Swiss or something like it

A friend of mine recently made a status update in which I can relate too right now.

i'm making it a personal goal to make a shirt that says "Life" and go around handing out lemons to everyone i see.

My artist mind thought about this for a while because when it was posted I was most certainly embodying similar emotions, and this status almost perfectly illustrated how I felt.

This blog post might be unconventional based on what I have posted here before because as I sit and write my head is far from art, process, or even my practice.  I am okay with that because this is my blog and I express what I need to through it, selecting what I want to share. Because ultimately these thoughts are a part of my process and can become an influence in my artwork.  For now I will say this post may not meet expectations of the casual artistic reader; however to you I say what I have recently been told, “when expectations get set, someone gets hurt”.

Influences that affect the way that we think arise from many facets of our lives. In my experience, these influences challenge our perceptions, helping us to better define how we think about any given subject.  It is a process of learning; one that extends far beyond the classroom.

For those that know me personally, and maybe even the stories of my past, I would say it is forthright to admit that I am an emotional individual.  I share how I feel and I do not hide my emotional status (as I once did).  Being connected thus to my emotions, I take care to be involved with the lives of people who are close to me. In various ways I express my emotion, sometimes its just listening to these friends, or offering up advice, teaching through the experiences that I have acquired. I find myself offering up a frame of reference and perspective, most certainly trying to help when someone is in need.

Lately I have had some life lessons that have brought me to a level of understanding of things about which previously I thought were universal.  As I was questioned, I had to grasp to recognize why I believe what I do.

In getting to know new people there is a learning curve.  Naturally, we assume some things inherently while other things we recognize along the way.  This process can take some time because as new situations arise, character develops, and understanding is refined.  This is my effort to elegantly say that mistakes will be made, miscommunication will occur, and intent will get lost. 

As a result emotions can become conflicted, confidence rattled, and an outlook altered.  Unfortunately, this can also lead to the demise of the relationship and be a difficult position for all involved.  That is the challenge of learning.  

Problems are compounded when personal opinions, beliefs, and emotions factor themselves into the mix.  The reason I say this is to reflect on the value of communication, because when a problem does arise (and they will) the only way to remove the feelings of disappointment, one party or both may feel, is to talk about the root of the issue.  Of course emotions will be taken on a rollercoaster when these thoughts are brought into the open, however, emotions are illogical and it takes this very act of communication with the intent of understanding for the situation to be resolved.

Learning about another individual is a difficult task, but as we can all attest by the people in our lives, making these connections is most certainly worth the challenges.  Unfortunately, facing these challenges only once is not enough. The more times they occur, the easier the process becomes as more trust, confidence, and understanding is built.  The scary part is letting people in, opening up to one another emotional unpredictable being, as well as making yourself vulnerable.  Only you can justify who gets let in.

One facet from above is the turmoil found in varying definitions. Most of us forgo a “clarification of terms” when conversing in an attempt to negate making conversations long and dull as possible.  (I’m guilty of this as well, and I’m pretty certain the last time I had any official clarification of terms would be while writing a qualitative research paper, inserted to prevent confusion.)  But who has the time in general conversation to take this step?  

This leads us back to one of the facet listed above; miscommunication.  The easiest example I can think of to illustrate this turmoil is by asking you to define Love.  Love of whom: a significant other, mother, father, sibling, a friend, country, a team, hobby, pet…?  We each have our own ideas of what love is, acquired from ample sources. However, I’ll assume none of these definitions come from Webster’s Dictionary, resulting in a rather difficult task of explaining Love. 

Is it…? Saying the term, feeling a melting of the heart or fireworks when kissed, a feeling of connection, doing a dreadful task for another so they don’t have to, its it a pat on the back, learning from one another…?

With so many different ways to define one word we have to looks at interpretations.  To continue this illustration: how is the word Love interpreted once said?  Is it the definition of the sender? Or of the receiver?  I’m sure the sender would like to be the one controlling the perception of their words, but nope-sorry-tough luck, it is the receiver.  If that term is received in a matter that was not intended by the sender, the miscommunication could lead to disaster.

I’m not trying to define the term Love, but rather focus in on one of the many challenges of language.  This one term is so complex, I don’t thing it can be defined [which is why it makes for the perfect example] For me at least, Love is not some pinnacle that means all these grand things and explains so many others. Love is growth, tenderness, caring, a desire to share in experiences, to brighten a persons day/mood, [just to list a few].  These items of love come in different levels and intensities fitting specifically for the reason it is being used.  Love is easy, even though it is difficult to explain.  Love is not predictable, and it is not an end all, as love does not answer anything and getting there is just the beginning, and sometimes getting there is the easiest part.  Love is everywhere, but in some places nowhere. It doesn't have to be shared, and yet sometimes is.

Wow… lets see Webster’s put that in their book.  What have they put in there: Ok, never mind, they list 11 version of the term, but I’m really confused by number 8: A thin silk stuff. 

Language is the most useful tool we have at our disposal but it is not perfect and has its own unique and regularly evolving challenges.  I suppose, as an artist, my hope is to communicate with my audience in a manner that allows them to open up a line of communication about an experience that, prior to my work, may never have happened.

I also suppose then, that I should get back to making some work to help spark said conversations.

Dead or Alive

With an impending move, I have been thinking more and more about the people and influences around me in my current space, the space that I most associate with home.  While in this lucid train of thought, I found myself reflecting on a character development question: If you could have dinner with any one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

I have always found this question difficult to answer because so many people have been romanticized and idolized throughout society and history. There are no true identifiers to the type of person the individual is or was.  It is from here in which the clairvoyance of my weekly dinners with my mentor became my answer. 

Howard Rosenberg: a stereotypical little Jewish man with a bite that will make you quiver at the utterance of his name, all the while possessing a compassion for his students that is tender and unseen anymore in contemporary education.

Howard is old school, as in before what the kids say now “old skool”.  He grew up in New England. As a kid he mingled with stars of the silver screen and pranced around Boston as if he knew the owner of the place. He later became a film and art critic and to this day he spends a portion of each day talking to old friends who I’ve only even seen in films.  It should come as no surprise that he’s also Harvard trained and if that isn’t enough “The” Walter Gropius taught him while at graduate school [as in the founder of the Bauhaus].  This makes for one firery little man who, if understood, is an absolute entertainment in and out of the classroom.

Dead or Alive, this is whom I choose to have dinner with.   Luckily for me, I get to have dinner with him just about every Friday.  I have the challenge of taking him to some new places in town while on occasion he brings me to some old world favorites, which even included a Sizzler once.

These dinners are not about listening to his stories but rather times were we talk about art, education, and practice as equals, an equal with 77 years under his belt.  Don’t get me wrong; I do enjoy hearing his old Hollywood tales, the wonderment that was Reno, and the Gropius lessons he sat through.  But the quality of our talks comes from the fact we both continue to educate one another as equals.  Now I find myself struggling with the idea that I am considering myself an equal 77-year-old man.

Our weekly dinners began shortly after I moved back home, about 7 months ago.  I stopped by his office at the university to chat and before too long we began talking about visual foundations [Art 100], a staple of a class for Rosenberg.  Having taken this same class from Howard years ago, I know it well, and as our conversation continued I began offering some ideas and solutions to some of his challenges.  Before I left his office I found myself signed on as a guest lecture with a standing weekly dinner to discuss the on goings of the class.

Personally, this has been a thrill for me as I am teaching along side my mentor, not timid or shadowed. I have reminded him about a few things he once taught me and I have also taught him some new techniques in learning theory and practice, as well as opened his eyes to how contemporary mediums can teach traditional lessons. 

Howard is one of the best instructors I have ever had, and certainly the most influential educator that taught me during my time as a student.  Now, in part because of Howard, I use the term student loosely as it is not tied to my school years.  I am a life long learner and I will always consider myself a student. 

How do you do what you do?

Process always seems to be a topic of interest when artists are discussing art or talking with fellow artists.  This isn’t much of a surprise as overall; I feel human nature is very inquisitive.  We want to know how things are made, we ask questions to learn more about things we do not completely understand, no matter what object has been produced.  I feel this inquisitiveness into process is even more evident when looking at artwork (granted I maybe swayed as I am a producer of art) however, in art the process is much more expansive than the physical application of the elements involved.  It is about the reasoning, the decisions, the concepts, and the overall cognition into why said artwork was created.

I suppose artists find process most interesting because every practice is different.

While reading an interview of David Goldblatt and Ivan Vladislavic of their recent double book titled, TJ & Double Negative, conducted by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, I paused to think about process after this quote from Goldblatt.  “I can’t just hook myself to a concept and follow it through, I need something outside of my own ‘inside’ that engages me, provokes me, makes me want to photograph.”  The result for me has been that I find myself thinking inquisitively about how my past few projects have come together.

Trying to put my process into words is proving rather challenging, and I hope I’m not alone on this one, [perhaps this is a good question to ask when I visit a studio this coming Friday].  The process I engage in spawns from that which I am; self-reflective, autobiographical, my work is a story of me.  Projects of mine have dealt with my incessant need to travel, the multiple surgeries I have had, divorce – both mine and my parents – as well as a reflection of my childhood.  However that is really just the subject matter.  What other factors contribute to my subject?  When analyzing this question my process becomes a bit clearer, in that I am interested in memory, experience, human development, compressing space and time, and kinetics.

And this is where the difficulty lies in my effort to put my process on paper, the idea of my process. 

I will say my process is a balance of concept and outside influences.  Currently I have 5 projects on the table, one of which emerged just a week ago while watching the Alexander Strings Quartet.  I became drawn to the movement of the artists more so than the music played.  I challenged myself to find a way to capture that experience, the music but also the motion and expression in playing the music, and I think with the help of John Cage and my beloved photography, I have come up with a concept I am very excited about.

faulty expectations

For those of you who know me, as an artist, writer or a friend, it should be no surprise that I am a critic of education.  It is important to me and I am passionate about education. I believe that it should be available to continually develop students at every level.  Continual development is for the benefit of the students, but in our society, the fact that they are actually developing must be proven. We require a metric to show that the educational system we all pay for and buy into is doing as it is intended.  This metric however does not say that every student walks away from education eager to be a lifelong learner, but more important than that, a successful education should mean that students are presented with the opportunity and are shown how to learn on their own. Education should mean that they actually gain knowledge.  Learning; however, is not receiving a 4.0 and it certainly isn’t about never making a mistake

I truly believe my ideal of education is what we would strive for in our public education – a place where people learn how to learn and where they are better for the knowledge they have mastered.  But sadly we are far from this ideal.  The example I would like to use for this post comes from my current foundations class.  Being a 100 level class the majority of the seats are occupied by underclassmen, a critical population because these students still have a long way to go as they strive to accomplish a degree, so each class they take could make a large impact on their future.

In this class a student, who is struggling with art, recently complained about the requirements of the class because she “needs and 4.0” as she will be applying to veterinarian school and will not be accepted with a “tarnished” transcript. 

This I have problems with.  In fact I have many problems with this scenario.

First assumption: That a student earning an undergraduate GPA of 4.0 is any more intelligent or capable of success than a student with a 3.5 or a 3.0. This postulation is asinine.   As an educator I have seen first hand the process of learning and there are areas where students struggle.  With those struggles; however, comes an understanding, but there are subject that will always be problematic.  It is the nature of being human in that we cannot be experts at everything, but rather an authority in what we enjoy and invest our time in.

Second, I question the values when our society, so focused on statistics, that we solely look to numbers to determine a student’s ability, rather than actually review the quality of their work. 

Students believe that they are required to have a pristine transcript in order to reach their goals.  Schools look for a flawless report and the “right mix” of extra curricular activities before admitting a student.  These two factors combined have lead to a world where students now believe that no matter what they learn, or if they learn, they must get an A. They believe that this high mark is the only measure of their academic achievements, and the actual knowledge gained through these courses means nothing, or at least is secondary to the grade reported.

The expectation by students, parents, and even graduate schools, that the “best students” only possess a 4.0 GPA and the assumption that these students should not struggle with some material throughout their educational career, is ridiculous.  No individual is a perfect student, nor is a student so intelligent that no schoolwork is a challenge.  As an educator I question the notion that a student’s schoolwork is not affected by the ebb and flow of life outside of academia.

Aside from the societal expectations placed on student learning, the bigger issue is the effect of these expectations.  The request by my Art 100 student, or rather a polite demand, for the grade she wants rather than the one she has earned, shows that the current state of the system is based on future needs rather than actual quality because she feels she needs the grade even though she has no right to request it.  This is one of the most “entitled” of entitlement acts I have dealt with as an instructor.  

Are these systems and expectations setting students up for failure, rather than teaching them to learn from falters?  What happens if this student does not get accepted into a veterinary program?  Will she be able to bounce back? 

We have set up an unrealistic outcome for our students; students, who will be unable to think for themselves, troubleshoot, creatively assess problems, and analytically be able to solve those problems.  Students need to learn to pick themselves up after they have fallen, understand mistakes so they don’t make them again and learn from such mistakes.  More importantly they must not get discouraged when things don’t go as planned.  Are students learning these necessary life skills in education anymore? Or do they always get what they ask for?

a curious concern

In my various and sporadic involvements with photography I have recently been presented with two professional facets of the medium.  When viewed separately they speak independently; however, together, they can potentially provide some insight to the direction of this medium.

First is my involvement with a student organization called SkillsUSA, a national organization focusing on employability and occupational skills.  This organization hosts competitions, at the local, state, and national level, and one of my particular involvements judging at the state level.  In this position I have seen the state competition grow each year, so much so that it has become difficult to manage.  To help alleviate this problem the state association has now decided to host a regional competition to filter the number of participants at the state level.  We judges consider this good news.  However, this has drawn my attention to a steady growth in the medium as more and more students are being exposed to photography.

The second facet is my involvement is at the local university, where I co-teach a foundations class.  My regular presence in the department has allowed me to view the work currently being produced by students in the arts, including photography.  (Disclaimer: I do not currently teach photography at university and therefore I am not speaking on behalf of the program, instructors, or the curriculum. I am speaking on my observations on the plethora of in progress student photographs displayed in the hallways.) 

For a university level class, the work I see is crap.  These images possess no more intent than the latest facebook uploads; lacking both concept and aesthetics.

Has education truly lost the ability to reach into a student and find something unique?  Where is the creativity that once resided within them?  Has it been trained out of them by standardization and state-level exams? Gone untouched for so long that not even a residue is left?  The creative scholar Sir KenRobinson identifies creativity as “unique ideas that posses value”.  Which is what, from my perspective, cannot be found in this current undergraduate work.

A curious concern at the direction of photograph as I look at its growing popularity paired with the undergrad work I see.

operators

Photography is not going away.  On the contrary, it’s just getting going.  Photography is becoming more and more inseparable from the workings of state power, corporate interest, and our everyday lives.  And this is something photographers should critically reflect upon. 
- Trevor Paglen, writing about the growth of image making.

Reflecting on my position as an image-maker I have realized that my place as, what society calls, a photographer is much, much smaller than I originally thought.  Cameras mounted in police cars to capture every license plate that passes.  Airports that have cameras placed to document every travelers face.  Remote drones snapping pictures of landscapes they fly over, as well as copious other image making methods at our disposal. Is this truly what photography has become?

I have always enjoyed history and I believe that history repeats itself.  When I contemplate the current state of photography, I see a division and I wonder if this division is what painters encountered with the inception of photography?  When photography came to its own, painters were no longer “required” to document.  No more portraits.  No more landscapes.  No more still-lifes.  Painting became modern; Rothko, Newman, Jackson, de Kooning…

Is it time for photography to redefine itself?  What is photography?

Now, the term photographer resembles the original title bestowed on those who operated a camera – an operator.  How does a trained professional separate him or herself from one who merely operates a camera and further, how do those professionals separate themselves from one another?  Photojournalist, Wedding, Documentary, Scientific, Sports, Landscape, Fashion, Surveillance, Commercial, Art, exc. are all niches of photography and this is only a fraction of the ways people can use the medium.  Plus as the Paglen writing addresses, this includes a slew of photography being conducted automatically, and unprofessionally.

How are we to compete?  How do we operate in such an environment?  What is a photographer to do?

I offer up no solutions, as I am swimming in the vat myself.  However, in times of uncertainty looking to the past for guidance can be advantageous, and maybe there is something to be said for The Photo League, Camera Work, and the New York School.

refused to photograph

For quite some now I have known I that I am not a “photographer”, despite my undying love and passion for the medium.  However, as the sentiment goes – the more you understand the less you know – and the more I have learned about photography the less I identify myself as a photographer. 

I read a recently published Aperture article, No Depth of Field, by Fred Ritchin, a professor in New York.  He wrote about how his documentary photographed students and how they “refused to photograph” for one reason or another, after the attacks of 9/11.  Later in the article, Ritchin, while at a book signing, posed the question – who else refused to photograph?  “How could we not?  What an idiotic question”, one of the elders remonstrated.  “We are photographers, after all.”

Ok, hold that thought… story time.

My mentor back in Minneapolis told me this story and I think coupled with above, it illustrates my understanding of a “photographer” quite well.  While living in New York a few moons ago my mentor, a frequent gallery hopper, walked into a gallery where two rather large men quickly confronted her.  A mousy little voice chirped up from behind the two men saying – “it’s ok”. 

This is the beginning of the story of when my mentor met Andy Warhol, who was hanging a show.  They began to talk and Andy asked my mentor if she was an artist.  She responded, “I am a photographer”, where Andy abruptly replied, “Where is your camera?”  “In my apartment”, and Andy followed with “you’re not a photographer”.  Insinuating that a photographer always has a camera with him/her. 

In the context provided the profession of a photographer comes with some strings attached: a photographer always has a camera in close reach, and is willing to photograph anything because it needs to be photographed.  My practice does not align with this definition, as it feels surface and lacking concept.  When I think of this story and the statement above “we are photographers, after all,” I receive confirmation that I am not a photographer.

On some level I have always known this but it wasn’t until the book The Edge of Vision that I truly found a collection of photographic artists I could relate to as artists, and relate to the medium of photography through.  It is with this lens of artists that I can look at the work I do and feel comfortable about calling myself an artist. But more specifically I am an artist who works with photography and I do not feel I need a camera with me at all times to define my practice.