NYC - Final Report - A Journal Summary

The Journal

I had to keep an artist's journal as an assignment for the class during my time in NYC,  I use a journal like that to capture ideas, quotes, thoughts, and other detritus that I pick up and find value in.  I rarely use it as a processing and clarifying tool.  In ways, that is what this blog is for.

Below are a few of the snippets I captured in it.  Maybe by putting them here, they will start to make sense and give me an internal look at what I saw in New York.  I chose not to edit them.  They are in their original words, except where I could not decipher my chicken scratch.  I left all the images hi-res.  Click on them to get the big version.


MoMA

 "I prowled the streets all day feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap' life - to preserve living." -  Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Duane Michals
We visited photographer Duane Michals' in his studio / home.  He talked with us for an hour and shared some of his new work.  At 78, he might as well be 38.  He lives.  Some of his quotes that stick with me:

"Before it becomes bullshit, ask questions"
"If you put shit your head, you will lead a shitty life."
"Nobody really gives a fuck about you, it is up to you to make your art important."
"Don't go against your intuition."
"Two choices in life - doing it or becoming bullshit (makes me think of what lightness of being  means)"
"Your true identity is in your secrets. " Maybe I need to photograph my secrets?
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MET

The Gugg

American women and fashion exhibit - How much is her desire to look good for herself, for us, or just because that is what men expect?

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Central Park Lovers

If You Can

Central Park
At John Lennon's Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park, across from where he was killed.  Seeing all these people "worshiping" him 30 years post mortem makes me think of his lyric and change it to:

Imagine all the people, "faking" in harmony.

Singing "Yellow Submarine"

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With a Mission

The New Museum
(Upon seeing the life-sized wax statue of a man blowing himself) - Should be called, "Wouldn't You?"  I would.

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Unseen Interactions

In Harlem
Life in New York is balls out in anonymity.  If you don't like it, don't look.

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Statue of Liberty - is now a beautiful cliche
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Ground Zero 
They can't build there.  Things get fucked up and they start over again.

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Touch them for Luck!  He doesn't mind.

Wall Street
Grab the brass bull by the balls.  al Quaeda and the banking industry did.




















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Coney Island
A depressing side show of recreation.  The hot mid-day sun barely reflects off of the dull paint of the rides.  The creak of the boardwalk matches the creak of the people walking on it.
Coney Island is purgatory. It is where we go when we expect heaven, even for an afternoon, but get used up and worn out ideals of what should be... or was.  Perfect place to observe the human condition in limbo of living.

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The New York Connecting Arteries
Everyone is an independent being tied together by the one shared thing, New York.  Sid, the local corner market owner and Renee, the art gallery curator, bump into each other on the "N" line as the train stops suddenly.  Both have their lives built by all they have done, but they have done all of that in NYC.  That gives them a sameness that other cities don't hold.

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Things overheard in the city
Costco exit - man angry he can't enter through the exit and the employee telling him to go around.
"Fuck you." he mutters.
"Yep, fuck me.  That is what we are made to do.  That is how we got here.  Now go around." she replies.

Outside the Hogs and Heifers Saloon by Highline Park.
"BAM!" Marla exclaims with a pop as she walks by us toward the bar's door.
"Bam?", asks my instructor.
"Yeah, late last night I was fucked up and fell and hurt my leg. Now I walk every other step with a BAM!"
She demonstrates by "bamming" her hip outward and laughs.  Her friend says, "BAM!"  We all say "BAM!"
Marla walks into the bar and tells us, "You got that right, BAM!"

Hogs and Heifers

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Leaving NYC
The bus AC is broken and it is hot and muggy.  I snap at Mollee and my dark mood is better experienced alone.  I listen to my music to escape.  I feel more at home in NYC than in SF, or anywhere else I've been.  People are real, they say what they mean, they still care.

I miss NYC because it represents what I am not - not living the moment, not taking the risks to be more, not really living a life.
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SF and NYC
SF has a gentle heart for its people and visitors.  It is a fairy tale of acceptance that is both warm and only surface level.   SF is too afraid to offend anyone... other than conservatives.

If SF is a fairy tale, NYC is the dark and rough graphic novel of life.   Life is not always pretty, but it is alive.

SF may be Glenda the good witch, or at least thinks she is.  NYC is not the evil witch.  She is more like the human made mother nature, watching over all her charges.  No one person controls it.

Like nature, things flourish, grow, build, die, and decay.  Like nature, disaster happens and life on it dies for some.  Then things shift around and all goes on.
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The New York Look

We dress sexy, we dress good.
We wear something a little tighter, a little more colorful or different maybe.
Shauna over there, looks like a whore in her skin tight gold lame pants, but fuck you for judging her.  She didn't even notice you standing outside Forever 21 as she walked by.

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On the way to Penn

Penn Station
Looking @ the tiny subway map only confused me.  Old Sid pulling an old suitcase on wheels sees me and asks, "Goin' to Penn Station?"
"Yeah"
"Take the 1,2, or 3.  Its your first stop."
I start to look for the 1, 2, or 3 train.    Sid says, "Follow me, I'm goin' there anyway."  I follow old Sid and his suitcase to Penn Station.
Sid leans in, "What do you want at Penn?"
"BH Photo."
"Yeah, thats on 9th."  He looks at my camera bag and all this confirms is my tourist status.  I am a visitor photographing the "exotics", which is just his fucking home.
I thank him and he replies, "Good luck."
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The Swarm
We sit on the train coming into the next stop and hear a human roar.  Dozens of high schoolers are yelling in celebration.  They flood our car - some are yelling, other laughing, and singing.  Two are dance grinding each other.  Nothing but noise.
Two minutes, we pull into next stop, 59th and Lexington and the swarm of noisy birds fly en masse off our train car and their shrieks fade and echo off the tile hallways.  WTF was that.
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The Sexy
New Yorkers know how to be sexy.  They live it, not put it on. 















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Looking Up

Empire State Building
When I stand on its observation deck, NYC is my bitch.  I can spit on it.  I can squish Lady Liberty between my fingers.  I can flip off 8 million plus people in the 2 minutes it takes to walk around the obs. deck.  The city is not that much.

The Cage

Then I stand by the edge and look through the protective art-deco thick gauged wire cage and look down upon 42nd street going far down.  Some little shit of a kid runs into me and bumps me hard.  My nose hits the wire.  For one second I die as I see 42nd below about to swallow me.  I am once again NYC's bitch and she is my Mistress.  Don't ever take her for granted.  She will not always forgive.

You are not God.

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NY Minute
The cliche is "in a NY minute."  Yeah, its a cliche, but it is all of these minutes that get in your mind/heart that fuck with you/inspire you/hurt you/ and made you and me for all those one-minutes.


NOTE -I have over 2000 images to go through including two sessions with models.  I will post those as they are processed.  This will probably be my last post solely devoted to this trip to NYC as a travelogue.  Too much of it is still in me and has to be processed/developed in my internal darkroom.  As my coworker Ollie says, "when in doubt, take it personally."  I did.

NYC- Report 2 - The Muse(um)s of NYC

Looking at a Rothko - MoMA

I've been to many museums since getting here last Tuesday.  Each has a unique gift to share.  Some were big, like the MET, and some were small, like PS1.

Wednesday - NY Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) - A true gem of grand size.  I visited this for the first time last year and enjoyed it even more this year.  The two best exhibits were photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography. 

Looking at Vertical - MoMA

Thursday - The Studio Museum in Harlem A canvas with the following poem painted on it.

The smell of your neck in August and
trying to make love on concrete
somewhere between forgiving to easily
and not giving at all the sound
and the hints of you caught up between my fingers
- Concrete - Adam Pendleton

Friday - The MET.  A must see:  American Women: Fashioning a National Identity.  It explores the history and design of fashion for women and how it shaped the identity of American women.  Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein's New York Photographs, 1950–1980 is another great exhibit.  His photos capture the life of the city in small snippets of existence.  Go see these.

The Guggenheim -  This gift of a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is exhibiting a series called Haunted.  It is a contemporary photography, video, and performance exhibit.  The combined media truly make a unified show as you walk up or down the long spiral ramp in one continuous exhibit. 

Looking through the camera to see the art for later - MoMA

Saturday - The New Museum  An edgy/chic art museum in a funky looking building.  The first exhibit greets you as the elevator opens with two realistic life-sized statues made of wax. The female licking/sucking her  breast in a sensual way.  Beside her is a male statue caught in a moment of self-fellatio.  The museum gets edgier after that.  Some of it was there to just shock, others held deeper conceptual meaning.  The top floor (7th) has an open deck with a chi-chi wine bar and billion dollar views of the city and Soho.

Looking at a shared moment - MoMA

Looking to move on - MoM

Sunday - PS1 MoMA - My favorite of the trip.  It is the black sheep step-sibling of the MoMA.  Both are affiliated, that is about the end of their similarities.  PS1 is in Long Island City in Queens and resides in an old school building.  Where The New Museum is the edgy/chic art museum, PS1 is the edgy crunchy museum.  It sprawls through huge old classrooms with rough paint jobs and art laying about.  Much of it, you touch, interact with, and experience.  The subjects are hard and pushing edges with themes of race, sex, gender/orientation, music, moving image, and many other topics.  One exhibit of Leigh Ledare's documents the sex life of his mother and her lovers, as well as his own romantic interests.  It is graphic, maybe even pornographic, but has so many ways to view it including incest and sexual freedom of an autumn woman.  Another exhibit looks at iconic commercial images of African-Americans with three photos from every year (1968-2008). Many bring back memories that make you smile with nostalgia, but with further reflection, illustrates how in all the images, popular culture over-simplifies and incorrectly represents blacks in America.

There are many more museums, galleries and studios, but they will have to wait until next time.

Art Lovers and Art Fast Movers - MoMA

Photo Notes - I enjoy watching people look at art.  The New York MoMA is very generous at letting patrons photograph in the galleries. 

To all my blog authoring friends - I've neglected my joy of reading your great bogs for too long.  My goal is to start reading them again tomorrow.

NYC- Report 1 - Take the "7" to the "1" or "2" and get off at Penn Station

Grand Central

New York City.  It lives up to its hype.  It has everything, the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the sexy, and the vibe.

You have to have a Metropass to get around.  Cars are stupid to commute in.  Every time I exit a new subway station, I try to anticipate what will greet me and am usually wrong.  Mid-town is glass, sexy advertising and business suits.  Harlem has broader streets than anticipated.  Central Park has more trees and longer trails.  Soho and Greenwich have sexy people. 

When?

I know everyone mentions it, but NYC is a vertical building.  Everywhere, the buildings go way up there.  People living in the sky over the city that has a true American identity.

New York City has a soul and personality.  It is complex.  It can't be easily described for risk of minimizing the depth of it. 

Running Late

I've worked with one model and hopefully can schedule another.  Good to be shooting again.

Next time, I will write about the museums.  They do not fear reactions here.

Start Spreading the News

At the NY MoMA

Then
The romantic ideal
Frank and Tony  - New York, New York


Now
A contemporary take on how it is.
Alicia Keys and Jay Z Empire State of Mind
 

At the NY MoMA 2

The Power of 10

High Desert - Town of Yucca Valley Outside of Joshua Tree National Park, C A

In middle school I had to watch a short movie called Powers of Ten. It is a short science movie about how small things are and how far away things get when you move closer or away from a subject at multiples of 10. You can see the movie below via Youtube.



At the SPE West conference last fall, one of the artists, Nigel Poor talked about her need to use counting, categorizing and cataloging stuff as a basis for her art. One of her projects was The Relative Value of Things. In this project, she cataloged things she was discarding, donating, etc. in an effort to reduce her clutter. The items were not garbage, but actual things she had been holding on to for future needs. She photographed the items as part of the catalog. In the effort she learned a lot about her own personal tastes, needs and history that can be told through what she had. I suggest you listen to her narration of the project on her website.

I am a lazy pack rat. I am not the type who walks past an old electric appliance, magazine, or other discarded or discounted item and think about all the things I can do with it, then stores it away to be forgotten. I am the type who, through living life, accumulates the daily detritis of magazines, books, tools, clothes, body weight, photographic equipment, mementos, and other stuff and is too lazy to cull the stuff to a manageable level. Over the past 40 years, that has piled up to be lots of stuff.

As a 2010 resolution I am going to steal her idea and mutate it into an introspective artistic project and a practical adventure in reducing. Every week, I am going to find 10 things to get rid of. Like Poor's project, they have to be things other than garbage. Things that come in groups will count as one item, like a box of 10 golf balls. I will give my friends opportunities to take them, or I will donate them to the local Goodwill, sell them at a garage sale, or throw them in the garbage or recycling bin.

Over time I want to see if I learn something about myself from the objects I caste off. I will take photos of the items to record all of them. What will it say about my habits, needs, perversions, desires, perceived needs, and tastes?

In the beginning, it will be hard to hold back from getting rid of more than 10 things at a time. I have so much stuff. That is where the power of 10 comes in. (Yes, I know I am not multiplying the number of objects by 10 (10, 100, 1000, 10000...) so it is not a mathematically correct name. ) The Power of 10 is that by 6 months, or 26 weeks, I will have gotten rid of 260 things. That is a lot. By the end of 2010, 520 things. It will be interesting.

It will also be interesting to see what I feel I can part with and what can not be culled out of my life. As I look around, I see many things screaming to go. First stop, my office.

Palm Springs and 11AM Light

Rough

We are on a vacation - our first since August 2008 where we aren't visiting family . We are staying four nights in Palm Springs, CA. I will not bore you with all of the travel tales or photos. The latter will take a few days to edit down to a select few.

Today's treasure was finding the Palm Springs Art Museum. I was shocked at how big and complete it is. They have a great exhibit called The Passionate Pursuit: Gifts and Promised Works from Donna and Cargill MacMillan, Jr. It contains the history and many great examples of post modern and pop art since the 1960's. I am very impressed by the collection by the breadth of it and also the willingness to have sexual/nude content for a big mainline museum.

The museum has a great outdoor sculpture garden, while I appreciated the layout and displays of everything, I was saddened by seeing it with the 11am sun. I've always disliked the light from 9:30am - 1pm. To me, it is ugly, unflattering, has washed out colors, and feels awkward. It is like looking at everyone's faults for a few hours. It makes me feel like I do when I look at a Diane Arbus photo, awkward, uncomfortable and ugly. It feels like that pimple growing on your back that you feel when your shirt rubs on it, but you can't reach it.

Yesterday, we were in Joshua Tree National Park (which I will write about more in the next few days). It was mostly overcast with dramatic clouds. That is the only way I appreciate the 9:30-1pm light. It was truly beautiful there.

With those complaints behind me, I do appreciate that sometimes the world needs this awkward, ugly light to show us reality. Not everything is a botoxed, surgically enhanced, image photographed through a polarized filter. It can be really ugly. Maybe with that mindset, I can finally respect an Arbus photo, even though I don't like looking at it.

A Young Brooklyn Going for a Sunday Outing

Diane Arbus, 1966

PHOTO Note: Taken while I am typing this post. Forgive the quality, I used the camera on my Mac Laptop. I am sitting in a lounge chair by the pool at the fantastic Palm Springs B&B, The Rendezvous. We are staying in the Crooners Room. Next to us is the "Pretty in Pink Room" with a Marilyn Monroe theme. She actually stayed in that room in the 1950's. I am not attracted to blond hair, but there is something about Marilyn and Mae West that floats my boat.

I am smoking a fine cigar (a semi-annual treat) and drinking a fine red. The sun is setting over the mountains and the desert is looking magic. Life is good.