spring training

Have been trying get up to Sheboygan to see a friend’s work at the Kohler Art Centre for weeks. Normally this isn’t a problem it is only 100 miles north and the main problem is the boring ride along I-43, but all of a sudden winter happened. For the past month of days off it has either been snowing or the machine was deciding to be finicky. So when winter had seemed to be broken, I made a multitasking outing, head over to the post office in Bristol, buy coffee at Alterra in Milwaukee – double stamp day –needed to find some Cranes stationery paper - as the Paper Source has decided not to carry it - in order to continue my schizophrenic photographic existence. I also needed more USB drives in an effort not to carry a computer everywhere while saving the environment from cd’s and dvd’s. I was using them for class and to take prints to the service bureau with the files for the murals for the show this summer.

Winter had been broken, it was 4C, windows were down. I was gaining confidence in the machine as I had to brave Chicago to buy supplies for my class – demanding of me wanting supplies when it is only the fourth week of the semester – it had started, it wasn’t making strange noises.

The idea here was to do all of this without feeling rushed. It seemed to be working, wandered the third ward making snaps while watching the students of MIAD, called MID because there is no art there, fumbling while trying make snaps.

Didn’t panic when Broadway Paper was also out of Cranes Stationery, more snaps returning to the car.

Two pounds of Sulawesi Toraja in beans, and then out to the Interstate. It was then that I realised that I still in somewhat a hurry up mode as I forgot to bring something to read or my notebook for something to do while having a café au lait later.

Still haven’t overcome the numbness of mind when I get on an Interstate. On it I was making time, would annotate potential places for further investigation but not this time. The effort I have to make is to get on the frontage roads.

The art centre has a good series of exhibitions, better than Milwaukee. Was first drawn to it when I heard about the autodidactic artists that they would collect and champion. It seems now that the space is bigger that they take themselves way too seriously now, guards following one around making sure that one doesn’t touch the works. at the beginning they would knock on the toilet doors so that one could go in and see the rooms that were made by invited artists and they seemed to like it now they are dour, officious, and like most additions to museums the space was more eating and gift shops than gallery space.

Thought that I would only have a coffee before heading back but passing the Weather Centre some pavlovian instinct was set off and I had to have my usual –a bowl of soup and black bean quesadilla. Although it wasn’t needed to slow me down, did miss something to read now so as not to stare blankly.

Warm still, windows still down, car starting as if there were never a problem, rattling gone, I headed back to I-43 changing my route, noticing and wanting to photograph the taverns here one day. Now in the mood to skip the Interstate but too dark to make snaps and the only thing more frustrating speeding by places with potential is taking one’s time when it is impossible to make one.

Flânerie knows no season

So it is not the cold. It was –18C. I had to head over to the new Gallery 2 – one floor above the old which had it fit in the with ivory tower aspect of the WGAS. I always walk. I hadn’t the usual paraphernalia that I use as an excuse for not being able to get to the cameras but even so I took a 35mm autofocus SLR that was one step up from a point and shoot and kept it out. I chose the least walked route I could think of.

I was to go G2 then head up to River North all before the 16:13 train back to Winthrop Harbour. It was 12:30.

The wander was fine. The weather wasn’t bad at all and since the camera did everything for me, my point of vulnerability – my hands – were kept warm as much as possible.

As this was an attempt to stave off lethargy and prove that I can get out to make work, I had colour film and for some reason the camera did for me what Holgas supposedly do for other – frees one up.

Cannot remember what I actually photographed a roll was used before I made it to the West Loop and not thinking I only had one roll for the camera. Brought out the leiquinha, exactly the opposite, had to focus, had to meter, had to wind on but continued to make snaps wandering about Greek Town and on the way up to River North. Again the route was one that I rarely take and it seemed to pay off.

The day also helped in reminding me what I can do in a day. worrying about making it up to River North – I wanted to see the galleries there but had been trying to get to Stephen Daiter to see the book that had published by lulu.com, an on demand publisher. Was worried. I left G2 at 3PM and didn’t want to miss the train. I always want out of Chicago and to-day was no different. Walking up Halsted Street, I stopped to photograph two frozen beer glasses placed delicately on a frame outside a restaurant.

- Hey did you photograph me? A man hiding from work having a ciggie asked after I had made the snap.
- No
- Are you sure?
- Yeah

Ah yes, everyone paranoid, everyone suspicious.

Never the less the walk helped reinforce the idea that there is more time then I usually think and that the only impediment to making snaps was me.

postage in 2006

$1515.88

Trawling through the negs to find the first six instalments of Clarke’s Beach I start to dally. The dalliance is due to those negs that have never seen a negative carrier, those negs that I have been meaning to print but never got around to them. They were now far enough removed that while I remember taking them I don’t specifically remember the situations. I do know that they are different than what I am choosing for the show this summer.

In the other individual shows that I have on the rock, I have been a bit wordy in my images. The first one at the gallery when I was hanging some 50 odd prints, I remember Baird coming through, looking and saying Mies van de Rohe.

Less is more.

At the Gander Arts and Cultural Centre. There were at least that many. Come to think of it the space was about the size of the new James Baird > Pouch Cove.

In Gros Morne there were too many “rushes” to show at the end.

So this time I thought that I would be like other contemporary artists. Make less and make them big.

With the small space, that I was originally offered I was thinking eight images - 40x32inches – made from the Parks Canada residency. I was thinking Ikons and had edited down to the eight without a problem – wandering with a heavy camera is made for the searching out of things important.

When I was moved to the large space, again there wasn’t a problem as there were images that I printed – this is where all those postcards come in – which work in a similar vein. They are a bit more whimsical but still pretty straight forward. The ballpark in Bauline, the playhouse in front of the garden shed in Winterton, the close line from the lower deck of the pipe house, a woodpile.

What I was noticing while looking for victims for Clarke’s Beach, were images that were more what I think I do – notations in passing – if I can steal the title of a Nathan Lyons book from the 70’s. the image were more subtle, I allowed for you to miss what I was looking at when I made it. It was less judgmental – as would whenever someone tries to designate something as an ikon.

The sense of the place had to be built up over quite a few images and nothing is really apparent. I realised that I did edit the images in the other shows, but I still needed a number to make my point. while there may have been some in the images themselves, there wasn’t the superfluity between that one would think – I hope - as every image was there to place the others in context.

Having said that though I realise that I need a regulator – hence the references to haiku in the books of wander and just about anything that I send out. It is enough to get my idea across but limited enough to make sure that every image stands for something the series – which is different than an ikon where in my opinion the image stands for something outside of the series.

I was a bit innerved as one is always see ikons of the rock – I was looking for something sharp when the tourism board came out with the clothes line segment. It seems that the province is reduced to a series of ikons – cod flakes, rooms, dories, cliffs, icebergs, whales…

Over a bottle or two or ten of Keiths from the beer cellar of the upper pipe house – the scaffolding that hangs over the North Atlantic - my evil twin started rattling off the ikons of my work that he remembered when we started talking about the show.

They weren’t mine.

What this did though was have me break the room into its walls in the hopes of the oh so definitive Gros Morne images will be off set by more subtle ones when I am simply out and about. I’ll have them on opposing walls. So the gigantic dory will be opposite the toy plane windmill up by the Newells. The line disappearing into Bonne Bay will counter a laundry line. The visitor’s dug out in Woody Point will have the home dug out of Heart’s Content (or Desire cannot remember where it was).

On one wall will be the images that Jim sees as ikons – truly fitting here as they are all things - the pinholes from my first visit.

While I was excited before – for some reason this show holds more promise for fun on my part even though the Duke is 15 miles away – but now am more so. I realise that I prefer the image that can be missed, the image with insignificancies, the ones that I see with the periphery of my vision rather than the those stared at.

route 80 - heart's desire

anniversaire de jean-eugène-auguste atget

il faut flâner aujourd'hui
basho restaurant and lounge
duckworth street - st. john's

jenkins & puddicombe sheet metal ltd.
hamilton avenue - st. john's

Illogical wants

For some reason, I was surfing the usual haunts where I look for used cameras. Don’t know why for despite the anxious moments trying to develop the film this time, it seems that I had finally figured out what to take with me when I head north and east. I had ignored the siren calls of those about me who are now ga ga over the new Panasonic/Leica point and shoot digital camera thinking that I worked pretty well with film and the good folks at dominion. The Mamiya 6 comported itself well.

But there it was in a site that will remain nameless in case I give in, there it was a Plaubel W67. the camera that fits my psyche perfectly, it compacts to the size of a paper back allowing it to be stowed and carried with me constantly. Since I see what I do as constant note taking, the camera fills the role perfectly. Here in the states it is the camera that I carry most of the time. it simply didn’t go north and east as it is on its last legs. Being 20 years old – something that we will never see again in photography as new cameras are outdated semi annually – the bellows are duct taped to cover the holes and there is so much of it the lens won’t lock when it is retracted into the body, the focus scale is missing, more tape is used to keep out light where light baffles used to be – think the type of camera Red Green would use. The Mamiya was bought when the Plaubels were discontinued and I couldn’t really justify $600 repairs with the camera away for months at a time as repair shops searched for parts.

The Mamiya while small is bulky. It doesn’t compact as well. It makes an indentation in my back it is difficult to get out of the bag – as I noticed in the airport at the first sighting of a Newfoundlander awaiting the plane that seemed would never come.

So here it is a worthy replacement at only double the price the camera sold for new – actually 2 1/2 times. I trust the person who is selling it but do I trust that there are parts for a 25 year old camera that was discontinued 15 years ago? What I am hoping for here is that my indecision will resolve this. It is still there, however, taunting me from the site. I am surprised it has lasted this long.

Up north...

tonight OH CANADA will be sung in Cree at the opening of an NHL match in Calgary adding at least a third language for the national anthem.

Meanwhile down south riots almost break out when The Star Spangled Banner is translated and sung in Spanish.