inspiration: saga sig

i really love saga sig - iceland-born, london-based photographer. her sense of the world and color and possibility. she's smart and magical. here, she talks about her personal fashion, history and beliefs ("nothing in the world is more evil than jealousy"), and here is her blog, the neverending story.

new sight

now I have a website

I was looking through old pictures of myself last night, trying to find one that would be appropriate for a press release / posters for a Gulf Coast reading in the fall. 90% of the pictures really aren't appropriate, but they reminded me how much I used to live with my camera. Tom shared this Sally Mann/Nan Goldin transcript with me the other day - also a reminder.

Official-reminder-to-self #2 - get your camera.

The Gigantic Sequins reading on the 22nd was very lovely. It felt like a family affair. Elizabeth Hoover has a chapbook called "Love In The Wild" that is just fantastic You can find a few pictures of the reading here, along with some reminders ( submit! buy a raffle ticket! ) and an announcement that we're having a reading in NYC, July 12th, in a pop-up bookstore. There's a 70% chance that I will be there.

Okay chickadees. I'm going to try to convince Jason to pick me up in his Cadillac and take me to the drive-in tomorrow night. Take care of yourselves.

air & earth & in between

A few selections left from Portrait of the Years !

A few selections from my photograph & poem project Portrait of the Years are still for sale! (with the exception of the ocean picture, which has been spoken for, and the hands/flower petals, which sold at the most recent Art All Night)

Each physical work is 8 & 1/2'' x 11''. The gallery price was $80.00 each, and the midwife who bought the hands/flowers one gave me a generous $100, but I'm willing to barter...

brief notes from amherst

- Finally, at Juniper. Left Pittsburgh at 5:30 a.m. last Sunday, drove through a rainy sunrise listening to Patrick Wolf's new album, "The Bachelor." My experience here thus far is proving immensely refreshing - provocative & productive. Today I walked into town & bought a small Cavafy & Gertrude Stein's "Tender Hooks." Amherst Books has a fantastic used section. Also bought, on instinct, "Inside the Blood Factory" by Diane Wakoski, a poet whom I've never heard of.

- Hello solitude, my sweet.

- I've been thinking a lot about Nan Goldin again, the poetry in her photography, the intersection of private acts & the catching movement of art. Particularly thinking about her photographs of couples & of those where her subjects are isolated & naked.

The obviously sensual or erotic is too easily gazed at as mere spectacle, body as artifact, alien. There's a subtlety to desire. When I wait through my initial responses (arousal, an experience of beauty) I find something uncomfortable or frightening...and, OH - ! Rilke, perhaps this is what you meant... ...

a steal

A number of selections from my photograph & poem project Portrait of the Years are for sale! (with the exception of the ocean picture, which has been spoken for.)

You can find the online version of these works here, here, here, and here. Or, just scroll through the journal itself, if that's how you roll.

Each physical work is 8 & 1/2'' x 11''. The gallery price was $80.00 each, but I'm willing to do a trade of some sort.

The Blogger Show

Woo hoo!

I've been asked to participate in "The Blogger Show" which is the joint project of a number of galleries in Pittsburgh and New York, namely The Agni Gallery, The Digging Pitt & The Panza Gallery. I'll be transferring five pieces from my online journal of poems and photographs into a physical medium, to be shown at the Panza Gallery in Millvale, PA. The public reception is December 15th.

A concept that's come to my attention in the past few weeks, as I've become involved in this show, has been that of an "art narrative"... which would be another way of saying, what we talk about when we talk about art (wink to Raymond Carver), or maybe even, how we talk when we talk about art. The following is from (of course) a critic's blog: "Our entire understanding of Western art is largely the result of a discourse that has taken place over the past decades across a variety of locations and media: artists' studios, galleries, museums, newspapers, arts journals and bars. Within the past five years another medium has entered this discourse: online weblogs, or blogs."

Read more about the concept and participants of the exhibition at The Blogger Show.

An online preview of the show's participants, including myself, is available here.