Identify the photographer and win a prize.
Photo Devoto Picture of the Day, #2
Identify the photographer and win a prize!
Photo Devoto Picture of the Day, #1
-Suzanne Hader
Pinhole Day Is Coming
We’ve demonstrated a number of times how quick and how easy it can be to make a pinhole camera; we’ve also seen examples of how specialized a camera can be designed. Now is the time to do it for World Wide Pinhole Photography Day.
http://pinholeday.org/participate/
There are endless links to resources, from Kodak to artists to enthusiast groups to youtube tutorials. Dig in! Here are a few examples from the Huge School.
Vox Populi @ BHS
(They meant affect.) Within a few weeks’ time, the results were published (and revised, and then re-revised). 
Think Pink
When the AD announced that students needed to fill out an application printed on pink paper, so many students asked for the form in the Art Office that Mr. Engle obliged them with this (reproduced here in black and white).
NVAM, CCC, WRHAHSAS
Visit the National Veterans’ Art Museum at 4041 North Milwaukee Avenue to see 100 Faces of War Experience: Portraits and Words of Americans Who Served in Iraq and Afghanistan, a solo exhibition of paintings by Matt Mitchell. 
From the catalog: “Unlike photographs, portraits are artists’ interpretation and presentation of their subjects” (emphasis mine). 
“The artist met with each person to start their painting… Each meeting lasted between two and eight hours. Mitchell then continued working for 40 to 80 hours to complete each portrait.”
The gallery truly becomes a place for contemplation. Also on permanent display: “The Things They Carried.” From the website: “With artworks and objects created and collected by over twenty Vietnam veteran artists, The Things They Carried also provides visual interpretations to viewers, illustrating the war by those who were there.” This installation includes actual photographs.
At the Chicago Cultural Center, allow yourself to be engulfed by “Drury Brennan: Die Welt (The World).”
From the card: “With the heart of a beatmaker, eyes of a ‘Street Artist’ and mouth of a poet, Brennan seeks to unite these disparate traditions & concepts, making new systems of poetics to bring us together.” 
TONIGHT! the big reception and awards ceremony for the Harper Area HS Art Show! This year’s drawing/painting/photo display cases are a little thin on bombast and contrast, and imagination beyond the terms of each assigned project. Still, as Lee Friedlander said, “The pleasures of good photographs are the pleasures of good photographs, whatever the particulars of their makeup” (or the care invested in the making of their negative[s] and their prints). Regarding that, Kendall Free’s picture may be the best print in the entire show, and Buffalo Grove’s photography the best overall. Between the quality of the lighting and the size of the crowd, one may need a little luck in order to view all of the work.
The biggest thrills, however, are reserved for the other (almost secret) display area for the 3-D mediums. No amount of signage can be too much for directing tonight’s audience to this work.
The biggest expense for the participating schools is tonight’s refreshments. Go early; say, seven-ish.
Francis Bacon’s Bell Schedule
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
A Masochist Proofreader’s Paradise
A case could be made that, in a public school, the release of this sort of a post raises a moral issue.
After one clicks on the link, the title “Homecoming 2014” becomes 2014 Homecoming in the text; which do you prefer? Did the same person write both the link and the headline?
The sentences in the first paragraph seem to be in random order. Let’s try sentence #4, followed by sentence #2. Sentence #3 is negligible, as it likely won’t influence the behavior of participants, and sentence #1 should just… disappear. What follows is a substantial space, and two exclamatory statements in bold type, from which a distinction is made between “your pride” and “our parade.”
After another huge space the second paragraph is a third exclamatory statement that begins with “Once again, it’s time to get ready.” Most readers have never participated in this particular parade, and so this does not apply to us (perhaps the sponsors are reminding themselves?). This is followed by a fourth consecutive exclamatory statement, then an expression of the writers’ ongoing encouragement to join in on the fun: if you live or work in Barrington, you can enter a float. At the end of this second paragraph, we come to the only piece of advice for interpreting the theme, and that is to think of “fun, unique ways” to interpret the theme. The paragraph closes with yet another exclamation, this time a reminder to make a float that is also relevant to the community.
The theme for Homecoming is “Arabian Nights.” This is also the title of a collection of Arabic folk tales structured as stories told by Scheherezade (the only virgin left in the land) to her husband the king, who has murdered a series of his brides on the theory that women cannot be trusted much beyond their wedding night. Scheherazade thwarts her supposed fate by telling stories to her husband at bedtime but leaving each unfinished, “cliff-hanger” style, in order to spare her own life for one more night. Have you visualized any fun, unique ways to incorporate this into a parade float yet?
There’s more proofing to be done, and it’s left to you. Read the “Homecoming Float and Vehicle Rules” (hint: #3 and #7, although we also enjoy #8 as a non sequitur).
The AP Seniors’ Big Night
What a turnout; what a love-in. Kelly commandeered the camera for the most part, so yours truly ended up in such a large percentage of the shots that this presentation is handicapped by modesty. Still:
The show remains on view in the Clair E. Smith Gallery, 616 West Main 60010, and in adjacent hall display cases until April 25.
“A word to the wise is sufficient.” -A. Stieglitz
