iphone photography ~ Lori Pond

While at Fotofest I met a wonderful photographer, Lori Pond, who was showing some of her iphone photographs. I did not see anyone else (in the 4th session) showing work created with the iphone. Many of us carry around iphones but few have been as creative as Lori. Along with the images, Lori has generously shared how she created each image.

Enjoy!



Steps: This image was made at the Self-Realization Fellowship Center in Encinitas, California. Founder Paramahansa Yogananda built a pool overlooking the ocean that he used for his daily exercise. After his death, the pool was drained. I used the Plastic Bullet app for light streaking and moody color palette.



Lights: I was eating dinner outside in Encinitas, California on a balmy night last summer. I looked up and saw these lights and wanted to remember the experience. I used Plastic Bullet for the color streaking, star filter look, and saturation.



L1: At an artist walk years ago, I bought a beautiful ivory carving of a woman's hand, complete with carved mehndi designs on the back of the hand. It was made into a necklace, and I loved wearing it. One day the little finger broke off at the first joint, so it felt weird to wear the necklace after that. So, I kept it in front of my computer with the palm up. I decided to make a kind of still life self-portrait out of it, so I put an L Scrabble tile in its palm, then photographed that with the iPhone. I made another image of my arm with the iPhone. I blended the two images together to make my self-portrait. I used the app Big Lens to create the special effects around the sides of the image.



Ironing: This is a view of my laundry room, which I've seen thousands of times since I moved into my current house in 1994. It never occurred to me until I was carrying my iPhone everywhere to make an image of of this room. I think I make a lot more varied images now, because I DO carry my iPhone everywhere. An oft-repeated saying goes something like this: "The best camera is the one you have with you."
The vignette comes from Big Lens, which also provided the Lomo filter, bringing a 70s look to the image.



Canelo: This is Bill Steen's backyard in Canelo, Arizona. He builds straw bale housing and holds workshops on how to build them. I was taken by the light at dusk on his property. Everything turned gold. I used Vintage Scene to put some texture into the image, and Photoforge to enhance texture/contrast/brightness of varying parts of the image.



El Profeta: While in Mexico for Dan's workshop last December, I noticed while driving around the state of Sonora that there were a ton of roadside shrines. Shrines to family members who had died in traffic accidents, shrines to the Virgen de Guadalupe, you name it. I started to look out for them, as some of them are quite striking. I used Big Lens to create selective blurring in the image, and King Camera to create the texture overlay.



Watch Out For Clouds: I saw this fisheye mirror on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, where I work on the "Conan" show. These mirrors aid the many truck drivers who deliver sets, lighting, wardrobe etc. to various parts of the lot. (There are many narrow alleyways and vision is very obscured.) I was walking by this mirror at lunch one day, and saw the reflection of the sky in it. Since I had my trusty iPhone, I couldn't pass up this photo op! I used Photoforge to emphasize brightness in certain areas of the image, and to create a vignette around the edges.



Underwater: This is my most recent image, using the front camera to take a self-portrait. I had just downloaded an app called Power Cam, which I used to create the texture on my skin and take away color. I also used Power Cam to create the water ripple effect over the face. Power Cam actually plays this water ripple effect almost like a movie, and you simply stop the movie when enough ripple has accumulated. I've worked in TV graphics for 25 years, so to see this on my PHONE just blows me away. It used to take a whole room of computer equipment to make something like this happen!



Self Portrait: With the Slow Shutter app, I can create light trails with my iPhone. For this image, I layered an in-focus exposure over an exposure using Slow Shutter to create my hand movement. I also used Dramatic B&W to de-saturate and grunge up the image a little.



Pogo: I recently collaborated with abstract painter Barbara Nathanson on a piece called "Nothing in the Entire Universe is Hidden." It was shown in January as part of exhibit "VS." at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles. One day, while standing in her studio, I glanced down and saw her 14-year-old dog peacefully napping. I used Photoforge to create the bicolor wash over the image, and Pic Grunger for the texture/frame.



Overhead: When I flew to Mexico last December on my way to an iPhone Artistry workshop with Dan Burkholder, I went crazy making images of my view outside the plane's window. I used Photoforge to enhance the contrast of the image and to put a bicolor wash over the image.

So impressive! If anyone has favorite iphone pix you would like to share, I would be happy to post. Thanks, Lori, for your inspiration!

Zelda Zinn ~ Natural Selection

I have always loved fabric. I love running my hand over fabric. I love photographing fabric (as in my Visitations series). I was a quilter for many years. So when I saw the work of Zelda Zinn at Fotofest, I knew I liked her work immediately. The images felt familiar yet mysterious, photographic yet like charcoal drawings.





In Zelda's words...

Natural Selection

"This body of images came about during an artist’s residency in New Mexico. I thought I would be looking at the effects of natural forces on the land: geology, erosion, and mud. In the mountains the clouds were always changing, and I ended up spending a lot of time staring at the sky. It was the greatest never-ending movie. Every time I looked up, there was a new formation of clouds. I was amazed by the endless variety of shapes that were formed. They were so ethereal, yet so suggestive.





I started by trying to catalog the constant parade that I saw. It occurred to me that the shapes were the result of unseen forces acting on elements in nature. The clouds were the result of wind moving a collection of water droplets floating on air. As I thought about the water droplets, I saw them as collections of molecules. This led me to think about how nature is organized, and how patterns are the visual manifestations of the way nature works: its underlying structure. Hidden beneath everything is this invisible framework. If you think about it, it’s pretty magical, even though it can be explained through biology or physics.






I make pictures from bits and pieces of everyday things: cloth, paper, wool. I work with these materials until they make some kind of visual sense. I find myself drawn to shapes that are suggestive of other things, images we may recognize from our visual memories. My constructions are not so much pictures “of” things, but rather meant to evoke things. Often the elements suggested are drawn from nature: sky, earth, water, and the animal kingdom. I enjoy the challenge of alluding to other things through such limited means. Light is a key ingredient in these compositions, as is tone and line. I think of them as drawings made with a camera. Providing so little tangible information thorough depth, detail, or tonal variation, they tug at the seams of what a photograph is. They hold our attention through their power of suggestion and their purely visual appeal.



Fotofest follow up ~ Erika Diettes

I am back from Houston, where the Fotofest venue started in 1986. The festival was cofounded by Wendy Watress and Fred Baldwin, photojournalists who have changed the photographic world with their vision. There are now numerous spin offs of the festival of light, a collaboration involving twenty-three photography festivals from over 20 countries around the world. And there are numerous festivals in the US too, Photolucida, PhotoNola, Santa Fe Review, and Filter Photo (Chicago's own).

One of the many benefits of having participated was seeing some really great work. I thought I would share the work of a few artists. I only saw a very small sampling of what was there as my visit was short. What I did see was truly inspiring.

Erika Diettes is a photographer from Columbia. I had a brochure of her work in my packet but it came to life in the installation she did at the Trinity Episcopal Church. It was deeply moving and something I will never forget.



The following description of the exhibit is drawn from a report in the Columbian newspaper El Tiempo by reporter Melissa Serrato Ramírez, who wrote about the exhibit last year when it was installed at its permanent home, the Museum of St. Clair’s Church in Bogotá:

"Erika Diettes’s show, Sudarios, depicts twenty women witnesses to violence of the "disappered" in Columbia. Diettes realized that the sorrow of these women was so intense that there was always a moment in which they closed their eyes. “It was a gesture that demonstrated that still, and probably forever, they would live closed within the world of their sorrow.” This is the moment that she captured on film."





"Sudarios, or “Shrouds,” is a term which also alludes to the artist’s desire, impossible to fulfill, of covering and wiping the sorrow away from the faces of all of those women. "Although at times I think that they don’t need that,” she says. “After looking at them for so long, I discovered that in the midst of their sorrow, I can see a certain resignation.” In deciding how to mount the photos in this show, Diettes decided not to print them on paper, but rather on a delicate silk and cotton blend fabric, black and white, and in large format, to hang in the Museum of St. Clair’s Church in Bogotá, a space that used to be a women’s convent and in which, in an interior of stunning gold leaf, a number of images of saints and martyrs from the colonial era are displayed. In that venue they are left to hang from loose, almost invisible threads; they hang loose, the bottom unattached and moved by ambient air, which gives them an ethereal character."



“Although to a much lesser degree than these women, we’ve all experienced moments of such strong sorrow that gives us a feeling of such fragility that it feels as if our body leaves the earth, leaving behind only the weight of what can’t be undone,” she comments. Diettes opted to leave them like this because she wanted to show how Columbia is inhabited by ghosts, or souls in pain, as “violence leaves people in an intermediate state, unable to ever trust in anything ever again.”

Creative Collaboration ~ Remix #2

Round 2 of the creative collaboration ~ remix. For those new to this project, I have offered out a photograph to be reinterpreted and reprocessed in any way. It has been amazing to see the creative sparks fly.


A little background on the image.... the Red Chair file is a photograph of a very special space where the creative muses visit ALOT. It is the living room of the Ragdale house where many accomplished writers, poets, composers and visual artists share their work, so it is not surprising that wonderful compositions grew out of this digital file. (You might consider applying for a residency by checking it out HERE).

I am so appreciative to your participation, either as a creator or a viewer, because you need both in the art world.

So...feast your eyes!

Again, the work is in chronological order.

original file

Fran Forman "The Elephant Not in the Room"

Barry Hughes

Michael Werner

Joyce Westrop

Tyler Hewitt (Tyler shares his creative process on his blog)

Jane Fulton Alt

Ray Carns

Panos Lambrou

Yvette Meltzer

On Inspiration ~ Excerpt from Wislawa Szymborska’s Nobel Lecture December 7, 1996

"I've mentioned inspiration. Contemporary poets answer evasively when asked what it is, and if it actually exists. It's not that they've never known the blessing of this inner impulse. It's just not easy to explain something to someone else that you don't understand yourself. When I'm asked about this on occasion, I hedge the question too. But my answer is this: inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners - and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know." ….. This is why I value that little phrase "I don't know" so highly. It's small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended."

NEXT

I have decided to continue this project monthly. I will be posting a new file at the beginning of each month. Feel free to jump in whenever the spirit moves you! If you are reading this and are not a photographer, feel free to work with the file in whatever manner you see fit...a haiku, prose, paint, collage...use your imagination to take the image to a new place.

The next image I am offering out was photographed in Mexico. I fell in love with the walls and was deeply moved by the space. Let your mind and heart wander. Be open. You never know where or when the inspiration will arrive at your doorstep, but I know it will arrive if you are paying attention.



Just email me at photos@janefultonalt.com and I will send a larger file to you! Return your remix by the end of April in a file size of 72 dpi, the longest side at 1000 pixels along with your website and I will post in the beginning of May. Please keep in mind that this is just for FUN! Keep your judging mind to a minimum and just let your imagination wander. Experiment, explore, expand. Approach it with what you know you love and see what unfolds.

Happy Spring!

The Business of Photography

Having your work seen is as important as creating it. Fotofest (in Houston) is the "mother" of all reviews and where it all started.


As I am posting from my iPhone, I will keep this short.

I plan on posting on the second creative collaboration next Wednesday. Stay tuned!

Wabi Sabi

Never heard of it? Neither had I until my good friend and mentor, Dick Olderman, told me about it and then sent me a book, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers. I read it a few months ago and did not understand it. It is a Japanese aesthetic associated with the tea ceremony.

Burn No. 98 ~ Floating Ash

I reread the book last week and was totally mesmerized by it as I felt that it resonated with much of what I am doing these days.

Burn No. 33

Burn No. 71

I would like to share an excerpt from the book that might give some insights...

"The Wabi-Sabi Universe

Metaphysical Basis
- Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness

Spiritual Values
- Truth comes from the observation of nature
-"Greatness" exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details
-Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness

State of Mind
- Acceptance of the inevitable
-Appreciation of the cosmic order

Moral Precepts
-Get rid of all that is unnecessary
-Focus on the intrinsic and ignore material hierarchy

Material Qualities
-the suggestion of natural process
-Irregular
-Intimate
-Unpretentious
-Earthly
-Murky
-Simple

Burn No. 96

Maybe I have piqued your interest? If so, have fun learning more about it.

Musings







These photos were taken this season from the Burn. I have been working on this project for 5 years. It seems like each season offers its own challenges. I am finding it physically very taxing and often, after 2 hours in the field I feel like a wilted flower. I am not sure where I am heading with the work but I suppose that will become clear over time.

I found myself playing with The Red Chair image (from the current creative collaboration project) and enjoyed the process of letting things surface without much thought. My creativity slid by my conscious mind which was such a gift. John Loori, the author of The Zen of Creativity writes about this state...

"In no mind there is no intent. The activity, whatever it may be, is not forced or strained. The art just slips through the intellectual filters, without conscious effort and without planning. In the instant there is intent there is expectation. Expectation is deadly because it disconnects us from reality. When we get ahead of ourselves, we leave the moment. No mind is living in the moment, without preoccupation or projection….hesitancy or deliberation will show in our art when we leave the moment."

A Thin Place

Did you see the "Where Heaven and Earth Come Closer" article in the NYT travel section on Sunday?

It took my breath away and I am so happy to share it in case you missed it.



I am always so grateful when I read something that totally resonates with how I feel. I find it very difficult to articulate certain states of being.


What is a Thin Place?

"A thin place is a locale where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and we're able to catch glimpses of the divine, or the transcendent or, the Infinite Whatever. Not everyone finds the same places thin. It's what a place does to you that counts. It disorients, It confuses. We lose our bearings, and find new ones. Or not. We are jolted out of old ways of seeing the world, and therein lies the transformative magic of travel."



"Yet, ultimately, an inherent contradiction trips up any spiritual walkabout: The divine supposedly transcends time and space, yet we seek it in very specific places and at very specific times. If God (however defined) is everywhere and “everywhen,” as the Australian aboriginals put it so wonderfully, then why are some places thin and others not? Why isn’t the whole world thin?

Maybe it is but we’re too thick to recognize it. Maybe thin places offer glimpses not of heaven but of earth as it really is, unencumbered. Unmasked."



Eric Weiner's has a new book out, “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations With the Divine”



There is also a wonderful description of someone's encounter with the "divine" in Driftless by David Rhodes, another extraordinary writer.

Happy Friday!

Collaboration with Luis Alberto Urrea

There is something in the air. After I called out for the first creative collaboration, I realized that I had, in fact, just completed a collaborative project.

Two summers ago while traveling in Mexico, I was reading The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea. (buying the book after I heard Luis do a reading at a fundraiser for the Ragdale Foundation).
While in Mexico City I had an "thin" experience on top of the Teotihuacan pyramid, where something magical revealed itself to me. When I returned home and contemplated the event I decided that instead of making photographs I would create an installation, influenced in part by those precious moments on the Teotihuacan pyramid and the magical realism contained within the book.

"Every second, even the worst one, is sacred."


I returned to Mexico again in 2011 on the annual Frontera Grill staff trip. This time I was drawn to the altars that are found in the markets, homes and virtually everywhere, where the sacred and the everyday merge.

I have always been fascinated by retablos, devotional paintings most often created on tin. I decided to create my own version of "offerings" that referenced the retablo. My attempts to write the text fell way short of what I felt in my heart. Then, one day a thought entered my mind... wouldn't it be amazing to collaborate with Luis Alberto Urrea?! It was like a lightening bolt hit me.

"Cooking is prayer. Eating is prayer. You never stop praying."


Well, the rest is history. We met. I shared my vision for the work and sent Luis the images. He sent back text he thought might work with the photographs. I was able to match the text with the pieces. In my wildest dreams I would have never expected it to work out as well as it did.

"Everybody knows that being dead can put you in a terrible mood."


"Plants are a big responsibility--how many have you spoken with?"


"Everything speaks, Child. Everything is singing."


"Love is the color when hopelessness catches fire."


"God has a worker's hands. Angels carry hammers, not harps."

"Life is so tart it stings the mouth--add sugar."

"Water is like the soul, free of sins--every glass is the universe."



"It never hurts to cook The Maker a snack."


"The work of the healer begins with the nose--they smell life."



I hung the work this past weekend in the entryway of Frontera Grill in Chicago. They are made of copper (thanks to my generous roofer who cut the pieces), paint, gold leaf, resin, milagros and xerox transfers. The pieces are much more vibrant in person. There is a "real time" luminosity that changes depending on the light falling on the work.

"Tortilla--made of sacred corn, light and rain. Round as the sun itself. You eat a miracle."


If you are in Chicago or passing thru, consider stopping by to see the work in person AND have a delicious meal!

Frontera Grill/Topolobampo/Xoco
445 North Clark Street Chicago
Lunch hours: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to Friday
Saturday Brunch: 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Dinner hours: 5:20 to 10 p.m. Tuesday; 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 5 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
(312) 661-1434

On Creativity

There was a wonderful article in the Wall Street Journal today on How To Be Creative.

"... creativity is not magic, and there's no such thing as a creative type. Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It's a skill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it. New research is shedding light on what allows people to develop world-changing products and to solve the toughest problems. A surprisingly concrete set of lessons has emerged about what creativity is and how to spark it in ourselves and our work.... For prompting creativity, few things are as important as time devoted to cross-pollination with fields outside our areas of expertise."

Interesting! I was thinking about the Creative Collaboration project and the feedback I received from the photographers who participated. Kirstianne Koch wrote about her experience on her blog....

"... It was such an amazing process for me and really gave my creative process the nudge it’s been needing. I have always loved ‘making’ images. From the moment I learned how to make high contrast masks of my negatives and use registration pins in the darkroom, I have been making composite photographic images.

Kristianne Koch ~ What Path Will She Pick?

Making images from piecing together several images has always been a part of my repertoire. Currently, I am interested in doing this to tell surreal stories. I am fascinated with quirky and offbeat imagery with a beautiful quality to them. It’s this balance of the eccentric and sublime that gets me excited about making images. I see this thread woven through all my favorite photographs.

In this image for the collaboration, I saw the light in the image and the first thing that came to mind was this image I had previously taken of a taxidermy coyote. I had him in the piece for weeks before I could visualize what else I wanted to say. As soon as I started researching Little Red Riding Hood (even though I used a coyote and not a wolf-flaw #1), I had Maliea on board. She actually put the wardrobe together for her part so that was another fun aspect of the collaboration. She walked the path for me happily and with enthusiasm even though she really needed to be sitting on the toilet. She is such a method actress that she put that aside to get her performance done “before the sun set on the last day.”

I couldn’t just do another version of Little Red Riding Hood, however. I wanted it to say something more personal. So when I remembered the bluebird I had photographed out my office window a year or so ago, I realized that the story was starting to unfold. The wolf (in coyote clothing) represents distractions from your chosen path and unhappiness in life. The bluebird represents happiness and joy and hope. It’s my wish that Maliea reaches the path of happiness and hope before the wolf swallows the bluebird and forces her to go down the wrong path.

It was so good for me to just put this work out there without any judgement and hesitation. I committed to it and sent it on it’s way."

It is important to approach art making with a sense of play...and to suspend the judgement. There is a lot to learn from allowing ourselves to tackle things we have not done before. To begin with a "beginners mind." We don't have to do it right or perfectly. What is most important is that we learn from the process.

So with that I invite you to play with The Red Chair...do whatever you will with it. Paint, draw, write, just reconfigure any which way you like...you could even build a paper airplane with it! JUST DO IT!



from the Wall Street Journal article...

"It's this ability to attack problems as a beginner, to let go of all preconceptions and fear of failure, that's the key to creativity."

Click HERE for details on the next Creative Collaboration.

Remix #2 ~ No Ordinary Chair



So this is the file I selected for the next collaboration. It is no ordinary chair and is located in it a place where the muses reside...more on that later. If you would like to jump into the mix, please send me an email and I will invite to download a larger file from my drop box acoount. Just do your magic with the digital file and return it to me by March 31st at 72 dpi, 1000 x 1000 pixels, your name in the file and your website. No rules...just follow your imagination. The show begins April 4th.
(information on the original challenge can be found HERE with the amazing creative interpretations of 32 photographers HERE)

Creative Collaboration ~ The Remix #1

"To compose a subject well means no more than to see and present it in the strongest manner possible." -Edward Weston

This post is the outcome of collaborative efforts by many fellow photographers whose creative spirit is exemplified in their unique depiction of the original photograph. Each person started with the same digital file. (see details of the challenge HERE) The multitude of interpretations is something to behold and very exciting to consider. Each rendering of the original image offers something new to the viewer. What is taken with the camera is often just the jumping off point of the final artistic expression. We can learn from each other's creative process. What are we bringing to the raw material? How do we go about pushing it to another level? What is our process? What are our thoughts that accompany the transformation of the image?

This has been so much fun to organize. I have been so inspired by your imaginative "remixes" and am very appreciative to all who participated. There is a wealth of very exciting ideas presented, offering much food for thought. Given the response to this project, I have decided to offer another round. Look for details which are contained at the end of this post.

And now...

THE DRUMROLL....
(chronological order)


original unedited file

Wills Glasspiegel

Mark Regester

Adrian Davis

Aaron Hobson"walking the moose"






J Wesley Brown
Please go HERE to see the image animated



Chuck Mintz "They Threatened to Close Saint Colman's So We Moved it to the Sticks"








































Kristianne Koch "What Path Will She Pick?"


Mark Hickman




NEXT

I would like to try this again as it has been so amazing to see the creative process in action.
I went thru my files and found another image that has many possibilities for interpretation. Feel free to work with the file that is on this blog or email me at photos@janefultonalt.com and I will invite you do download the larger file from my dropbox account. Then just return your rendition of the photograph to me by April 1st at 72 dpi, 1000 x 1000 pixels maximum, your name in the file and your website (if you have one) and I will post it.


Here is some advice on the creative process from Rainer Maria Rilke...

“Everything is gestation and bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life. Being an artist means not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide.”

Once again, have fun with it!


The Art of Human Rights






What do these 24 people have common?


They are among the established artists, selected by curator Chuck Gniech, to be exhibited at
The Art of Human Rights - March 10, 2012. All commissions from the exhibition benefit
Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights.

to benefit Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights

Coalition Gallery - Chicago Artists' Coalition
217 N Carpenter Street (West Loop)
Chicago, IL 60607
7-10pm
$125 in advance or $150 at the door.
Purchase tickets now

For More Information:
Call (312) 660-1339

Interested in purchasing art now?

Check out the Art Catalog and Price List for details.



The Magic Button — Make Everything OK

Ok...so this blog is about a lot of things as is mentioned in the title... Life, Love and the Creative Process. I am happy to share a website that pretty much sums it up, in case you were in doubt about anything. Just click on the blue text below.

The magic button — Make Everything OK

I will post the creative collaboration pieces on Monday, March 5th. If you have not sent your work in, please do and I will include a link to your website. If you don't know what I am talking about, check it out HERE. It is not too late to participate.

Critical Mass 2011 Traveling Exhibition


If you happen to live in Seattle, Portland or San Francisco, please consider checking out this exhibit. It will be wonderful. I will be attending the opening in San Francisco on May 10th. Also, Jennifer Hudson's portfolio, MEDIC, was chosen for the Critical Mass 2011 book award. I can't wait for it to be published. There is a post on her work HERE.



Happy Friday!

Mardi Gras and Liminality

As Mardi Gras is in full swing in New Orleans, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the importance of celebration, when the ordinary gets transformed into the extraordinary.

We had a fundraiser this past weekend for Ragdale, a most amazing place that supports the creation of art making in all its forms. We went the full nine yards...Sazerac cocktails, Barq's Rootbeer, Abita Beer, crayfish boil, jambalaya, mac and cheese, roasted ham, pickled okra, braised collards, sweet potato pecan pie, king cake, pralines, live cajun music and a reading by award winning cajun poet, Beverly Matherne. We are still in recovery mode but savoring the after glow of a great celebration of art, food, friends and life.







In anticipation of the Mardi Gras celebration, I have been thinking in images and after some effort, I found 2 that nicely reference the concept of liminality, " a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes... "



"those in-between situations and conditions that are characterized by the dislocation of established structures, the reversal of hierarchies” ( from wikipedia)



The idea of masquarade is so embedded in New Orleans. Anything goes, especially during Mardi Gras season.



This past weekend there was a great article in the travel section of the New York Times on 36 Hours in New Orleans. There were some great suggestions for traveling there. If you can't get there for this year's Mardi Gras (which is happening now) I just discovered how to join the fun from afar...there is a Mardi Gras Webcam that is rolling today at 3pm to cover the Tucks, Proteus and Orpheus parades and tomorrow, Mardi Gras at 10 a.m for the Rex parade. Just click HERE.

Enjoy

Tolstoy on What is Art

According to Tolstoy, art must create a specific emotional link between artist and audience, one that "affects" the viewer. Thus, real art requires the capacity to unite people via communication (clearness and genuineness are therefore crucial values). This aesthetic conception led Tolstoy to widen the criteria of what exactly a work of art is. He believed that the concept of art embraces any human activity in which one emitter, by means of external signs, transmits previously experienced feelings. Tolstoy offers an example of this: a boy that has experienced fear after an encounter with a wolf later relates that experience, infecting the hearers and compelling them to feel the same fear that he had experienced—that is a perfect example of a work of art. As communication, this is good art, because it is clear, it is sincere, and it is singular (focused on one emotion). (wikipedia)



Last night I watched the Grammys. I was spellbound by the artistry of Jennifer Hudson.