at Glen Echo (there are lots of kids and kids activities there), I was concerned that they’d shoot it down, but if the studio sessions run at night, we should be fine!
I’m re-running the Intro to Platinum class in mid-October, and I’ll be doing the Advanced Platinum class in September. When I have dates finalized, I’ll post them along with a full course description here. Topics will include using digital negatives, printing in Platinum, advanced paper selection and handling, gum-over-platinum, fumed silica treatment and advanced contrast control techniques.
Photoworks Recap – Alternative Visions exhibit
here is the notice from the Washington Post’s Weekend section about the opening we had this past Sunday for the Alternative Visions show.
Washington Post Notice, Photoworks Exhibit
I was tickled that we got mentioned and one of the images by one of our artists was featured in the column, as the WaPo’s Arts section is notoriously unfriendly to local artists.
The evening was a big success – I think we had 50 people come for the artists’ talk and reception, despite the miserable weather all day. My work in the show was some of my 5×7 palladium prints from my trip to Argentina. One thing that I focused on in my artists talk was the story behind each photograph, as opposed to the technical details of its production, which other artists spent a fair bit more time talking about. I know if I went to a gallery talk by a painter, I’d much rather hear them talk about the content of their images than which brush they used. I think it’s a general shortcoming of photographers (I can do it too) to get caught up in the technical details of image production, in part out of a desire to share the knowledge to preserve it, in part to inspire others to try, and in part out of our own fascination and joy at the “wow, I DID this!” factor that is always there (for me at least) every time you successfully produce a print via a chemical process. 20 years on into this passion, I still have that “wow” factor every time I develop a print that works. In the first days of learning, I’d get the “wow” even if the print was crap, just because I made the chemical process work. I’m a little more finicky now and get excited when I see a GOOD print appear in the soup.
Anyway, here I am, talking about my work. You can see one of my prints to my right (your left) in the image.
On a separate note, my platinum/palladium printing class is officially sold out, so I will be offering it again in the fall. Stay tuned for dates/times. I’m very excited about the class, and can’t wait to see how it goes. I’ll also be offering some additional classes in the fall, including a Photo History class (probably) and a one-evening “Collecting and Preserving Antique Images” lecture, where I’ll be trotting out parts of my own collection for people to see real life examples of various antique photographic media.
Busy Day
Well, today was a very busy and successful day. I had an early morning, taking my SharePoint certification exam. This was my second time. Last time, I failed with a score of 570-ish (you need a 700 out of 1000 to pass). Today, I got a 957, which means that I missed only one question. I’m very psyched at the turnaround, and I owe a debt of thanks to an iPad app, VCE mobile.
Then I went over to the site of this year’s Artomatic. This will be the biggest Artomatic ever – 390,000 square feet; enough room for 1700+ artists. I found a great wall space to hang my work on the 11th floor, near the elevator, with a view of the Potomac River and National Airport. We’ve got until May 13th now to get our work up on the wall, which is pretty tight time, but I’ll manage somehow.
Artomatic Returns (and I’m in it!!)
For those who don’t live in the Washington DC metropolitan area, Artomatic is this HUGE “art happening”, by artists for artists, with no jury or curation, just pick a 12′ wall and hang your work to your heart’s desire. It encompasses just about every conceivable artistic means of expression, from painting, photography, drawing, sculpture to music, theater, dance, performance art, video, poetry and the just plain incomprehensible. Artomatic strives to be a bi-annual event, but that doesn’t always happen, as it has no permanent home and is dependent on property owners of large empty spaces being interested in making those spaces available. The last few Artomatics have featured something on the order of 1000+ 2-d/3-d artists and 600 performers of some kind. The whole thing is produced on a volunteer basis, which makes it all the more amazing that it even happens at all.
For more information about Artomatic in general, the history of the event, and schedules for this year’s event, go to Artomatic.org
Important dates relating to this year’s Artomatic:
- May 18 – Artomatic Opens
- June 2 – Meet the Artist Night (I will be there, with wine and cheese if allowed)
- June 23 – Artomatic Closes
The show is open Wednesday and Thursday from 12 noon to 10 pm, Fridays and Saturdays 12 noon to 1 AM, and Sundays 12 noon to 5 PM. It is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. There is a recommended $5 donation for admission, but it is pay what you can. Despite the fact that over 75,000 people attended, Artomatic did not make a profit – this is a very expensive, labor intensive effort to produce a show of this size and scope.
I have NOT yet decided what work I will be putting in the show. It’s a toss-up between doing some really large color prints of my night-time work, or making some new platinum/palladium/gum male nude images inspired by Japanese landscape screens. The $64,000 question is will I have enough time to produce that work before installation is over.
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