David Menuez lecture

David Menuez's lecture at the Crittenden gallery was another one that I was much more anxious about. Again, his orientation is different from most of the school's visiting artists. I have often wondered what a commercially based career in photography might be like but there isn't really any emphasis on that through the school. I always imagined that a commercial career could be lucrative and still creative and original. Doug's lecture kind of showed me that that was still possible. The way I was beginning to see things was that photography is so abundant nowadays that stock photography was essentially robbing photographers of lucrative contract based work. I felt like commercial photography was a bottom dollar business where the agencies who previously contracted photographers for particular assignments for specific campaigns now just sought out the cheapest stock equivalent. Doug's lecture showed me that there is still a value to being good at what you do and having a vision.

I enjoyed following Doug's stories of the places he's been and the people he has met. He started explaining his journey all the way back when he was shooting the people at Macintosh for time magazine while they were in the process of developing their own operating system. He was able to capture really personal moments like Steve Jobs laughing among other things. If you Google Steve Jobs you wont find any pictures of him laughing and his biggest smiles don't even show his teeth. When word got around that he was shooting Steve Jobs, CEO's and different companies started calling him up to photograph them.

That wasn't the only once in a lifetime kind of stuff that Doug has been able to shoot. I wouldn't describe this as luck but Menuez was actually in New York on September eleventh and got shots of the towers. As crazy as it may sound to someone not from New York, Doug and his wife were actually moved to relocate back to New York after being stuck in the city for three days after 9/11. It seems to me that Doug has a rather nurturing heart. Him wanting to be back in New York after such a tragedy is apparently part of who he is. His work in Uganda is just as commendable. Most of the work that he does there is surrounding a camp full of starving orphans who have lost their families after rebels attacked their villages. Doug tells their story as a select few of them get to travel to the U.S for a dance tour to raise money for the orphans of Uganda. Menuez has compiled the stories and photographs into his book Transcendent Spirit. Not only does he tell their story, but all of the profit from that books sales go to the orphanage.

There is a lot about Doug Menuez that I admire. I admire that he is a family man even though at times his work can take him away from them for lengthy periods of time. I admire that when he realized that he was doing exactly the kind of work that he didn't want to end up doing that he was able to just pack up and move on. It's impressive that he could just drop everything and take three years off to be with his family and get back in touch with what he really wanted to be doing with his career. I could only hope to have a fraction of the success and respect that he had achieved. Though he mentioned it briefly at the end of his lecture, I would like to talk more with him about what kind of approach he might take in today's job market to achieve what he has to this point. I feel like he would have some great networking advice as well as general advice about navigating your way through the business.

I really took a lot away with me the night of this lecture. Its a kind of funny comparison but this lecture was like one of those success stories from those late night get rich quick infomercials. It really made me want to get out there and do it and he sold it quite well. At the same time he put everything into perspective by talking about things like how annually the U.S. averages about 5,000 students that graduate with photography degrees every year. So like I said, I took a lot away with me from Doug Menuez's lecture. and really enjoyed seeing his work.

Artist Statement

I make art because I have a way of seeing things that I want to preserve and share. There are certain things that I seem to gravitate towards for whatever reason and whatever that may be isn’t always the same. I love to create. The act of making something is the art. I make art that I enjoy because that’s the kind of art I want to see. If I’m not making my own art, then I’m just going to be surrounded by somebody else’s art that isn’t necessarily the art I want to see. I always feel the need to be doing something. I also feel the need to be productive in whatever I’m doing. My art makes me happy so I am happy creating it. Occasionally, I make art because I have something to say. If I don’t have something to say, I have something to show. I like when people are drawn to areas that weren’t my primary focus and when my work can say different things to different people. I have always hoped for a “dream job” someday where I can make a living doing what I love. Photography can work commercially and as fine art which seems very practical to me. I chose photography as my career choice because it is a means of supporting myself while pursuing my creative interests.

1st Jurried Show Submission

The Weinstein JCC hosted their annual undiscovered photography juried exhibition April 2nd. I was glad to have found a show that wasn't restrictive based on subject matter. This show was pretty perfect for me being my first show. Their eligibility requirements are only that you have not previously places in the undiscovered photography show in the past or have had work exhibited in a major show in the Richmond area. I almost missed this opportunity but I happened to see a flier in the office on the 2nd floor of pollack just before the entry deadline. Here is a pdf link to the flier that I found with the entry form attached:

http://www.weinsteinjcc.org/arts/documents/undiscoverdphotography2009.pdf

I chose to enter this print from my darkroom photo class last semester. Its a photo that I took of the exhaust pipes on my grandfather's f-650. I took the photo from underneath the truck and with the reflections on the chrome finish and the grill around the pipe, the photo has a nice abstract look to it. This photo is representative of the kind of photography I like to do most where the subject isn't all that uncommon yet it isn't immediately identifiable. I chose the white frame for a few reasons. I was told that there was a movement away from the traditional black framed matted photos to opposite extremes like unmatted unframed photos and white frames without the mat. I went with the white frame unmatted presentation because I felt like it best accentuated the photo since I was working with a print that had white boarders that the frame didn't cover. Here is a photo document of my photo with the entry form:

PJ Sykes lecture

I thought PJ Sykes' visit to our class was pretty sweet. I say that because I was really interested to hear what he had to say versus what some of the people from the more formal VCU visiting artist lectures had to say. I remembered PJ from my very first 1st Fridays art walk that I attended in Richmond. I had gone in a bunch of the galleries on broad street and when I was coming out of one of them, there PJ was just outside with a small table set up with an assortment of his photographs. Its funny to me, knowing his interest in music, to see the way he displayed his work. He had them arranged in these bins like albums in a music shop. Its cool that PJ has his roots here in Richmond and isn't in a rush to move onward. That's not nearly the path for me but his dedication is commendable.

Considering that I was not 110% interested in the focus of PJ's photography, following the narrative of his journey so far was more intriguing than just talking about the work that he does. He never made any of his achievements out to be more that what they were and was really modest about everything I thought. Its cool that he had been published in rva magazine because I usually like the art and photography that they feature. I think its awesome that there are people that are in PJ's position that students like us can follow and keep up with and I look forward to doing so.

Stylistically, PJ's work is a much different product that what I might make in the same environments but he and I have separate orientations with our photography. His seems to be his account of things; entirely the way he wants them to be. Mine would have to be a combination of that and the influences of a school that emphasizes fine art. Unlike everyone else the school hosts for lectures, he isn't so art oriented and its refreshing to hear a different experience and perspective. It's kind of relaxing to be reminded that PHOTOGRAPHY DOES NOT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE FINE ART! I think I tend to forget that more and more now that photography IS my entire academic world.

2nd juried show entry

So this is going to seem a little random since I haven't posted my 1st juried show blog yet but I had been kind of worried that I wasn't going to be able to find another show to enter before the end of the semester. Luckily I verbalized that concern and was referred to http://www.artshow.com/juriedshows/. Its the first thing that shows up when you google search juried art shows and it has a list of all sorts of shows coming up and has links to whoever is hosting the show. I found one through artnetwork.com that is open to pretty much any kind of work and is asking for digital submissions. I though that the way that they had this set up was convenient of course but also very cool. They host the images of everyone's work on the website and visitors vote for the work that they like best. only after that do the jurors get to rank the works. The piece that gets the most votes gets the people's choice award and 4th prize but may also be selected by the jury for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd prize. Based on some of what I saw in the galleries at artnetwork.com, I think that I have a fair chance to get voted in but have no idea what kind of turnout they are expecting. Anyway I just wanted to post about this because I was excited about finding it. I will post any kind of confirmation I get from my submission upon receiving it.

Anderson Gallery

Today I got a chance to stop by and check out what was accepted to the Juried Student Fine Art Exhibition at the Anderson Gallery. I had planned to enter this show to fulfill the requirements of this class but as my luck goes, I somehow totally forgot about it the day they collected submissions. After seeing the works that were accepted, I am glad I didn't waste the money on the application fee. The 2-D works that were accepted were presented much better than I had. I guess that I had just overlooked this aspect because I felt as if the prints were good enough on their own that the framing would not matter much. I was wrong though, DUH! 8x10's in cheap ass frames don't look like much compared to larger matted prints in nice frames. Not that I couldn't have still used 8x10's but I really should have considered presentation more.

photocopy portraits titled "Confinements of Ourselves" were As for the content, I thought the show had a decent mix of different mediums. The majority of works seemed worthy of their inclusion. Though some bared no significance to me, I'm sure there is a market for that kind of work. Just not all my cup of tea. From the photography that was selected for the show, there were a few that I particularly enjoyed. ArlieTrowbridge'scompositionally strong. Her technique was unlike the other photography included in the show. It reminded me of the x-ray photography of Nick Veasey a bit but I liked that, unlike Veasey, she didn't make it seamless and I could tell where one scan began and ended.Miles Pennington's South Laurel Street was also a unique approach to photography. He used individual cutouts of photographs of the street setup within an accordion display. I guess I also cared about this peace because I live on that block. He presented it better than I see it most times.



Though I didn't note particulars (because there were about 8 or so), I thought that a lot of the video art was pretty impressive from what I saw. Even more impressive was the fact that all but one of the videos were done by AFO students. There was one that looked like it consisted of about a billion different illustrations of characters rapidly transitioning to different characters with similar form that smoothly transform, all in sync with the music. There was another that was just a closeup on eyes twitching and whatnot. Cliche if you ask me. Another video of people running and dancing around with white sheets at night in a Christmas tree lot was worth the minute or so. It had that feel good vibe going on that made you want to jump into the screen and join in.

Other than photography and other 2d works, there were just a few that I really like. One of my favorites was by Emily Wright, a craft/materials studies junior. Her "Germophobic Jewelry" was I guess what you could call functional and yet fashionable. The way that she displayed them sort of gave them this morbid feel. In a black box under glass, they looked like some sort of specimen. The use of both Sterling silver and latex was an unlikely combination that I wouldn't have imagined working together but it seems that Emily understands what she is working with pretty well.



Perhaps next year I will have thought out my entry a bit more and maybe even remember that I actually need to submit my work to be accepted. Either way, I always value any chance to see what my fellow artists are up to and it's nice to have seen first hand what this gallery particularly favors.

Commons Student Gallery

Right now the student gallery at the commons is hosting the VCU Green Unity show. I periodically check the student gallery and usually leave disappointed, as was the case with the exhibit prior to green unity. About half of the pieces in the green unity show were pieces that I cared for whereas the other half was the ever to farmiliar shotty craftsmanship and overall poor conceptualization.

There was one that particularly dropped my jaw and I don't mean that positively. This "artist" took paper coffee cups and pasted a few of them together, in no specific way, to make a larger coffee cup. They also made a cigar sized cigarette and a lighter that wasn't really scaled to be proportional to the cigarette or the coffee cup. The cigarette and lighter were made of random paper and cardboard. They were reminicent of a careless attempt at copying the works of Claus Oldenburg. I am assuming that there just must have been a lack of entries if this kind of work was included but it certainly didnt speak to me about anything that might even be remotely related to the whole VCU Green Unity thing. Even worse, this was a colaborative effort between three people.

At the other end of the spectrum, there were some rather remarkable woodworking pieces. The one that I thought was most profound was the piece titled Sacrifice by Roberto Celis made of slavaged hardwoods and a found walnut stump. Now this was a piece that spoke to me about the idea of being green. The material was as organic as it gets. The wood was unstained and there were two small plants set in soil within the sculpture at the top and bottom. I saw a cycle from the natural existance of these woods to their existance after man's imposition apon them and then from being discarded to being recreated as a new form that is somehow raw again!
There was also an untitled piece by Devin Trom that I don't believe was made of found materials but still had very high conceptual and aesthetic value. The craftsman ship was beautiful! Definately up to par with that of Roberto's Sacrifice. This work was a bed of grass within this woden cage. It functioned very effectively as it was but it also brought my mind elsewhere. I started thinking about time and things like, "what if, instead of grass, there was another type of plant in the cage that could grow in a way that it would overtake the cage and eventually the plant would posess the cage rather than the cage containing the plant, yet.. the core of the plant is still within the cage inevitably!

Thanks to these two pieces I still have some respect for the art of Green Unity. I would urge whoever is in charge of these types of things to consider more closely what they are alowing their name to be associated with. I don't think that a lot of those pieces represent what they expected them to. As an art show in general, most of the other works were far from what I would expect to see from college level art students. This gallery is seen by perspective students when they tour the campus. If this is what I saw on my tour, I may have leaned away from VCU if it had not been for these few peices.