Deep into new edit . . . . Adirondacks (July, 2015)
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Category Archives: Journal
Archipelago by Matthew Porter (Mack Books, 2015)
June 24th, 2015
Can’t put it down . . . a photobook where conceptual play does not detract the experience. Quite the editing here . . . I wasn’t surprised to see Roe Etheridge’s name in the acknowledgments. I’m new to Matthew Porter’s photography. “Archipelago” pulls from the history of his output (from what I’ve gathered), utilizing a simple, affective page template that creates a provisional pathway to a transcendental headspace. The tangibility of the book, with its aerated hard cover, mimics the weightlessness of a buoy. The viewer waxes and wanes turning the pages, bathed in Porter’s unique color, sometimes technicolor, sometimes subdued . . . . A great trip. (Mack Books, 2015)
Archipelago by Matthew Porter (Mack Books, 2015)
New Photo Etchings, 2015
June 18th, 2015
Matted . . . photopolymer etchings, 2015.
Photopolymer Etchings, 2015
TIS Books
May 8th, 2015
The best $40 I have possibly ever spent. Even better than splurging for a case of Guinness. This set published by TIS books (This Is Sausage), unveiled just a couple weeks back at the Philadelphia Art Book Fair, is beyond beautiful in its meditation on place, pilgrimage, investigation and memory. All 4 books by Tim Carpenter, Nelson Chan, Carl Wooley & J Carrier are unique and humbling in their restrained visual execution. The guys knew exactly how to place the experience in the viewers hands, softbinding perfectly in 6 x 7.5″ format, and printed precisely to compliment the light, tone and color that all 4 photographers are clearly stimulated by and confident in rendering. Such a distilling collection of photographs to amble with pensiveness in peace.
TIS01, By Tim Capenter, Nelson Chan, Carl Wooley & J Carrier, © TIS Books, 2015
Walking, 4.2.15
April 4th, 2015
This is the time in the northeast to get inside the wooded interior and peregrinate the blithesome creek. Before the ticks. Before katydids, or the excitement of hyacinthus. Naturally, the mind brakes the body and idles itself at bends and tiny falls along its length. The watershed penetrates the bone, snow-thawed. The water echoes giddily, euphoric like a kid high on jelly beans. A fine slot to boot.
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How is it more than one Spam can has made its way down to this tucked away bank? Dawn detergent. Ivory soap. Motor oil pails, years rusted and faded to photogenic patina. When? Why? This is nowhere, of any kind, for a rest stop. It’s a fair distance from the road, backwoods, a spot far between possible parking of a car. Who takes the time to heave this dump? Walks this far, with such weight, to this spot? I wonder sometimes if I envy the guiltless, not the ignorant, just the real assholes.
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I walk on. I sit on stumps that seem intentionally cut for the wayward. I cross the creek back and forth a dozen times. It seems only a few years ago I traversed such stones as a kid, in wading boots, knee deep at times, in dark water, for miles. Or was it mere yards? I miss the blur of distance once had during young innocence . . . memory, instead, in the wake. Time is a pale, rough hewn scar. I dig my nails in to pick it back open, starting a new scab. Fresh blood sealing the seams.
(Walking, 4.2.15)
Nathan Pearce – Midwest Dirt
April 1st, 2015
Big shout out to Nathan Pearce and his “Midwest Dirt”. The book is a fine gem, consisting of images made and sequenced with a sincerity that depicts a rural American town and its inhabitants in southern Illinois. Without exploiting or simplifying the character of place by resorting to the ever-cliche’ lawless or hopelessness of small town life, Nathan’s eye delivers an intimate environmental portrait of his home turf. He’s resolute with his camera in portraying kinship, assuasive pleasures and poetry in rural isolation. Beautifully designed by AkinaBooks, for Pearce’s Same Coin Press imprint, in two sections, stitching two pamphlets together. Alex Bocchetto and Velentina Abenavoli have a great way of showcasing photography with designs that prove just the right touch of novelty to exemplify the work and viewing experience. Wonderful publication
Midwest Dirt, by Nathan Pearce, 2014 (Same Coin Press)
Back to Printmaking . . . New Etchings in Works
February 5th, 2015
Drive-by, Spinnerstown (© Michael Ast, 2015)
Interview for Wavepool with Kyle Seis (Jan. 26, 2015)
January 26th, 2015
Happy to discuss Trying to Find the Ocean a bit in-depth with Kyle Seis, for Wavepool.
David Lynch – The Unified Field, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts
December 15th, 2014
“No matter what type of childhood you have, there’s a feeling that you’re sensing more than what you’re seeing in front of you. That’s one of the things I remember from being young. A lot of information comes to us, not in the form of words or pictures, it’s a feeling in the air . . . something as simple as a tree doesn’t make sense . . . you haven’t got a handle on the rules yet when you’re a child. We think we understand the rules when we become adults, but what we’ve really experienced is a narrowing of the imagination.”
A retrospective of paintings, drawings, mixed media and early short films. Up through January 11, 2015.
A Must See!!!
David Lynch (mixed media on paper)
Six Men Getting Sick (David Lynch’s first film, 1967)
David Lynch “Boy Lights Fire” (with my intrigued daughter)
David Lynch “Hello” (drawing)
Jungjin Lee – “Unnamed Road” published by Mack
December 10th, 2014
Jungjin Lee’s photographs are an indelible experience. Mack is courageous in taking on the task of reproducing her large-scale, hand-made prints (from rice paper with applied emulsion). She is a seamless master in executing metaphorical imagery. Her work is not blasphemous, extroverted photographic pictorialism, but the work of a spirited, interior-working artist. Her books “Thing” and “Wind” were nice treats. Nice books, but a bit inferior to the resonating tonality and surface of her prints. Her exhibit at Aperture in 2011 was a transcendental experience. I had the pleasure of meeting her at the signing, where she gave an eloquent talk about place and spirituality. She is a soft-spoken photographer whose nature measures up to the quiet and poetic experience of her work. I’m faithful Mack will pull off a great representation of her photographs.
