Thursday, September 9, 2010

Office Window


There's nothing really that interesting about this image, but it becomes somewhat more interesting when you know what it actually is. It's a window to an office in the Russell Wright home in Garrison, NY. (He was a designer and an early ecologist in the '50's). It's made from cardboard rolls (toilet paper, paper towels, etc.) that have been bent into ovals and then covered in plastic. The shapes are very organic, like leaves or stones, and I'm sure that's what he was looking for. He wanted to blend the natural environment in with the man-made structures, and vice-versa. In the photo, I like the way the light coming through on the left side gives it some color picked up from whatever's in the room beyond; and how it's focused in the middle, but then a little more blurry and dark towards the right. It's floral on one side, and then rocky on the other, almost like nature versus nature - a flower bed amongst rocks.

Thursday, September 2, 2010


A la "Pop Art" (Jasper Johns, Warhol, Claes Oldenberg) we have 'Budweiser/BeerLao'. The image is done to look early 70's, but the idea behind the connection is very 2010. Notice the "Budweiser" can is just a little bit bigger. And note that almost all beer brands are now owned by just three huge corporate entities that span the globe.

Life, to a certain extent, is simply about how willing you are to accept death.

Well this one doesn't really work out here. It's just too small and you can't see it. It's really very basic, but it's also interesting. It's just an intersection in Manhattan along Canal Street. Hardly anyone in the center is looking forward, but there are a few people along the sides that you can see, and the one Asian gentleman to the left is clearly looking at the camera. If this was enlarged to about 12' across it would be an interesting slice of life. Then you could mix it with other 'slices of life' (perhaps a wheat field in Nebraska, something from a swamp in Florida, day workers waiting outside a Home Depot in San Diego, fishermen along a pier, the line outside of a nightclub in Vegas) and you've got something. Will I ever actually get that printed up and make a work of art out of it? - probably not, but the idea is there, and that's good enough for me.