The 43rd Hoyt Regional Juried Exhibition

Lounging, 2002

The first time I exhibited in the Hoyt regional was in 2002.  It was quite an honor to be accepted into the show because that year the juror was the then-Andy Warhol Museum executive director, Tom Sokolowski.  The above print, digitally altered by a watercolor effect to mask the identity of the subject, was awarded an honorable mention.  If memory serves, this was the only photograph to be singled out for recognition.  This exhibition typically tends to favor the paintings.  Almost always very good paintings, very challenging in technique and subject....except for that one year a still life of pears won best in show.  Three pears, not even a bowl, no table.  Three lone pears, minimalist fucking pears suspended free of the pull of gravity on a canvas.  But I digress.
Anyway, I've shown at the Hoyt since then (see above pear rant), primarily because they always get top notch jurors and I want to get my work in front of those eyes.  This year (I just heard back yesterday via email) my submission was accepted.  I've posted the photo on this blog before, but I'll put it up again at the end of this post.  The juror this year is Janice Diesbach, chief curator at the Akron Art Museum.  I really respect the collection that they've got there, and how they exhibit.  It'll be a thrill to meet Ms. Diesbach at the opening reception, and I don't 'thrill' easily.  I'm already fussing over what to wear, which I never, ever do.

In The Garden of Headless Women, 2015

Reflection of Compartmental Thinking

Reflection of Compartmental Thinking, Pittsburgh, 2016, Original Jane Haskell


The glass, you see, that protects the original print, serves as an uncontrollable visual echo, a shout of light from the room.  The original photographic print was created by Jane Haskell and consists of different crops of the same image to convey how the same thing can be perceived differently.  My photograph of her photograph is just another layer within her established narrative.

De-Capitalizing

Pittsburgh, 2015, The Headless Women


And in the corner of the garden stood the headless women...  At the far end of the parking lot at the Mattress Factory Museum, there is an overgrown garden which is now peopled by the beheaded statues of women, brought together for an exhibition years ago at the museum, but then simply stayed.  Classic not only in dress and form, but also in having lost their heads.  A time honored tradition of men lopping the heads off of statuary, particularly female statuary, for something to do, possibly providing the male thugs an opportunity to bond over their appetite for destruction and misogyny.  While this is actually a 'thing', the beheading of statues representing women, there is precious little written about it, at least on the internet because I am finding nada, nyet, nil.  Which leaves me the beggars argument:  Anecdotal evidence.

Venus and Diana, North Carolina, 2012

Apollo and Jupiter, North Carolina, 2012

I do not believe that it was the result of a random act of vandalism that the two statues representing female Roman gods had a hammer taken to their faces while the male gods are unmarred.  These statues are (or were) placed in the Elizabethan Gardens in North Carolina.  We visited there in June of 2012 for something to do, as we had our mothers vacationing with us on the Outer Banks, and old ladies like gardens, flowers, bees.  Since all four of these statues are placed together, it was impossible not to notice what had happened to two of them.  But then, maybe I look for it.  Is the instance of headless female statuary prevalent or incidental?  Of course I don't believe that its incidental because so rarely have I come across a headless male statue in a public space (park, cemetery) that I couldn't even give you a single instance.  I realize that my experience isn't enough to be conclusive for anyone other than me, but it does color how I view these things when I come upon them.  They are not simply acts of vandals, but indicative of a deeper, age old, struggle.  Perhaps THE struggle, the one that will always exist.

New River Gorge Bridge in Watercolor Effect

Bridge, New River Gorge, WV, 2007


Yes, yes, I'm still tinkering with the microsoft app, Waterlogue.  I like it.  I don't love it, but I definitely like it - for now.

Carrie Furnace Waterlogue-ed

Carrie Furnace, Interior, Rankin, PA 2011


Ok, I admit that now I'm starting to enjoy the Waterlogue app more than I gave it credit for initially.  Also, if you are so inclined, you can learn more about the derelict iron works that was the Carrie Furnaces here, at Rivers Of Steel.
More waterlogue-d prints to come!

Vemodalen And Us

Giant Rubber Duck, Pittsburgh, September 2013

The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows defines Vemodalen thusly: n. the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.  Yes, I cannot tell you the creeping futility I sometimes experience while photographing something that is uncommon, rare, beautiful, decayed and collapsing in on its own weight, or even just delightfully whimsical - all with the realization that it's been captured by camera before, and will again.
Case in point:  Two years ago when Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's duck colossus was launched on the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, people flocked to the Point (where the fountain is), and to Mount Washington overlooking the city (where I was here) to get a good shot of the Duck.  I took a lot of photos because digital costs nothing and bad shots can be deleted.  Not having to rely on film and all of the expense incurred with film photography has made photography extremely accessible, but at the same time ubiquitous and devalued.
I ended up with some really wonderful images of the city and the duck colossus and spoke to the owner of the gallery that carries my work to see how many prints I should bring in...None, as it turned out.  The duck colossus was everywhere, had saturated the market, and no matter how great my work was, it was still of the Duck.
If you are in need of a prompt for an existential crisis, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows has a youtube channel, and this is their entry on the subject of Vemodalen.
I won't stop photographing things, nor will I fall into too deep a pit of despair about the futility of it all, but it still gives me pause.  What am I doing and what does it mean?

LaToya Ruby Frazier

LaToya Ruby Frazier, MacArthur Fellowship Recipient, 2015


Growing up just outside of Pittsburgh in Braddock, Pa, that former steel town in seemingly perpetual decline, served to form and inform Frazier's photography.  A 2015 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient, Frazier's work is unerringly clear and powerful in its representation of both people and place.  Namely, her family and Braddock.  As a photographer myself, but not of this caliber, I can attest to the difficulty in mastering clarity in meaning.
Frazier is young, just 33 years old, and I look forward to seeing where she takes her vision next.

Vergiss Mein Nicht

Forget-Me-Not, The Summer Is Gone, Pittsburgh, 2015




There were some forget-me-nots growing in a patch of lemon balm.  I wanted to get some photos of the flowers, but nothing turned out that didn't seem trite - or worse yet, just plain hacky.  So, I dug up the plant and attempted to do a botanical study of it.  The results of that were pedestrian at best.  I tossed the plant then in a bucket of rain water and stared at it for a long time.  After awhile I took some shots of the flower moving through the water.  This is a shot with the color inverted.  I have to say that I'm pleased for a change.

Surrealist Barbie

Surrealist Barbie, Laura Anderson, Artist


I recently fell down the rabbit hole that is the Zymoglyphic Museum website.  If nothing else, I discovered that someone other than me is also tinkering with Barbie in unusual and representative ways.  Unmatched in its versatility, the Barbie can become almost anything.

Family of American Goldfinches

Female American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, Pittsburgh, 2015

Seldom, or never, have I seen a family of goldfinches, but thanks to the dwarf sunflowers providing the seeds, they gathered together on one magical afternoon, became accustom to my presence, and feasted on the patio.

Fledgling, and future male given the beginnings of that signature black cap.

Male American Goldfinch

CCTV - Stills

When the RavenView (tm) closed circuit security cameras had been installed all about the Abyss Tower thirty some odd years ago, they were state-of-the-art technology, with clarity and color unmatched by any competitors in the market.  Now, of course they seemed hopelessly outdated.

The once touted pixelated images seemed too pixelated, particularly in close-up, where, at best, you felt like you were given only an impression of the person, and not the essence of that individual in the least.  All sharp edges, not a smooth line in sight.

It annoyed Barbara.  Her dissatisfaction with her job had become unflagging.  Staring at the bank of screens ten hours everyday.  Watching for - for what?  The Abyss Towers were impenetrable.  You could only get in through a single secured underground entrance.  The one time someone tried to gain entrance there without proper clearance and identification, the lobby was flooded with near freezing cold water.  The armed guards watched the action from the mezzanine, shooting the man as he bobbed about in the gushing froth.

In a nutshell, the only time Barbara ever saw another human being pass across her screens was when there was a jumper.  And, there were plenty enough of those.  Sad, dejected types, driven mad, or perhaps born mad.  Usually they they climbed the ladder to the uppermost wall and jumped immediately.  But every once in awhile, she got one who lingered.

Why?  To get up their nerve?  A lingering doubt about taking the plunge?  Barbara wondered if the day would come when she would be up there, some other brown uniformed toady watching her, waiting for her to...Leave the frame

Digital Miasma

Milkweed With Butterflies Miasma, 2015


Sometimes when I have a shot that is really out of focus, I'll tinker with it, manipulating it digitally before I decide whether to keep it or not.  I get rid of a lot of shots on my hard drive.  Not because I don't have enough memory to preserve them, but because I don't want to have to look at them any longer. Be gone, you sad affront to the eye!
I pushed this failed image to both its limits and mine.  Except for that small white mass right of center, I like the pic, to me it brings to mind Van Gogh.

Barbie Furiosa 2.0

Barbie Furiosa, Non-Mechanical Arm Attached, Pittsburgh, 2015


Now that fireworks are available, I'm tinkering more with the Barbie as Furiosa concept.  And yes, this is all as much fun as it seems.  It's been so long since I've dismembered a Barbie.  Wow, talk about bringing back memories of my misspent youth!  

Jeff Gursky and The Hidden World of WWI

Jeff Gursky, The Hidden World of WWI




Growing up, and long into adulthood as well, it seemed apparent to me that much more attention was paid to WWII, the battles, the outcome, the lingering historical influences on the shape of global politics and machinations, than WWI.  Tragic, really, to so discount the precursor to WWII.  Now that it's been a hundred years since the war to end all wars began, it is being revisited in a more meaningful way, and I'm glad.  We have to remember and examine our history, lest we, and you know how this phrase ends, repeat it.
Doctor, artist, explorer (a self description per his website) Jeff Gursky  has rediscovered the "lost" tunnels of WWI in France and they remain much as how they were left a hundred years ago.  Like any space that harkens back to a time of conflict and massive loss of life, it's difficult to look at the photographs and not be overcome with a sense of wistful wishfulfillment that somehow we, as evolved creatures, are better than this.  I think that this is why we have a deep fondness for the ideal of time travel.  If only I could go back in time and save Lincoln, kill baby Hitler, stop the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, throw a bucket of water on Joan of Arc...there are too many to list.  I know that I can't change the past, that we can only look upon it and learn, if only we'd learn.  Yes, if only we'd learn then maybe all of those deaths would mean something.  As it is, the most lasting thing that emerged from WWI was/is an ongoing collective existential crisis from which we cannot escape.

History As A Wisp

The Artist Draws A Banana Man After Lunch, 2015, Ellwood City, PA


The allure of ephemera lies in its impermanent nature.  It can, but it's not meant to last, and the imagination catches fire in the wisps of those embers.   Nowhere is this more evident than in the recently closed (sorry, I only just learned of this) exhibition; "Margret:  Chronicle of an Affair - May 1969 to December 1970".   An affair can be fleeting as it is, and I think that's shown here by the documentation of detail and minutiae by the pair involved.  You know that it can't go on forever, yet you have this need to create something more out of it, something that you can hold on to, long after it has let go of you.
For something such as this to emerge from a forgotten briefcase, dragging a past illicit passion into the light of a one-time future present, is nothing short of astounding. 

Oyster Mushrooms

Oyster Mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, Pittsburgh, April 2015


The oyster mushroom, and all of its variants, are easily identifiable, nonpoisonous*, and usually delicious.  The outcrop of oyster mushrooms that I happened upon yesterday during a hike were a bit dried out and past their prime, so I left them as they were.
*Still, a word of caution when it comes to collecting wild mushrooms:  Be aware of what you are picking if you plan to eat it, and preferably have someone knowledgeable with you when you first start hunting mushrooms in the wild to aid you in proper identification.  It is essential that you NEVER misidentify a mushroom as the consequences can be deadly.  If in doubt, leave it be.

Reflection

St.Paul in Reflection, Pittsburgh, 2015


Ever since I first noticed the conflux of disparity reflected in the exterior of Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, I cannot not notice it every time I walk down Fifth Avenue.  Because of all the noticing, I've shot hundreds of photographs of the building(s).  What makes it so engrossing is the fact that directly across the street is St. Paul's Cathedral, whose facade is echoed in the technology building's own mirrored panel facade.  It is essentially that place where religion and science/technology collide, and in this instance, it is where religion bends and conforms upon inspection.

Zoology Lesson For Today

Deer Teeth, 2015


One day a few years ago my oldest son came home from a walk in the woods with a deer skull, which he gave to me.  He's so goddamn thoughtful.  I've done photo studies of the skull, and with a little curiosity and a google search, discovered that I could assign an age to the deer based on the wear on its teeth.   By my calculations this deer was approximately 3 1/2 years old when it died, as indicated by the amount of wear on the first molar and the width of the dentine in all of the teeth.
Fascinating!   

Venus, Mars and the Moon

Venus, Mars, Crescent Moon, Pittsburgh, 2015


I would not have even noticed the celestial bounty Friday evening had I not been driving home from the auto shop.  It was a frigid night, subzero, and typically I don't follow what's going on in the sky during the winter months.  But, my wife's car was telling her that one of the tires had low air pressure, and better safe than sorry, she ran it in to the shop, with me picking her up.  That's when we both saw what we could clearly identify as Venus, and of course the moon, but it was a pleasant surprise to later discover that the tiny orange dot was actually Mars.

Lab Rat

                                                       Alcoholic Rat, Pittsburgh, 2014

If I was a lab rat, and experiments were going to be conducted on me, I guess there are worse things than being force fed booze.  Although, it does sort of remind me of the ironic punishment realm of hell as defined by The Simpsons in "Treehouse of Horror IV" .  That aside, the importance and history of specifically bred strains of lab rats to study alcoholism has proven to help researchers understand the disease in humans.  It all boils down to your genes as to whether or not you are more susceptible to becoming an alcoholic, or whether you'll be able to set that bottle down and walk away after one or two.