Saturday, February 27, 2010

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Last Week

Another image from last week featuring yet more snow.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Has Modernism Failed?

The below quote is for me a profound statement about our contemporary, global, capitalist society. It strikes a chord that resonates very deeply for me and my thoughts about the society in which we live and its affect on not only our daily lives, but also the context in which we create and respond to art.

"For better or worse, modern consciousness is solitary, consequent to the disestablishing of communal reality. It is the most intense form of individualism the world has ever known. Modern life is lived in a world turned upside down, in which we are painfully aware of our separateness but however paradoxically, the reality of our social situation: the most fundamental assumption of modernity, as Daniel Bell has pointed out, is that the social unit of society is not the group, guild, tribe, or city, but the person. That the contemporary bourgeois artist, as a result of these historical processes, sees his relation to art as an individual, and not as a social, relation is inevitable. Individualism and antitraditionalism are one and the same psychological force."
-Suzi Galik, Has Modernism Failed?

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Saul Williams at WCU tonight

Tonight Saul Williams will be performing at WCU. Be sure not to miss this free event.

Western Carolina University’s Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series will present an “Evening of Spoken Word” featuring poet, actor and musician Saul Williams on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at the Fine and Performing Arts Center.

The evening will begin at 6 p.m. in the center’s Star Lobby and Fine Art Gallery with a performance by DJ Brett Rock of Asheville and creation of live art. Local artist Kinjac and members of the Afromotive will perform from 7 to 7:30 p.m. in the FAPAC theater, followed by Williams from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. DJ Brett Rock will help close the evening as Williams hosts a book signing in the Star Lobby from 8:30 to 9:15 p.m.

Williams is best known for his debut performance and featured poetry in the 1998 film “Slam,” which he co-wrote. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998 and the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Williams has published three collections of poetry: “Said the Shotgun to the Head,” “She” and “The Seventh Octave.” His most recent work is 2006’s “The Dead Emcee Scrolls.”

Williams has performed with legendary poets Allen Ginsberg and Sonia Sanchez, and has released three albums: “Amethyst Rock Star” in 2001, “Not in My Name” in 2003 and “Saul Williams” in 2004.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information about the event or the LCE Series, call 828-227-7206.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Sledders

A picture I made a couple weeks back during one of our recent and numerous snow storms.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Camera Lucida

the age of the Photograph is also the age of revolutions, contestations, assassinations, explosions, in short, of impatiences, of everything which denies ripening.

- Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida.

Friday, February 5, 2010

The Mattress Value Center

This building was a car dealership that relocated a few years ago and then sat empty for a time before a discount mattress company moved in. Now they too are gone and the building is again empty. Wonder who will move in next? Some of these old car dealerships would make great gallery spaces, in fact just the other day in one of my classes we were discussing the viability of these spaces for temporary galleries at the least. The emptiness is pretty in a way, though.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Below are some recent images from a visit to my dad's house in Virginia. The series consists of images from my visit's to his home with my daughter. I began photographing at his home when I visited over Thanksgiving and plan on continuing the project over the next few months as I revisit.