Just a nice little boast about my lovely co-founding / co-curating wipnyc.org partner, Cara Phillips, being selected for Jen Bekman's Hey, Hot Shot!

It opens up tomorrow and I will be there with bells on. Kudos to Cara!



Hey, Hot Shot! Volume IV, Edition II
On View: January 30 - February 15, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday January 30th | 6pm-8pm

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 spring st. (between Elizabeth st. and Bowery)

Perhaps you're all well aware of the fact that Bradley Peters is opening up a new show at Melanie Flood Projects TONIGHT, but in case you weren't I wanted to urge you to go! Amani Olu worked hard curating this show and it should be a fantastic event! Stop by!


© Bradley Peters. Untitled, (Girl with a Blue Dress)

JANUARY 28 – FEBRUARY 28
ARTIST RECEPTION: Wednesday, January 28, 7pm – 10pm

Melanie Flood Projects
186 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11205
mfloodprojects@gmail.com

My brain has been spinning and spinning lately with ideas and cravings to flee NYC and shoot elsewhere. It's tough to find balance and keep making work. I've definitely slipped into a busy season with very little time to create. I figure... trust the ebbs and and flows and know that a more creatively productive time is right around the corner. Here's a little something I shot in CA on my recent trip. My work tends to be so evenly lit... I like the change.

Deepak, Ventura, CA. 2009



Speaking of busy... many many thanks to all that made it to Tina Kim on Friday. The opening was such a great success with so many people there to support. One of my favorite shows I've been involved in because it had such a great variety of work involved. So THANK YOU for being there to help support!!



And last but not least... WIPNYC has launched a new show today and I am quite pleased with it. Make sure to see Naho Kubota's work.

©MR. BRAINWASH


COME celebrate today with an Obama party / art opening

Can & Did
GRAPHICS, ART, AND PHOTOGRAPHY
FROM THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN

Danziger Projects Gallery
521 West 26th Street / NYC
JANUARY 20 - FEBRUARY 28, 2009

The festivities will run from 6 to 8 p.m. and on hand will be participating artists Sol Sender (who designed the official "O" logo for the Obama campaign); Paula Scher and Michael Bierut of Pentagram; Pulitzer Prize winning photographer David Turnley, legendary graphic designer Lance Wyman; and many other contributors to the show.

There will be champagne, door prizes, and good times.

© Andrew Wyeth

American Painter Andrew Wyeth, who portrayed the hidden melancholy of the people and landscapes of Pennsylvania's Brandywine Valley and coastal Maine in works such as Christina's World, died early Friday. He was 91.

His work is phenomenal. Period. Though it was his time to go... he will be greatly missed and his work will be embraced forever.

Pausing to toot my own horn... and then on to other business.


© Kiki Smith

Visura Magazine, a new online photography magazine published by Adriana Teresa, launched today with the works of Suzanne Opton and Ananke Asseff among others. It has a really beautiful design and I'm quite happy to be included in their first issue with a personal body of work I made back in 2005/06.

I am also thrilled to be in a show that opens up on Friday, Jan 23rd at Tina Kim Gallery.
The House Was Quiet And the World Was Calm, Curated by Christopher Y. Lew of PS1, includes the works of Robert Booras, Julia Chiang, Jeff Feld, Leslie Hewitt, Amy Kao, Marc André Robinson, Kiki Smith and myself.

Opening Reception:
Friday, January 23rd
6-8pm

Tina Kim Gallery
545 West 25th Street 3rd FL
New York, NY

If you are in NYC stop by.

From a few quick scans I made over the weekend...

Mom in her Garden with Beulah, Oxnard, CA. 2009

Happy Accident



My nephew, who'll be 2 in Feb, has found it quite fascinating to hold a digital snapshot whenever he can get his hands on one and take self portraits. When I looked through the camera I found portrait after portrait throughout a span of weeks, if not months. Here I caught him in the act just as the flash was going off. Wondering if this sort of oddly self-indulgent behavior runs in the family... as he's taking after me quite nicely.

What unfolds within the dynamic of a family perhaps isn't supposed to be captured on film.

When I take my film to the lab, regardless of what I shoot, there is usually only an image or two that shows up with user error, camera error or some other form of damage.

But for some reason the only times I have ever really gone out of my way to shoot work of my family out in CA I have come back excited only to find that I am left with next to nothing. A few years back I shot about 13 rolls of my family on film through my RZ only to find that more than half had mysterious x-ray damage, despite the film never going through x-ray while in my possession. I salvaged what I could but was left feeling pretty sad about the photos I had to let go of.

Yesterday when I went to pick up my film after work I was so excited to see what I had come away from CA with... only to find that my camera mis-loaded half of the film I had shot all the way through the camera. I was left this time with about 1/3 of what I had shot... and lots of blank film.

Bummer.

Only reason I'm not totally depressed is the 2/3's I did walk away with have some pretty fantastic shots.

I'll share when I can.

Get your boot scoot on and live a little.

© Daniel Johnston

Hoping to start the new year on a positive foot cause so much out there is constantly biting at our ankles and trying to drag us down. For now life is good. I can't wait to see the film I shot over the past 2 weeks!

Since I'm on a positive kick.. I'll give you a cheesy quote to chew on:

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours” ~Swedish Proverb

2 weeks of downtime...
a flight across the country..
I finally got to shoot some new work.
It makes me feel good on the inside!

What today looked like in 1991 through the eyes of Jamie Livingston.



I know I keep referencing Jamie Livingston... but I guess I just can't get my fill of looking through the thousands of images that he created between '79 and '97. It's just fascinating to see a time line spread out through almost two decades of daily polaroids.