FLOW Gallery Night show

I have a gallery show coming up! The lovely ladies of Guildess and I are hosting FLOW, a Gallery Night exhibition featuring the work of diverse Milwaukee artists with the underlying theme of water. 25% of the show's profits will be donated to the Great Lakes WATER Institute!

(p.s. I designed the post card!)

RedLine Milwaukee

I am finding it harder to keep up with my readings and analytical thought these days. Work has gotten the best of me. With only 2 months left in my AmeriCorps term, I am desperately trying to tie up all loose ends and leave a lasting legacy of hard work and determination.

Today, we visited RedLine Milwaukee with Club members from the Pieper-Hillside Boys & Girls Club. RedLine Milwaukee is a "space that encourages artists and visitors alike to enter a realm where inspiration remains absolutely unchecked, to bring art and beauty to the surrounding neighborhood and community by incorporating as many environmentally friendly nuances as possible." I wished the youth understood what a great opportunity it is to be working with an organization like this. Despite all the frustration and miscommunications that have made our collaboration quite rocky at times, I still look forward to our Thursday workshops.

A few photographs from today's tour...




RedLine Milwaukee programs: http://www.redlineartmke.org/programs.htm

Silly Portraits

I've been really busy this past week! Besides lots of work stuff, I was trying to catch up with the things that have been on my to do list for a while. It's funny how my master to do list grows longer by the hour, ugh.

Anyways, last week I had another very successful day of programming at the Daniels-Mardak Boys & Girls Club. We did silly dress up portraits. As I look back on all the programs I have developed, this one stands out as one of the most successful. Watching each child's inner character shine through was a very beautiful and rewarding experience. I believe that this program has given them the chance to momentarily flee their realities and change back into free-spirited children.

Unfortunately, I am not able to post any of the amazing portraits of them, but I did let them dress me up. Wig and all...

William Eggleston at The Art Institute of Chicago

On Friday, I ventured down to Chicago with a friend to visit the William Eggleston show at The Art Institute of Chicago. Her and I both have photography degrees, so it was an interesting mix of critique and awe while walking through the gallery.

I was amazed by the clarity and vibrancy of Eggleston's Kodachrome images from the Los Alamos and Troubled Waters collections, but seeing these dye imbibition prints made it hard to look at everything else. Granted, it was still a real treat to see some of his early work, including a few black and white photographs.

This has always been my favorite photograph taken by Eggleston. Although, it didn't really hit me why until my nose was almost smudging the glass of the frame. Besides the lovely clash of colors and patterns, I can almost hear the rusty springs creek as she sat down, feel the slight summer breeze on my face, and smell the musty weather damaged cushion. I imagine that she is a closet smoker and this is her backyard hide out, a place where her husband can't spot her from the kitchen window.

All in all, I am very glad to have seen some of the photographs that made me fall in love with photography and learn a thing or two about the medium, as well!

Links: Dye Imbibition Process, Kodachrome Project, William Eggleston portfolios

Soft focus

Today was successful and inspiring.

I had a wonderful evening of photography programming at the Daniels-Mardak Boys & Girls Club. We explored old film cameras and compared them to digital point and shoot and SLR cameras! I broke down photography into a few categories: portrait, documentary, snapshot, and narrative based on the four books I brought. This introduced the Club members to different ways of seeing the world and how photography can be incorporated into daily life. Then, we went on a photo adventure around the club so I could get a better feel for their skill levels and interests. Next week is silly dress-up portraits week (and yes, I said they could dress me up in any of the clothes/hats/accessories I bring, haha).

The drive home was a bit scary because of dense fog, but it did remind me of Bill Jacobson's photography work. He is known mostly for his soft focus photographs of people and New York City. What really strikes me are the portraits because they suggest foggy or lost memories.

Wrapping up...

I am officially done with Secure the Shadow and there are a few final remarks I would like to make about it. First, it introduced me to a lot of new, fascinating topics that I will continue to take interest in. These include: tombstones inlaid with photographs, mourning jewelry, the replacement of photographs with family videos, and an overall interest in the lost art of post mortem photography. Before this book, I didn't really know the act of photographing the dead was a widely accepted practice during the 19th century, let alone one that could make someone money. With this newly acquired knowledge, I believe I have a better understanding for the medium I love so dearly and perhaps even why photography and death are so closely related.

Moving on, I am now in the midst of exploring the catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition "The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult," held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2005. This exhibition highlights "what the first spirit photographs revealed of attitudes and beliefs in an America traumatized by the civil war." Interestingly enough, this was taking place around the same time as post mortem photography. I am excited to draw connections between the two!

I will leave you with an image of Staveley Bulford, who built an oversized camera that he and another person could enter, in hopes of observing the mystery of capturing an image of a supernatural being.

Terry McCormick Gallery

Although I have finished Secure the Shadow and would like to wrap up my thoughts on that, I was intrigued by something I heard on 88.9 Radio Milwaukee last night. As part of the latest 88Nine campaign, local art lovers are asked to venture the city and expose the diverse range of art that Milwaukee has to offer. Accompanied by interviews and video documentation, the goal is to prove that Milwaukee is a creative city and incredible art organizations, movements, and events are happening here.

Yesterday's destination was the new Terry McCormick Gallery on 18th and Wright. The gallery was started by Evelyn Terry as a way to remember and exhibit the work of her lifelong partner, George Ray McCormick. Evelyn, also a professional artist, writer, and educator, decided to convert the bottom level of her home into a gallery instead of relocating.

Click here for the full story and interview: http://unifiedmilwaukee2.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/make-milwaukee-week-5-the-terry-mccormick-gallery/

I am very inspired by DIY galleries like this! I love galleries that have a history, whether it be a converted house, old jazz club, or factory. It would be really great to help establish and run a DIY gallery one day.