# 6443-50 / bodies of work ~ stumbling down a dead end street #2

the kitchen sink ~ (embiggenable)

legs and heels ~ (embiggenable)

still life ~ (embiggenable)

facades ~ (embiggenable)

Life without the APA ~ (embiggenable)

picture windows ~ (embiggenable)

tangles ~ (embiggenable)

single women ~ (embiggenable)

Adirondack Snapshot Project ~ (embiggenable)

ACCORDING TO THE IDIOT QUOTED IN MY LAST entry, I have apparently been “repeating the same basic work, for decades and decades, unaware that I have been stumbling down a dead end street”. That would be because I have been making pictures driven by my very own picture making vision. A vision that does not allow me to go careening around the technique / visual effects / gear-obsessed picture making landscape like a drunken sailor. To wit, I see what I see and that’s how that I see (all credit to Popeye who said, “ I am what I am and that’s all that I am.)

That written, re: careening around like a drunken sailor, I will readily admit to careening around the referent landscape like a drunken picture maker. A picture making condition condition (affliction?) that I call discursive promiscuity. To my eye and sensibilities, any thing and every thing is fair game for a picture making possibility. The result of that discursive promiscuity is that I have accumulated, over the past 25 years, at least 15,000 pictures.

One might think that that glut of pictures would make for a very unruly mess. However, that is not the case cuz, thanks to the guidance of my vision, the overwhelming majority of my pictures exhibit a consistent,-but not formulaic-very particular attention to form, aka: the “arrangement” of the visual elements-line, shape, tone, color and space-within the imposed frame of my pictures.

This “consistency” leads to a very interesting result; while I rarely work with the thought of creating a body of work in mind, nevertheless, I have, over an extended period of time, realized that my eye and sensibilities have been, and still are, drawn to specific referents again and again. The result is that eventually-many times over the course of years-I “discover” that I have, in fact-albeit inadvertently, created many bodies of work.

ASIDE the body of works illustrated above, with a few images each, are some of the bodies of work I have created, most of which were “discovered” in my library (as opposed to deliberately created). The are at least 6 more bodies of work I could display. END OF ASIDE

And, what I find interesting and very surprising is that, once a number of referent related pictures are organized into a body of work, the coherent consistency of vision is, quite frankly, amazing.

Makes me quite happy that I have not tried to “re-invent” my vision. And BTW, I really like the “street” I am on. It is not a “dead end” and, in fact, there is no end in sight as far as I can see.

# 5985 / scrub•landscape (book) ~ as few words as possible

from the book ~ (embiggenable)

covers / scrub, weeds, and tangles ~ (embiggenable)

scrub, weeds, and tangles statement ~ (embiggenable)

spreads / scrub, weeds, and tangles ~ (embiggenable)

HERE IS ANOTHER OF THE 3 RECENTLY MADE PHOTO BOOKS , scrub, weeds,and tangles ~ seen but seldom looked at, mentioned in my last entry.

One of the challenges (for me) in the making of a photo book is creating the artist statement inasmuch as I would like to communicate to a viewer the idea of what caused me to make the pictures in a book but not to tell a viewer what or how to think about the pictures. And, at all costs, to avoid the use of artspeak.

However, in writing an artist statement one must realize that you are writing for 2 different audiences, 1.) the general viewing public, and-if one desires to garner gallery / art institution exhibition-2.) the gallery director / art institution curator. A balance must be attained, artist statement wise, for the 2 audiences in order to, 1.) avoid causing the general public viewers to think that you are a know-it-all, snooty artist, yet, on the other hand, 2.) cause the director / curator to think that you are not just a rube with a camera.

FYI, the scrub, weeds,and tangles ~ seen but seldom looked at photo book contains 16 pictures (not including my visual joke on the back cover).