And the waiter served my coffee with a consolation sigh

Trying to be more like a Built to Spill album and get things done in a timely fashion. It’s against my nature, but I’m so tired of falling back on my nature.

With that in mind, here is some new work. Straight to DVD!! (err…flickr, rather)

Mello's Diner, Ottawa, ON, Thursday, March 19, 2009

And now… edit, scan & print, edit, scan & print, edit, scan & print, edit, scan & print, ad infinitum.

Title Credit: The Gaslight Anthem, Here’s Lookin At You, Kid

I was up all night again, boning up and reading the American dictionary

So, last night, around 4am, I decided to nix my house book and start something new. Stupid stupid stupid.

The house book requires an able ankle and better weather, so I’ll save it til spring.

New book is… loose ends right now. Using some graphic elemants rather then photographs (a first for this one). Trying to find text on the wide web, and probably shouldn’t be doing this. Too much crap out there to weed through.

After talking with my youngest sister last night about the science (Science!) of love/lust/attraction/whatever, I started thinking I wanted to make something about long lost grade school crushes. I file these things in the same neo-romantic category I file mix tapes and the like. But… it’s a problematic area. I’m already trying to avoid cheesiness, but this seems absolutely unavoidable.

We’ll see. Could be crap. I started circling the notion with the hopes that I could plow through it in a few days and have something simple that I like, but I can’t seem to make those simple oneliner books. I guess past crushes are a lot like those catchy oneliner lyrics  that you can’t get outta your head, no matter how simple and resolved they seem.

Think I may just take a toothbrush & pillow into school tonight when I go to print. Probably the only way I’ll make it on time, with my nighthawk status getting more and more ridiculous. Sleep is for suckers. At least thats what I’m telling myself.

Title Credit: The National, Brainy

Half of nothing wasted and split again

Ugh. Tirrible night’s sleep last night. Threw me off my game today.

Had crit at 930am. Finally fell asleep around 730am, then woke up, panicked, as was appropriate at 930am. Late for class again, like a jerk.  And my ankle is getting to the really painful part of the healing process. I know this becuase I’ve been poppin advil like tic tacs (and I normally never take more then one, no matter how much something hurts). Ah well. learned my lesson. No snowshoeing in runners.

It’s all ice-storm madness in Raachester. Hype machine. That said, I’m glad I don’t have to drive any further than school tomorrow.

Hurry-UP spring. I know I was all excited about snow, but this is gettin old.

Some lady came into the library today to show off her self-proclaimed ‘artists books’ (single quotes = sarcasm). Wow. One of the books was made by gluing handcut chinese paper people (which she bought “in San Francisco’s China town”) onto a page and then binding it together and stickin her name on it. Uhm, I believe we call that “stealing” in the ‘art world’ which you so much want to be associated with. And it’s not appropriation unless you do something smart with it. And No. Uhu-ing it onto fancy art store scrapbooky pseudo-handmade paper does not count.

Art Bitch signing off.

Some classmates are making some pretty kick ass art. I’m excited about next week’s work share. Got a pantload of work to do before then. Gotta get some better paper for glossy/semi-gloss prints.

Took a break from theory reading tonight to watch a TERRIBLE online tv show at nbc. Called 20something or something inane like that. Was about a ‘writer’ and her roommates and blogging. Terrible. C’mon new 30 Rock episodes, get with the spring and hurry UP!

Here’s a clip of my imaginary boyfriend, Richard Buckner from 1994. I was 13. Good thing he wasn’t my imaginary boyfriend back then.

Title Credit: Richard Buckner, Faithful Shooter

Silhouettes in a window frame

Pretty great show at Bug jar tonight. Lots of kids boppin to the second and third bands and lots of moody dudes (mostly, sorry to generalize) swaying to the first (Norwegian) band.

Talked to the drummer of the first band (a dentist by day – international drummer by night –for real) and made it home by midnight thirty, with lots of time to make some art before bed. I must be getting older. A few years ago, you couldn’t have dragged me outta the bar before closing. And now I’m leaving of my own accord. Hot damn.

Made some headway thinking about my book today and made a bunch of anaglyphs for class in the morning. HopefullyI can get my lazy, late-night lovin butt outta bed in time to go print some of them before class at 930. (ha).

I’m really happy with one of them in particular. Shows a guy loading cardboard in a flatbed truck on Market street, San Francisco. I’ll upload it later when it feels fully resolved. Still have some color balancing to do.

I’m not sure why I am so interested in making these photographs lately. Thought it had something to do with my stereoscopic deficiency, but that seems too easy. I think I like the idea of architecture as the only permanant. People pass by a place a thousand times, btu they never pass by it in exactly the same spot, and definitely not in the exact same lighting/wind/etc conditions. And the building doesn’t move. Well, much.

When lifestyles are so very very temporary, this is kind of novel. But even buildings don’t last, lookin at the sorry state of affairs over at Dubland.

Guess it does weirdly play into the house book. Why can’t I ever make something simple and disconnected?

Title Credit: Ra Ra Riot, Each Year

Festival of 24 Things – tick tick ticking

 

 

Copy of a copy of a copy of a rosebud.

Haven’t written much about art, lately, as I’ve had my ostrich headphones on too much, maybe. But, before I head out to look at some art, here’s what I’m thinking about right now.

One of my favourite Chicago residents posted this link on her blog, and I’m stealing it, or appropriating it, to buzzword as it were.

Last semester, one of my classmates (see emetic medic link  to the right) made a few portfolio pieces using Marlboro man images coupled with perfume ads. So, knowing of Richard Prince’s appropriation of the Marlboro man image (taken by Jim Krantz, or some other togue-out-of-cheek *serious* photographer), and appropriating this icon, rather than some other manly icon (Tony the Tiger, Captain Morgan, one of those clean shaven cologne models, I don’t know), does that make the piece about the original intention (selling cigarettes) or the appropriated intention (selling Advertising as Art, among many arguable others) or something completely different? Can we disregard the past uses of images, or do we rest on past laurels?

When we get into that kind of tunnel vision reflection on a copy of a copy of a copy, how much credit do we give others to *get* it, or is art just for art students?

I wonder if Orson knew we would get to this.

So I’m turning on the stereo, and I’m lining up the names, On the mixes I made before you.

This is pretty amesome. Adding it to my To Learn list.

Took my first photo for the Festival of 24 Things today. Took some polaroids and played around with filters and things. Hope I’m not resting too much on art sauce. Could get messy. I have a feeling it is gonna get worse before it gets better, but I guess it is just something I have to go through, like puberty.

I have ben trying to go take some cheesy Campbellford Christmas lights night photos , but every night has been either sleep-overcome, or cloudy, or raining (it has poured here all day. ALL day. I don’t know if there will be any snow left by tomorrow morning.)

Tomorrow night. Definitely.

Doing mom stuff tomorrow. Should be fun, provided all that rain doesn’t turn Southern Ontario into an ice rink.

I have a lost of books I want to get at the library. Wonder if they’ll have them.  Doubtful on the new Eggers, but maybe on White Noise and definitely on any/every Can-lit classic I can think of. Maybe I’ll give Margaret Atwood another shot. Why did Alias Grace have to be so excruciatingly boring and long. Quilts? Really? In a murder novel?

I’m gonna try and take a photo tomorrow thinking about Margaret Atwood and that whole Southern Ontario Gothic nonsense.

Title Credits: The National  – Patterns of Fairytales, from Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers
(They were on the cover of three music magazines on the rack in Chapters, St. Catharines, where we stopped for poutine at Harveys on the way home. And I can’t stop listening to Secret Meeting. Holy eff it’s good.  This place is full of spies.  Also, ‘Available’ (on SSFDL) sounds a little bit like The Cult and a lot like Joy Division. And on Fake Empires, around 1:42, right after the break…best thing I have heard in a long  long time. Click the first link to hear it for yourself. I think that guy has it on his page. Holy crap, I’ve got a monster band crush right now. Sorry dudes.) (And when did this become a music blog, ry?)

The Festival of 24 Things

On Dec 12, 2007 7:55 PM, Robyn York (@gmail.com) <robynyorkATgmailDOTcom> wrote:

You are invited. You have one month.

Take 24 photographs responding to each of the words listed below, in order. You may work in any way you see fit.

Keep in mind that the final exhibition will be 24 people (hopefully) with twenty-four 4″x6″ prints.

If you work in a square format, be prepared to crop or add some type of background ( i.e. polaroids scanned on black) in order to fit into the grid.

1. tower
2. tension
3. else
4. passive
5. enemy
6. equal
7. greasy
8. math
9. dissipate
10. hair
11. auxiliary
12. guilt
13. marginal
14. surrender
15. awkward
16. lateral
17. collectivism
18. patient
19. permanent
20. wrestle
21. dumb
22. modular
23. biting
24. index

Anyone who wants to may complete the extracurricular b-sides: “12 extra
photographs for sesquipedalian sycophants”.

25. perspicacity: clearness of understanding.
26. lugubrious: Mournful; indicating sorrow, often in a way that seems
feigned or ridiculous.
27. salacious: lascivious, lustful or lecherous.
28. bricolage: construction or something constructed by using whatever
materials happen to be available
29. sycophantic: to be a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite.
30. defenestrate: To throw out of a window.
31. meta-system: an assemblage or combination of things or parts forming
a complex or unitary whole, existing in a larger system
32. rapprochement: the establishment or state of cordial relations.
33. opportune: suitable for a given purpose or occasion.
34. impassive: devoid of emotion; also, showing no emotion.
35. soporific: causing sleep; also, something that causes sleep.
36. reticent: inclined to keep silent.

Your final images must be received by January 12th. Mail or deliver to:

24 Things
c/o Visual Studies Workshop
31 Prince Street
Rochester, NY, 14607

RSVP if you’re in.

Thanks,
Robyn York

Taking pictures just for the sake of the film

Crits done. Just one class left. Thank-god. I need a break from all that. I’m starting to get crushed on people, and when that madness starts happening, I need to get out of dodge and reassess.

And now I have a few days to start back up all the things that have been thrown to the side.

I did my dishes the morning. I slept 12 hours to make up for the lost nights and nights of sleep. I made coffee instead of buying it. Actually, making coffee has been the one thing I have been keeping up with, despite the nuttiness. So strike the previous.

What else… I started organizing my music collection. Autiobiographically. (No, not really.)

I started playing with my new ebay camera. It’s old and dusty and awesome and I’m going to try my damnedest not to use it just for the sake of using something old and dusty and awesome. (See materialmasturbation here)

Yesterday’s crits made me realize that, despite how much everyone wants to peg ‘artists’ as lazy, footloose, pithy, careless, etc,  there is a lot of hard work thinking that needs to get done when no one is watching. Pre-artwork. And there has to be a reason for everything. Materials, matter. It ALL matters.

Why take a photograph of an object if you are not trying to make a photographic object look different than the actual object? I know why I started taking photographs. I see in a relatively flat way, and I want to try and reproduc that, to make pictures to show others. I rarely take a picture and hide it away. Which is maybe why the immediacy of polaroid is interesting to me right now. It’s the analog/physical object version of turning a digital camera over and looking at the LCD. Slower.

TallGirl’s canvas prints of scanned objects brought a lot of stuff to mind for me. Discussion resulted in: “If you don’t care about the photograph, and the scan is the same size as the object, Why not just show the objects?”

We talked about it last night, during blackmold roubdtable  and Tallgirl doesn’t seem to know which direction to go with it. I think she needs to make something with the printed scanned objects. Maybe fold them into a shape. Maybe sew them into something useless (like a bag with no opening). Something. With meaning. I told her she should put them into some kind of frame (K suggested embroidery hoops) and use them for target practice. Guns seem important in her whole girl/boy discussion.

Anyway. Has got me thinking about what I’m taking photos of (houses and buildings, mainly) and why (because I think where we live is as important as a lot of other things, and far more important than nostalgic pictures of chuck taylor’s and merry-go rounds). And more on why.

Place is big. Sure. I guess it concerns me becuase of how weird it is that we pair off, turn on the tv and hide out from the world, for the most part .Pre-pairing off, there is the whole Vinyl danceclub interviewing. Not even interviewing. Screening might be more appropriate. But after that selfish-fuckhappy 20s (which occasionally spills into 30s), for the most part, its sleep-8hrs, work-8hrs, spouse(kids)-8hrs. And again.

Maybe place is important to me, right now, becuase I am displaced? Or maybe I’m reacting to being displaced for 3+years from my family? My friend/grade8crush told me, a few Christmases(sp?) ago that his mom had moved out of the town we grew up in, and he no longer had a home there.
So strange a concept. But pretty distinctively 2007.(6,5,4,whatever)

Something my grandmother will never know in her lifetime. Something my mom may never know in her lifetime.  Something my inconceivable kids may know all too well. Maybe not. maybe I can settle in a place and get comfortable.  That seems like my eventual goal. But then there is restlessness, dissatisfaction, all these gen XY concepts of selfishness.

So? who knows.

I’m going to go take some pictures of something. But before I click the shutter , I will have some answer to ‘So what?’ in my head.

Sidenote: heard Bishop Allen on the tv at the chinese food takeout place on the corner. On a panasonic (or similar) camera commercial. That clickclickclick song. Never really liked that one, cuase it sounded too jingly.

If not for our first hello we’de never have to say good-bye (C. Gaines)

( Just kidding, it was actually  P. Stanley) And he does sound like he’s channelling Roddie May in the original.  That said, I’m a sucker for the   G. Brooks version.

My book is effin done. My video is as effin done as it is gonna get, and it is still as shitty as i remember, when i exported it at 7am yesterday, from my laptop perch in the seminar room. Ah well,  You can’t be good at everything, and  I am A1 with a hula hoop.

My photos are… up in the lounge. I know I could make better stuff,heck, I know I *have* better stuff just waiting to be printed, but the lack of inspiration from our fearless leader hasn’t made me want to skip another night of sleep. That said, I did pull all nighters for each of my three professors this semester, so I’m not playin favourites. I just don’t feel like printing a lot of expensive wallpaper for the lounge right now.

Only a handful of things left to do. Stuff for the media culture ititiative. Print out some transparencies to put in the ChristmasLightsDad projector. Make some mixes for some of my favourite people. Finish my laundry so I can leave the house in something other than my Team Deb shirt.

Oh, and print up an artist statement for my book/photographs/video.  Here it is:

This work is about making stuff as a distraction from real world issues, both macro and micro. Thank-you for looking.

If only I could get away with that.

Uncle K came up with a rib tickler to add to our Big Tease brainstorm of t-shirt slogans:

(School Acronym on the front)
(on the back)  It’ll do.

What is it about calling someone “Uncle so and so” that insinuates creepiness?  I know it is supposed to be an affectionate nickname, but it has this dark edge to it that I’m not too sure about. Unless Uncle So is actually your uncle. That said, the reverse doesn’t apply to Aunts. Calling someone “Auntie so and so”  doesn’t have any of those creepy undertones.

Ok. I’ve got work to do. If I had the wordpress “space upgrade” I would upload the song that is from. It’s called Kamikiaze Babies by People From Earth and I HIGHly doubt it is anywhere online.