Shane’s Blog

I just submitted my final set of loans for my senior undergrad year and it’s crazy to think of how much debt I am in and what I am going to do when I get out. Most peoples plans who want to keep on doing photography seems to be move to New York. I also jumped on this bandwagon for a while (and am honestly still considering it) but is it the only place to go for art? I know that the Boston scene is sort of small but die hard, Portland is all young hip people but aside from that I guess I just do not get to hear a lot about where the good places are to work.

I am considering Denver which has a lot of cool things going on. New museums, lots of photographers, some people I know, cheaper living than NYC or Boston; all things that seem good to me. I suppose I am only writing this post because I am semi-freaking out that this is my last year of school and now I have to figure out my life in six months (when loans have to start being paid). I think that I’d like to prove to myself and the art world that NYC is not the only place for artists and especially me.

This post is boring and slightly useless I appologize for posting it.

This summer has been a real slump for me in terms of art. I learned to many things this year about myself, about art, and about how things work in the art world.

I got pretty down about making pictures and did not do too much of it after I got back from Mexico for a class. It all started there when we flew into this city with our expensive cameras to take pictures of the poor Mexicans. It made me sick. How could it be okay to do this? To pay for a class (500 Dollars), pay for a camera (800 in my case but usually more), pay for a hotel (250), for food(god who knows how much I spent on food), and the flight (700). That doesn’t even cover all crap that we bought for no reason because we could.

Now this isn’t to say that I didn’t love my experiance in mexico and it truely was life changing because it made me look around and hate everything. I hated it when people complained about their lives because they had no idea how hard it could be; and really neither did I. I hated knowing that I went down there to take pictures for my benifit and for nothing more. What else was I getting out of the class? To learn how to make THOSE type of photographs. And I did and I think I did a pretty good job of doing it. (portfolio soon to be on the updated website)

So that was just the start of everything. I got back and took this class about how nothing matters, nothing can change, and the art world is just total crap. Everything is too objective, too expensive, and too white. I dispised everything that surrounding making art, the idea that it is just a waste of time, a fraction of a second for a few peoples lives and I’m dedicating my heart and soul into it and why? For who?

And so those thoughts brought me to the end of the semester where I decided that I needed to take a serious break from art (or at least visual art) and joined a band with a bunch of friends and learned the drums. Now I love music and realize that just making things that you like just because its fun is fine. That art can be fun, that art does not have to change the world or even one person’s world, but at least it can change mine. I know this is sort of sounding extremely romantic at this point after all this art bashing, but I’d love to have a conversation with anyone about hating art, loving art, making art, because that at the end of the day that is the best part.

Expect much more posting from me in the near future and a complete redesign of the site. I am also writing on two other blogs. shanegodfrey.blogspot.com is my person blog and wouldbegeek.blogspot.com is my tech nerdy one with my cousin Stephen Mcguire  which is fun for me because I am a nerd. Also my band will be posting new music on our myspace www.myspace.com/somethingfromthetree

BOSTON PRINT FAIR 2008

More info at www.bostonprintfair.com

I just pre-ordered some books that I have been waiting to be re-released for a while. Sleeping By The Mississippi by Alec Soth and The Americans by Robert Frank. Sleeping By the Mississippi is only 30ish dollars on amazon right now with a pre-order and The Americans is only 25ish now with a pre-order. This is probably old news for most people but I finally got up the funds to go for it on each book. While I was ordering these books, I came across this crazy thing above called Stephen Shore: A Road Trip Journal which comes out at the end of June. Right now it is almost a hundred and sixty dollars on amazon with a list price of two fifty. This is what the discription says on the site.

“In a deadpan, unemotional style, Shore’s month-long journal itemizes where he stayed, what he ate, which television programs he watched, what photographs he took, how many miles he drove, and how many postcards he distributed on each day of his trip. The journal also includes postcards of the towns where he stayed as well as some of his own photographs alongside hotel, restaurant, and gas station receipts. As he traveled, recording his experiences in his journal, Shore photographed the towns and cities through which he passed, the people he met, the food he ate, the beds he slept in, and even the toilets he ‘encountered’, from New York to California and back again. “

I wish I had 160 bucks right about now…

There is some new crazy grad school work up right now until the 24th of April that is amazing. The opening was tonight (I could not go tina barney was speaking and more on that tomorrow) but about half the work is extraordinary. (And it takes a lot for me to say that)

Moyra Davey, Shure, 2003

             The latest contemporary photography show at The Fogg Museum at Harvard University is a survey of Moyra Davey’s photographs over the past several decades. There are two rooms and a hallway dedicated to Davey’s photographs, each containing a series of photographs from different projects that she has completed. Walking into the gallery space there is an essay that attempts to explain some of the projects (though it only speaks modestly to the work) mostly trying to pin the work down as banal. None of the photographs are over 20×24 inches and have a color pallet that attempts to recapture the late 1970’s. There are primarily five or six projects that are all connected through their minimalism, subject matter, and color space. All of the projects seem to be about both time passing and the disappearance of things. Each photograph strives to be stuck in a separate time period than when the photographs were taken. Almost all the photographs are close ups of different objects such as empty liquor bottles in what is assumed to be her apartment, different angles of the outside of her window over a period of time, old technology, records, and record players.

            Things that I was interested in with the show is first and foremost that it is contemporary, mainly color photography, at The Fogg Museum which tends to be an historical space.  The range of work that was in the show was able to keep my attention which is admittedly hard to do these days. Bouncing from one project to another and understanding how they work together overtime is a delight. Having the chance to see how she moved through the years as an artist is a treat. I also enjoyed feeling like I was transported to another time because of the color pallet, the modest size of the photographs, and the subject matter. The work does not have the contemporary color flare of most color photographers. Each project strives at being a transition to the past and makes the viewer truly evaluate the work to understand where it is coming from. One of the series shown is a collection of montage photographs that are printed roughly the same size but with different boarders and film format. At first glance each collection does not make much sense but after further investigation there are underlying themes that pop out. Overall the work is extraordinarily interesting because of the different choices made with each project but the connection that each project has with one another.

            Although I did enjoy the survey over all, I did have an issue with some things about the show in general. The statement that was written for the show hardly explains any of the ideas in the show. It mostly talks about one project and then goes on to generalize the rest of the work and attempts to compare it with other artists that I feel hardly have a connection with Davey’s photographs. Also, the statement tries to call the show banal but also uses phrases like “poisonous landscape” that seem to deter the reader from thinking about the banal at all. Not only the essay had problems describing the work, but there is no artist’s statement or a brochure to help the viewer along with understanding the work. A lot of the projects are extremely interesting but one is just three by three grids of empty alcohol bottles, shot in black and white, printed small, and is lit by window light. This seems like a project that could have been helped by a brochure to explain it more than what I can take from it at surface value. The show is interesting overall but a lot of the photographs are not what I would consider “good photographs”. The ideas are there after spending time with the work but there is nothing that I would consider owning or wanting to look at everyday which I think is important to realize.

There is a new social network (well not totally new but sort of new) called Twitter which is more or less a glorified version of facebook’s status update feature. Twitter gives you 140 words to tell the world what you are doing at any given moment. You can friend people. people friend you, and you can talk back to people. For instance…I say “I ate a burrito today!” Someone that I know on my friends list can write back “OMG that is the fourth one you’ve had this week!” Seems crazy but for some reason it calls to me every time I am near a computer. It seems extremely banal and pointless but what is not banal and pointless anymore? Some cool things are being done on it as well like group narratives and companies advertising on it; regular social network website stuff. If you like the idea you can read my twitter here and feel free to friend me if you join.

Come on jump on the new cool internet pointless social networking tool!

The combination of George Eastman House in Rochester and the ICP have combined forces to create the largest catalog of photographs online at Photomuse. They have all sorts of things like Weston’s and Lewis Hine’s photographs. When I was looking through the site all I could think about was how messy it was. Then I went on to think that a lot of the time if the website is messy then I will not even bother to look at the photographs in the website regardless of wether or not they are interesting. If the navigation is bad or something then I will just up and leave most of the time. There are always a million other photo websites to look at right? These days I guess it does not just matter if you are a good photographer, a good writer, and a good speaker but also a good designer or at least have someone work for you who is a designer.

These internets are making it harder on us everyday.

I just found this on William Eggleston’s trust website. How can I see this movie? And why are there two movies about him coming out in the span of 2 years?
Trailer

AUGUST 2006

By the Ways