Print by K. Bastidas.
(I know, Michelle, I know… I’m off by 1,996.)
Julie Meridian’s “Specimens”
“A constant collector of nature’s commonplace wonders, Julie Meridian is an artist with a reverent curiosity about the natural world. Inspired by the carefully classified and preserved specimens in the vast collections of the Field Museum, she began photographing her own collection. Instead of documentation, her intent is to convey the unfathomable mysteries the specimens exude, exploring themes of fragility and endurance, beauty and decay, chance and destiny, life and death,” according to Art World Chicago.
“Employing a simple background of white paper and constantly shifting natural light, meridian uses her camera to preserve each specimen in an ephemeral framework constructed solely of light and shadow. Her reward is the startling moment when the mundane reality of the specimen undergoes a quiet metamorphosis. Hovering between specimen and poetry, science and art, the moment challenges her to measure the immeasurable: the inevitability of loss and the transcendence of beauty.”
http://www.ryersonwoods.org/Programs/Art/ArtExhibitions.html
http://www.juliemeridianphotographs.com/
Annual Art Department Awards
Our AP 2-D Design Studio Student of the year is Michelle Henneberry!
Our Photography Student of the year: Kendall Wallin!
Thanks to all who attended, enjoyed, and generously participated.
Diana Diana
Check out our longstanding link to BHS alumna Diana Mulvihill, on the right; then follow the link to an interview with her, in which, after a brief episode of deja vu, you’ll learn her about real name and her infatuation with what some of us know as Holga cameras.
Update (January 8): http://www.commarts.com/fresh/diana-mulvihill.html
Packrats and Hoarders and Squirrels. Oh, My.
Photographers are (notoriously) packrats, and art teachers are squirrels (so I’ve been told, by older art teachers); another resident at the homestead has declared that, if I go first, the basement and all its contents will be bulldozed under. We’re not nostalgic by any measure, but these documents either made the cut or were buried so deeply that they have survived until now. Enjoy.
These first two are from Fred Picker’s Zone VI catalog. Fred was a Vermonster who attempted continually to rethink and refine AA’s ideas. Calumet bought his business eventually.
Mr. Picker’s opinions (mostly regarding technique, thankfully) tended to compete with the merchandise he offered for sale.
These are excerpts from Bostick & Sullivan’s 10th anniversary catalog (which was printed twenty years ago).
Never mind continuity; one can appreciate these for tone of voice alone.
It’s their catalog and they can include whatever they like.
2012 Twitter = 1912 Postcard
Everybody knows that twitter is limited to 140 characters. The character limit was determined by Friedhelm Hillebrand, father of modern text messaging, who came up with 160 as the ideal number needed to convey… something. When the deciding committee looked at postcards and found most of the messages were around 150 characters, the 160-character limit was born (twitter keeps the extra 20 characters for usernames).
I like to think of twitter as the 21st-century postcard, in that small packages of information are sent easily. Astonishingly, some people among us would be unaware of the conventions of postcards in current conventional use (outside of advertising) were it not for PostSecret, because their purpose has been trumped by texting, but texting has no remnant, nor any sense of presentation.
I don’t collect old postcards, but their appeal is enormous. If I acquire older postcards–used or unused–I use ’em. Even better: make your own.
Do We Want This? Do We Need This? Is This A Good Thing? I’m Just Asking.
http://us.leica-camera.com/photography/m_system/m_monochrom/
Some numbers: 18; 10,000; 7,950; 2. Megapixels, ISO capability, price, aaaannd gimme.
A Sampler of the 2012 Portfolios
Sixteen solid portfolios flew out the door and up into cyberspace yesterday at the huge school. These images were included.
A picture apiece by Zach Rowe, Victoria Taylor, Rachel Parker, Michelle Henneberry, Melissa B. Jones, Matt Wloch, Margaret Rajic, Kendall Wallin, Justine Kaszynski, Joyce Gaffney, Jesse Filian, Jamie Gray, Emma Haney, Corey Nguyen, Chanelle Biangardi, and Caroline Horswill. Here they are, finishing the paperwork:
See also:
https://photodevoto.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/one-of-those-magical-days/
https://photodevoto.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/late-summer-work/
https://photodevoto.wordpress.com/2011/05/03/catalog-preview/
https://photodevoto.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/pieces-for-the-ap-senior-catalogue/
https://photodevoto.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/recent-ph-d-documentation/
https://photodevoto.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/how-they-look-online/
Stop Making Sense.
Make sense of this: http://scavhunt.uchicago.edu/scavlist2012.pdf
I could happily quote from this list, but I’ve no idea where to begin.
“Vivian Maier makes me cry.”
More exciting news about another book from Richard Cahan.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/learning-more-about-the-nanny-photographer/
Creative Camerawork 