Studio Visit From Keith

The talented and dinosaur-loving Keith Montgomery visited my studio last week to shoot some video and take some still images. Keith is a good friend and a former student of mine who has made tremendous strides in his photography over the last couple years. You can see a bunch of his work here, but also click on the images below for larger versions (there are also a number of other shots). You can also see our collaboration piece in The Larry Show, up at the University of Missouri’s George Caleb Bingham Gallery through August.

The Grand Studio

At Work…

Looks like I’ve got some new “at work” shots for my website, eh? Thanks, Keith!

A Poetry of Moments

“Time there flowed with poetic speech, allowing for the most alien peace, and yet… there was an intensity of desire present. It was leaden and thick to me, though still disembodied. And really, in light of that most heinous form of yearning, it must be noted that the peace was not the peace of knowing that all things will be well. It was rather a peace of no knowledge, of un-knowledge; mistaken, the misstep.” – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

“Those trees and grasses root into a series of dunes, which are phenomena both ancient and youthful, responding to the world, examples of the physics of particulate flow and erosion. From upon them they seem like simple hills, sinuous and open, breaking easily apart. They are basic structures, with the normal number of flora and fauna. From space they seem to make more sense, a domino-set of waveforms dotting the edge of that glacier lake. They are there in the old photographs on the porch of the Inn, as old as the first land deed, as old as America, as old as the continent. There is a comfort in that continuity, in that destiny of place and time; you feel as if it could always remain or always was. – from A Mnemonic of Longing, an unpublished essay, 2002-2009.

Both images above are from digital photos taken between May and August 2001.

Painting, like language…

“Painting, like language, is not a progressive medium. Its vernacular changes over time, but its fundamental concerns will always assert themselves. The basic, the human, and the timeless find voice – as do the trivial, the vapid, and the passe – in painting, just as they do in language.” – from a note scribbled in 2003.

Transpositions Feature

My work has been featured on the Transpositions website.

Transpositions is a collaborative effort of students associated with the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The site has vibrant discussions going on among PhD students and post-graduate commentators (as well as contributors from around the globe) on a variety of topics. If you’re interested in the intersection of Art, Theology, and intellectual inquiry, I suggest you check them out.

FINALLY

Historic Diebenkorn exhibition, years in the making, will finally go up in Fort Worth in September 2011!

News here, and here.

Here is the itinerary for the touring exhibition:

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas
September 25, 2011–January 22, 2012
Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, California
February 26–May 27, 2012
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
June 30–September 23, 2012

Who’s going with me!?

Also, here’s the catalog. I just ordered mine.

Inspiration: Sandra Ramos “The Mirror Poems”

Last week I was in Louisville, KY for my show at the 930 Art Center. While in town I took a drive to 21C, a contemporary art space situated in a posh hotel. 21C blew my mind, but there was one work in particular that I spent a good deal of time with: Sandra Ramos’ Unknown (The Mirror Poems – Toi Derricotte). The work, an installation of image and text on vinyl and using mirrors and inverted imagery, is very beautiful and evocative. Here are a few shots of the work in situ, but be sure to click the link above to learn more.

A few of my favorite lines:

“The eye in the mirror is the mirror of the eye.”

“If you ask it to show you the world it will show you the eye of your mother.”

If you get a chance to go to 21C, JUST GO DO IT.

I Keep Your Picture Close to Me

Let’s keep going, ok? These pictures have been in my wallet for about eight years. I take them out to show to students and friends. And I frequently look at them myself – so thankful and appreciative for who you are. I want to see how these pictures look in another eight years, and another eight after that, and after that. I love you, Alison.

*see little Miranda Grace Ballou’s first bow there? I keep that in there, too:)

And here’s the link to last year’s remembrance