art

Encouraging Creativity

It was a rare moment of sibling collaboration—when all the kids put aside their squabbling, grabbed their markers, and made something.

This scene used to happen more often, especially before Aiden became a teenager. Our kitchen table was the family art studio, and the kids would take on a three-marker challenge or create handmade birthday cards for friends. 

Early on, we encouraged creativity. My wife is a talented musician, and I have a background in music and photography, so we made sure to give our kids a solid artistic foundation. All the kids took early childhood music classes, and we enrolled the girls in the local art school’s preschool program. Aiden is a talented musician in the middle school band, and the girls are musical theater performers. 

We know it will do them good. Art for art’s sake is a perfectly fine goal to me, but there are other benefits—like civic engagement and writing skills. And the arts are social: most of Aiden’s friends come from marching band (so did mine, back in high school!). The arts, combined with a love of reading, an appreciation of the outdoors, and a bit of Midwestern kindness, are a pretty good recipe for an enjoyable childhood and a successful adulthood. 

For some families, it’s all about sports and competition, or pure academic achievement.

Our kids? They were cursed with art lovers for parents. They didn’t stand a chance. 

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Don’t Apologize

So you haven’t made anything in a while. 

Maybe you broke a habit, or a long streak of productivity. Perhaps you haven’t taken your camera out in months. It could be you have nothing to share.

It’s fine. Don’t apologize. When it comes back – whatever it is for you – do it, share it, and keep going.

When you’re ready, we’re ready.

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Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

 

We’ve always been a musical family, but we officially became a musical theatre family this fall.

The women in our group all joined the cast of Center Stage Jackson‘s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – my daughter Madelyn taking a lead role as Jemima, Riley as one of the ensemble kids, and Jaime as the wicked baroness. 

That meant lots of light nights, back and forth trips to rehearsal, and tired kiddos who aren’t used to staying up late for practice. But the last two weekends, it all came together.

The show’s director, Lisa, is a close family friend, and she let me hang out back stage for some behind the scenes photography. 

Supporting the local arts in our communities means showing up, and lending talents where needed. 

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Artist vs Content Creator

In Terrible Simplicity

“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to decide if you’re a content creator, or an artist.”
– Gozer Goodspeed

Gozer’s tweet thread (via Jeffery Saddoris) is great to think about if you Make Things – either as a content creator or artist. 

I wonder all the time, watching my kids view YouTube video after YouTube video: is all this content artistic? Or is it entertainment? Is there anything wrong with either approach?

A few thoughts in reaction to Gozer’s thread:

  • Content creation is a conveyor belt – art is a walk in the woods.
  • Content creation seems more about business. Not that making art can’t be a business, but content creation, as Gozer puts it, involves “relentless output” to feed an algorithm hoping someone will discover your stuff.
  • Art is at your speed. Content creation is at the speed of an audience’s appetite. 
  • A lot of this speaks to artists as business owners (music in Gozer’s case) – but I bet a lot of hobbyists see “content creation” as their ticket to the big money. Actually making an income from your artistic hobby can be very, very difficult for most people.

I consider myself someone who makes and shares the things I make, at my own pace, for a very small audience. But I do it for me, not them, and I certainly don’t do it to feed a social media platform. 

And then there’s the language that gets thrown around in business and entertainment and just about everywhere: do you make “content?” Or do you make photographs? 

 

 

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Greatest Hits

Shadows Take Their Toll

When your favorite band or musicians compiles a greatest hits album, it’s usually a collection of their singles and fan favorites. Over a long career, a productive band or artist will have enough singles to make a good greatest hits record. Take Genesis or the Temptations – multi-decade output combined with hit singles makes for a representation of the artists’ career. 

Now, a greatest hits album may not include your favorite song from that musical act’s portfolio. For me, “Supper’s Ready” is my go-to Genesis song, but it’s not considered a “greatest hit” on their album. Too long or too weird, I imagine.

How about for visual artistic output? How does one compile a list of “greatest hits” in photography, painting, or video work? Do you pick your favorites, or someone else’s favorites?

Brooks Jensen at LensWork had me thinking about my own work, and what I would consider my best pictures. In fact, I recently submitted a few images to Flickr’s World Photography Day contest. I had to think about what are my best people and nature images, out of all the hundreds and maybe thousands I’ve taken over the years. It was a tough exercise, combing through and wondering, what are my “greatest hits?”

Do I pick the popular images? Or the ones I consider to be my best? If I start picking my favorites, it could be a random picture of one of my kids, one that I hold dearly in my heart. 

It’s the same if you’ve ever had to develop a portfolio of images to share with others: your best wedding photographs, or your top artistic representations. How do you pick? 

Like musicians, it could be a combination of popularity along with your own personal tastes that make a “greatest hits” collection. If the Rolling Stones don’t want to play a popular song, they leave it off the playlist – no sense in spending effort on a song for which the band has no passion, right?

Looking at photography and our best-of list, we can use the same metric to guide us: what do people like? What do I like, too? 

There’s your list. 

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Nostalgiapalooza

What is it about nostalgia that is so attractive?

While it’s a bittersweet emotion, nostalgia can be used to “counteract loneliness, boredom, and anxiety.” Think of that feeling you get when you flip through an old photo album, or listen to a favorite album. Nostalgia, while wistful, helps you think of good memories. It’s grounding, and gives you roots.

Maybe that’s why I’ve been on a nostalgiafest here lately. In the past year, I’ve made a point to relive things from my past that, at one point, I knew I loved. The feeling is especially strong with movies: I watched (and continue to watch) a ton of movies growing up. Now, I’m revisiting those late ’80s and early ’90s films that I watched over and over again (and haven’t watched since), primarily comedy classics like Major League, Funny Farm, and Naked Gun. For one, they’re funny, and those movies brighten my mood.

And two, I have great feelings associated with those 30-year old films. With the pandemic and all the anxiety surrounding it, it’s nice to dip into the past and relive something that’s fun and frivolous. 

It’s the same with classic books – Frog and Toad with the kids, say – and albums. I’m even browsing through my Lightroom catalog from years past and scrolling through my iPhone photo library to remember the times when I took a ton of pictures. Remember that? 

I think about that scene in Inside Out where the memory globes become bi-colored – both joyful and sad. Memories are rarely pure joy or pure sadness. Nostalgic feelings, especially, have twinges of melancholy with the feel-good moments. 

That’s how I feel: a little good, a little crummy. So I’m feeding that with nostalgia in all its forms. 

Right now, I need the familiar. 

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Adapt

Change of Seasons

When the coronavirus pandemic hit Michigan in March, it threw our situation – like everyone else’s – into chaos: no more office commute for me, no more in-person schooling for the kids, significant changes to my wife’s music therapy practice.

Those early days were a whirlwind. We had to develop new routines just as spring was warming up. We had to adapt to this new reality.

Along the way, I photographed our home and our lives as we lived it, and I have a selection of those photographs on display at Ella Sharp Museum’s new Adapt exhibition, exploring artistic responses to the pandemic. My series, “A Change of Seasons,” looks at our changing home life, changing routines, and changing light as March turned to April and winter turned to spring. 

The exhibition is online for now and features great local artists with exciting work. Next week, starting July 21, I’ll have three photos on display at the physical museum when they open back up. 

I always thought one of my community portrait projects would be my first chance to appear at Ella Sharp Museum, but the pandemic threw everything into the air, including my expectations. Still, I’m proud to be on display in the Adapt exhibition with so many other talented local artists. 

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Bright Walls

It’s almost like all this is a bit too cool for Jackson.

International mural artists? Tons of people downtown? Beauty where once there was empty brick?

It all happened, thanks to the Bright Walls mural festival, this past week. But really, it started months ago with one of the best marketing campaigns I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t go anywhere in town without seeing that sunrise-and-brick logo. The campaign worked, too, because people – both Jackson natives and out-of-towners – showed up in droves, slowing down traffic in an otherwise sleepy downtown.

Maybe it’s obvious, but here, right in front of all of us, was the power of art on display. It was a spectacle, sure, but it was also a reason to celebrate.

A reason to believe.

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Make And Take

Leave it to me to schedule our Family Art Studio session for the snow storm weekend.

But so it went. We drove to Ann Arbor, braving the highway traffic and slick conditions, to spend the day making art at my work.

This was the boy’s first trip to an art museum, and he had a lot of questions. Were the statues real? Why can’t you touch the art? That bust of George Washington – where’s the rest of his body? Why was that girl so hairy?

We took inspiration from Japanese graphic design and made our own poster out of cut-out shapes of colored paper. It was us and six other families – half of what was scheduled to show up.

“The difference between your art on the fridge and these drawings is that there’s a frame around them, and they’re hanging in a museum,” I said.

I hope he took the day to heart.

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Art Geeks

Hobbies are the best.

They’re a never-ending source of inspiration and fascination for me. Watching someone who is transfixed by their side gig, and who is good at what they do – it doesn’t matter what the hobby is, it’s fun to watch and listen.

I’ve had my share of hobbies over the years: comic books, old Macintosh computers, photography, travel. You know I’m into something if I start a blog about it.

Sculpture Geek here – he’s making videos about the sculptures he creates, and it’s a joy to behold.

I have a theory that the fan art we see these days is just another version of religious art during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. What do we care about? What are we passionate about, as a culture? What moves us emotionally? That’s what gets made in sculpture, painting, drawing, etc. And a lot of it comes with no expectations of fame, money, or recognition. Most people just want others to share in the joy of creation.

Count me in.

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Gateway to Art

Experience the Art

“The gateway drug is not creating art, but experiencing art.” – Christoph Niemann in Abstract: The Art of Design

Indeed. I’m lucky, working at a museum, because I experience art every day. But even before this job, I made sure to visit museums and seek out good work.

Artists’ websites, photo books, small town galleries – there’s no excuse not to surround yourself with, and absorb, art. I’d argue, given everything else, that it makes you a better artist.

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Artist In Residence

Porcupine Mountains, Michigan

Talk about an opportunity:

The Artist-in-Residence Program is open to artists and artisans whose work can be influenced by the unique northern wilderness setting of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.

Located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Michigan’s largest state park encompasses 25 miles of wave-washed shores, four inland lakes, entire river systems, countless waterfalls, enchanting wooded peaks, and an escarpment, which rises slowly from the edge of Lake Superior until it plummets abruptly into the Carp River valley.

The Artist-in-Residence Program offers writers, composers and all visual and performing artists an opportunity to experience the natural beauty of the park and to express it through their art form. Each year a number of artists will be selected for residencies lasting a minimum of two weeks.

Again: if I were a younger man, and photography was a hobby, I would jump at this.

Back in 2011, I visited Michigan’s only mountain range during a drive-through trip in the Upper Peninsula. It’s beautiful country. A two-week stay to do nothing but explore and make art? It would’ve been a dream for my younger self.

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Lack Of Agency

Lack Of Agency

Seth Godin’s recent post hit a nerve:

There are institutions, professionals and organizations that would like you to believe that you don’t have much choice in the matter.

They want to take away your agency, because it makes their job easier or their profits higher.

But you have more choice than you know.

In our recent move, I’ve twice dealt with corporations and utilities that have made me feel like I have no agency. Most recently, Apple Support left me hanging on an Apple ID and iTunes issue. Apple! A company I’ve supported each of my adult years!

Call support centers are a form of capitalist nihilism. There’s no reason for any of the decisions made except to make the company’s situation better, and to help you feel powerless. It’s rare that a support interaction has a positive outcome – so rare, that we marvel at Creation when it happens.

My Apple interaction was especially galling. From 2005-2008, I purchased a bunch of music under an old Apple ID. From 2008 on, I’ve been purchasing music from a different Apple ID, unaware of the consequences, so now I have a bunch of music in limbo. The support center’s solution? “Switch Apple IDs each time you want to listen to that music.” Helpful! And silly. What they don’t tell you is that each time you switch Apple IDs in iTunes, it locks the previous Apple ID for 90 days.

Three months! Unacceptable. And completely arbitrary.

So now I’ll be sticking to downloading my music from companies with fewer arbitrary restrictions (as Godin writes, keeping the “ability to shop around”). It’s one of the reasons I don’t rely on subscription-based music services. There is, by definition, no agency involved in that transaction. If you unsubscribe, all the music goes away.

The larger point can be applied to creativity and photography, of course. There’s creative agency – that sense of not being held hostage by expectations and self-imposed pressure. On the technology side, by submitting our work to Instagram and Tumblr, you’re giving up a bit of agency. And if something goes wrong, your only recourse is a faceless call center, if that.

My one weak spot: Flickr. I rely on Ol’ Reliable for so much of what I do, including image hosting for this very blog. And I have a lot of time and infrastructure wrapped up in that website. If something goes wrong, I’ll be in a bit of trouble. It won’t be catastrophic, but it certainly won’t be fun.

When we keep our agency, in the form of hosted, backed-up websites and blogs, we have a bit more say in the matter. We can always pack up and put up our tent somewhere else.

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Make Time For Beauty

Just Because I'm Weak

Good advice in general, but maybe especially these days, from Jon Ward:

A healthy perspective on politics, and life in general, requires time away from politics…

Creating is a big part of making room for beauty. But so is making time for enjoying and appreciating beauty, through art, nature, music, etc.

Losing yourself in something other than politics is good medicine.

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Presenting In Public

The Sun Is On Our Side

I was invited to give a talk at the Jackson Civic Art Association Tuesday night on my still life photography: what was my thinking, what were my techniques, etc. It was also a how-to for other artists to think about making their own still life paintings, drawings, or photos.

It’s a good way to really think about your own projects. If you have to explain the whole thing, from idea to execution, you get really intimate with your process. I feel like the talk was good for me and helpful for them.

And many of the group members did come up and compliment me on my presentation. “I really appreciate the length of your talk,” one lady told me. “Some people are up there for hours going on and on about technique.”

That’s another thing: can you show and tell in an efficient time frame?

In another life, I was probably a teacher. Coworkers at my last job nicknamed me “Professor Dave” because of my presentation style, and my love for getting up on a whiteboard and scribbling out thoughts and ideas. I see talks like the one I gave Tuesday as part lesson, part performance. It’s fun for me.

It was also fun to break down my inspirations, thinking, and planning during the still life project.

 

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The Real Competition Is Inaction

No Competition In Art

Seth Godin in “Plenty of room on the island“:

So encouraging and promoting the work of your fellow artists, writers, tweeters, designers, singers, painters, speakers, instigators and leaders isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s smart as well.

Art is no place to be selfish. Share the work you love.

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Art As Protest

Coat the Feelings

If there’s any solace in this election, it’s that struggle and angst breed great art.

From World War I (Modernism!) to the Vietnam War period (Woodstock!), when people are upset, they tend to make great things. Heck, during the George W. Bush years, a lot of people took their protest and turned it into memorable work.

Art is coping. This time, I’m sure we’ll see lots of great stuff.

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Analog City

Analog City

In Sound City, Dave Grohl’s love letter to the legendary, hit-making studio in California, he and other musicians gush about the “real” process of getting guys in a studio and recording music live, on two-inch tape: “the human element of creating and recording music.” ProTools has its place, many of the artists say, but there’s nothing like analog.

We’ve heard this before, of course. Everyone from filmmakers to photographers are returning to (or, in the case of movies, never leaving) film.

Lots of words get used to describe this process: magic, alchemy, mystery, human. Digital is too “easy.” You can fix everything with digital. Etc.

For many, it’s a return to what is known. Analog is more familiar to those of a certain age. A lot of what Grohl and Christopher Nolan and other film fans seem to be saying is, “You missed the good stuff, the good old days.”

Those of us who adopted photography as a hobby or profession in the digital age don’t know what a dark room is like because we’ve never used one, and may never step foot in one.

(A side note: my college newspaper had a darkroom attached to it, behind this sweet swiveling circular door, and I did spend some time in there – but never to actually develop or print images. I remember photography students spending a lot of time in that room, and I’d catch glimpses of what they were working on when they brought their prints out into the light.)

We seemed to have this big upswing, in the ’80s (music), ’90s (movies), and 2000s (photography) toward digital art making. In the last decade, that digital tide has swung back, and more and more artists are experimenting with analog again. Call it the Maker Movement, call it hipsterism, call it whatever, but vinyl records and photo film seem to be doing okay again. Not great, but not dead.

So it is with blogging – away from federated, silo’d social media platforms and toward artists and writers owning their material.

Maybe we’re all learning that perfect isn’t the goal. The goal is to make something great, imperfections and all. Something human.

We’re all living in Analog City now.

 

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The Workshop

The Workshop - Albion, Michigan

This time last year, I was knee-deep in working on my documentary, Albion Anagama.

I learned a lot during the making of that film – about ceramics, and artistic process, and teamwork.

I also learned the value of a dedicated space to do creative work. In this instance, Ken built a fabulous studio on the outskirts of Albion, Michigan, complete with kilns and a garden and lots of space. He and his team had just about everything they needed to do work right there, from music to materials.

The idea of a dedicated work area appeals to me. In my recent house-hunting sojourns, it’s fun to see a basement workshop, or a dark room custom built for a film photographer. Even a simple office works.

At work, I find that taking my laptop and going somewhere fresh and new is a good kick in the butt to get work done. It’s not dedicated space, but it is a new space – and that helps me get some things accomplished.

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Don’t Complain; Make

Canvas of Our Lives

Jörg M. Colberg at Conscientious Photo Magazine:

If you start thinking about it — forgetting about all those oh-so serious problems for a while, photobooks really are incredibly versatile and flexible beasts. They come in many shapes, sizes, editions, … Now, given that nobody is legally required to make a photobook, and given that if you wanted to publish a photobook you could literally do anything you want (as long as it fits the work), isn’t that the best possible situation to be in? Shouldn’t that trigger exactly that creative urge that photographers usually profess to be interested in?

Sky’s the limit.

And so what if no one buys it? The creative exercise is good for you.

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