Photo © Laurel Havir Porter. All rights reserved.
I dropped one of my daughters and her friends off at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum to hike yesterday. When I came back I snapped this photo with my iPhone.
I love Patrick Dougherty's sculptures, though I imagined the scale to be larger. I could stand inside, but If I moved my brood in, I'd feel more crowded than the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.
Photo Hiromu Kira via The Story: here
Listen to the interview with Dennis Reed on DIck Gordon's: The Story in the podcast below.
This is a double interview podcast, which means that you'll need to listen past the Mustard Girl piece that begins the episode. It is worth it. Dennis Reed speaks about his quest to track down the Japanese photographers who were forced to relocate to internment camps during WWII. His interview starts a little past the half-way mark of the podcast.
Posted via email from Visually Fixated :: Vintage Photography :: Posterous
via video.google.com
I have tried to find the words to express how a camera, no matter if it is an iPhone or loaded with film, is just a tool for me to capture a moment a feeling... and then this morning I found an interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson that I did not know existed.
Previously, I admired Cartier-Bresson for his photographic images, but did not know the inner-man. As I listened to the way this self-described anarchist viewed what he did, I was moved to tears in humble recognition of a kindred soul.
The interview is approximately one hour long, and is available on DVD via amazon: Charlie Rose with Richard Avedon; Henri Cartier-Bresson (July 6, 2000)
Posted via web from Visually Fixated :: Vintage Photography :: Posterous
Every now and then I discover with great joy a part of our world which leaves me filled with wonder. In the case of the Surma and Mursi people in Ethiopia, my delight is also visual.
© Hans Silvester. All rights reserved.
I'm breathlessly left with the impulse to paint: canvases, my body, something, everything.
© Hans Silvester. All rights reserved.
Silvester describes his mission, "what’s most important for me is saving, in some way, as much as possible of this truly living art, which is mobile, changing, subject to infinite variation, and whose constituent elements are simple and form a link between man and nature. It seems to me that our modern painting found the purpose of these elements, this simplicity, and used it as its foundation."
HERE IS A SLIDE SHOW OF MORE THAN FIFTY OF SILVESTER'S IMAGES
Tribus de L'OMO / Hans Silvester
I'm happy to report that Hans Silvester has a new book featuring these photographs. The title is Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa. It is available now at amazon.com HERE.
When I visited the Art Institute of Chicago on Wednesday, the guard in the room was enthused. A visitor to the gallery informed her that if she looked closely, she could see the face of a woman under the layers of paint that composed one of the most important paintings of Picasso's Blue Period: The Old Guitarist. The guard shared her discovery with a child-like joy. Gallery visitors gathered around and tried their turn to discover what once was hidden and now visible through close observation. Strangers helped each other to see and became acquainted.
I divulged when I returned home, to my friend Edward B. Gordon, that I was hesitant to paint the figure from life in oils, despite my ability to draw the human form.
He'd just captured beautifully, in paint and color choice, the intrinsic character of a man in the painting posted to his blog: here.
© Edward B. Gordon: The Boxer. All rights reserved.
I ruminated to him, "What held me back other than my desire to make my first brushstroke masterful?" As I wrote it, I knew I'd found my block.
Edward sent me the gift of a wise reply.
“Just one piece of advice if you start to paint the figure, there is no difference to it than painting a tree. It is only in our mind that figures are more difficult then other things to paint.... it is simply all the same. The same ease, the same difficulty. If I am stuck, I put the canvas upside down, and go on with it. The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the better. There is nothing to be lost, only gained... trust me. It’s that kind of aloof mind, that sets you free. Paint but always at the limit, if it goes wrong, who cares, I have a fireplace in my studio. 80 % of my work provides the heat..... you know what I mean ?”
He's right about the need to become dispassionate toward failure with a paintbrush in hand, when on an artistic vision quest. Read what Edward has to say about his subjects, and at once you know that he is anything but aloof toward humanity.
To look at the work of a master painter: only the outer layer is apparent at first. Lesser painters strive to create a surface that stands alone.
The layers of complexity. The technique tried and cast aside. The struggle to reach a vision. The discovery of the artist's hidden truth created the meaningful connection between strangers, in a museum gallery, on a Wednesday, in Chicago.
When I am doing good things for others (this week’s trip to Chicago for instance) I confess honestly that I tend to take no personal time and just trail discreetly in responsibility's wake.
With only a couple of hours remaining, I finally headed inside the Art Institute of Chicago. Near martyrdom to teenagers had me jaded -- I thought.
I sauntered slowly into the Impressionist rooms.
Vincent Van Gogh o/c 1887
It was like the dreams I have in which I encounter a dearly loved family member who’s life has passed on, and yet there they are in front of me again… so close that I can lean forward to gaze upon each familiar line that is their essence. Emotion overtook me again and again. I had to slow my breath.
Vincent Van Gogh o/c 1887
When it was time to leave the rooms, it was as waking from those dreams. I turned back for one last glimpse of each beloved face, and hoped my tears weren’t noticed. Life beckoned and I walked reluctantly toward the light of day.
Claude Monet o/c 1890-91
