Memory Bone Myth V, National Show

The Rourke Art Museum is located in Moorehead Minnesota http://www.therourke.org/, Every spring they feature a photography show entitled "Memory Bone and Myth", the call for entries is announced in December for the spring show opening to the public on May-11 running through June-1. Each year a single juror is brought in to judge the show, for the 2014 show Maggie Taylor presided. Olivia Parker was the judge for the previous year's show in 2013. http://www.therourke.org/of-memory-bone--myth.html

I am proud to say this is my second year in the show. What I think is important here is about having empathy for the juror's work, this is not possible for shows where committee juries the work. Below are my four entries, the first one "The Sand Spits A Verse" was the work that was accepted. To better understand what I was doing please read my artist statement located beneath the photographs. All comments welcome.

Artist Statement

The instant the shutter closes the image enters the slipstream of time, drifting

forever into the past.

It is true that I did not take these photographs; I found them in a second hand shop.

Yes I am a working photographer with drive upon drive filled to the limit with my own work, but it is the mystery and joy of the found photograph that is my addiction.

My decisions to use found photographs is to show that images that have a past can feel absolutely present. Photographers are now a species of editors, we all recycle, clip and cut, remix and upload. We can make images do anything. My presentation here is scanned from the original photograph but otherwise manipulation free with only the addition of a caption. Captions are another way to read a photograph, the desire for clarification is universal. Captions add information and meaning and are common in the world of print media but seldom exist on found photographs. The caption acts as a way to situate the viewer’s perspective within the image by questioning the relationship of words to image. The intentionally open-ended wording I have used for the caption is meant only as a starting point for the viewer to engage with the photograph. “The Sand Spits A Verse” becomes a catalyst for the viewer’s memory to recall its own narrative Thereby the photograph becomes present and personal.

Diederik Tamson

2014

One Year and Two Days of Absence

It has been said "A poem is never finished it is just abandoned". A year is like that, a lot of meals pass under the belt, we do our best to find meaning, time passes, we are tested and grow older. I believe that it is necessary for each of us to take our train off the rails, hang a sign that reads "Temporarily out of service"; this is a time of reassessment. In a strange but annoying way a cold or flu forces the out of service situation, we sleep, we stop eating, we blow our nose, wallow in self pity, we change. It is inevitable that our photographic ideas change, we abandon those proverbial photographic pomes we set down our camera for the garden tools and we generally sick of our own photographs anxious to do better. The growing process is a series of skinned knees or worse. Yes this part of the post is a rumination and reminder to myself that I am changing, my work is changing, I have it in me to do better, part affirmation part dear diary. I believe in the Buddhist way, "The path is the destination". So spring is in the air let me show some new work.

This is my first book in over two years, a brief description follows; A photo journal of the Bywater neighborhood / 9th Ward of New Orleans. A walk about that features the industrial canal, a mix of architecture and an insiders view of Thanksgiving dinner on Poland Avenue. Check out the opening day at the "Fairgrounds" as the citizenry dress up, place bets and work up an appetite. This is the side of New Orleans without the tourist, rough around the edges, authentic and without pretense.

First We Eat With Our Eyes by | Make Your Own Book

Here is the cover with out the type.

Post Discovery - Thin Places

For me, when I become immersed in an idea it is though I become magnetic. Ideas or articles that have a direction connection to what I am doing smack me in the face, and say "I am here for you". The following article came to my attention as I was about to throw away a pile of old news papers. If you have an interest in the meaning of sense of place this is for you.

TRAVEL, like life, is best understood backward but must be experienced forward, to paraphrase Kierkegaard. After decades of wandering, only now does a pattern emerge. I’m drawn to places that beguile and inspire, sedate and stir, places where, for a few blissful moments I loosen my death grip on life, and can breathe again. It turns out these destinations have a name: thin places.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/travel/thin-places-where-we-are-jolted-out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1

Research Book Shelf

The author of this book Crady Clay teaches you how to see a community as physical spaces .

Lucy Lippard provides examples of artist and community involvement in the landscape,

 providing insightful comment on the pitfalls and success of making pubic art. 

Dolores Hayden's book uses memory of place and history to  

show how to empower a community by preserving the past.

Supporting ideas and speaking points for "Post Discover", post card project

“In 1906 the fashionable Photo and Lithographed cards made Eastman Kodak enter the marketplace by making an affordable camera called the "Folding Pocket Camera".  The public was now able to take black and white photographs and have them printed right onto postcard backs.  More cameras of this type entered the market which then brought on the Real Photo Postcard era.” http://www.emotionscards.com/museum/historyofpostcards.htm

“Vernacular Photographs - Photographs taken by unknown and anonymous photographers without manipulation of the finished image whose happy accidents and successful failures resulted in surprising and tantalizing works of art.” http://www.emotionscards.com/museum/historyofpostcards.htm

Right from the start anyone with a camera could make a photographic post card. Rotary drum printing allowed mass printing, it is these cards that set up the standard subject matter that we have come to associate with post cards. Color predominates the postcard and is often over looked as it now seems so commonplace.

“Confirming America's love for high color and bright images and a new type of postcard, the color "Photo chrome" (called Chrome or Modern Chromes) appeared.  "Chrome" postcards started to take over the marketplace immediately after they were launched by the Union Oil Company.  Sold in their western service stations, they were easily produced, were of high photo quality and of most importance, they were in true living color!” http://www.emotionscards.com/museum/historyofpostcards.htm

The above research has provided me with two ways of looking at postcards historically; open subject matter of the vernacular, and color. This information has given me a foot hold for me to build upon and hopefully enough information for my professor's to understand my choices within this project.

Now I will guide you through what I intend to do and not do.

Photographic documentation:
First off subject matter is totally open, vast and varied with only the thought of making a documentation photograph. The photograph, may or may not be composed using the traditions of the standard postcard. I hope to make the viewer question my photographic motivation, thereby starting a dialogue. My intent is not to load the image with symbolism for the purposes of a deeper or layered meaning even if on occasional one appears. To serialize my photographs with symbol is not part of my concept. The mundane and the ordinary are my partners along with traditional/ historic postcard fare.

 On titles: Titles tend to load an image with unnecessary information, any preconceptions from verbiage would diminish the discover experience.

My photographic postcards come with a GPS location numbers not with titles. The GPS numbers are a means to make the card interactive. The intention is for the buyer to go beyond the image by navigating to the location.The photographic card is expanded in sight, sound and smell, in fact all the senses used in discovery.  It is after this experience that the image card becomes a souvenir of the experience. This is a reversal the traditional postcard process of purchasing as you exit the experience.

The printed card:
The front of the card is a photographic representation of something you may see at the given location. The image is meant to tease the viewer not provide an iconic representation. The space on the back of the card functions as a traditional postcard in that the card has room for an address and stamp. The message side is full of information and explains how to use the card. A small box at the top will indicated the GPS coordinate of the image location. A URL is provided for the "Post Discovery" on line gallery  and  Google Maps page. The Google Maps page will have all locations marked for any one without a GPS device. Finally a note urges the viewer to enjoy the journey of discovery.

My objective and concept is to engage the viewer through photographic image cards prompting interactivity and discovery. This one act performance is implemented through the historical print medium of the post card, updated with a touch of satellite positioning technology. To my knowledge this has never been done with the postcard.

 Speaking points for  “discovery though photography and postcard”

Show Eggelston’s Red Ceiling photo, question the external, the smell of a bar room, food cooking, music playing, people in room, hot or cold outside, so why is this photo so iconic if we know so little.

1.  A single image can tell you much about a time and place, but it also excludes all the other information surrounding it. It is all the other information that makes place memorable. The GPS enriched post card is yours for discovery.

2. Sense of place can also be defined as “the personality of location”

3. Sense of place includes sight, sound, smell, touch, temperature and taste, in fact all the sense enhance and ingrain memory.

4. Place stimulates visual memory, and memory is important to social history.

          

5. The photograph is a small selection of the surrounding fabric of place.

6.The photographic post card has been used primarily as an exit device, purchased after the visit of a place, used to support or relate experience and discovery.

7. My photographs are intended to be a front-end device encouraging you to get out and be part of the community of discovery.

8. The photos representing place may be traditionally composed or simply gestural studies. Think that to see a great master painting is to stand in awe, but to study the sketchbooks is to understand the thinking behind the painting and the individual. My photos are of my own journey of old and new places, that may be historic, absurd, poetic, abstract and mundane. My idea is to expand not narrow down to a singular way of teasing out discovery.

9.  My post cards do not carry titles; titles would interfere with the discovery process. The journey starts with a photograph image and the proverbial x marks the spot GPS coordinates

.

10. GEO caching is a popular past time for campers/ hikers out-of-door types, usually a guest book is hidden in a sealed box for you to locate (with your hand held GPS device loaded with way points/box locations) as you experience the trail. Geo caching is much like what I offer with the enhance photo post card, with the exception that the destination choices are designed to increase your knowledge of community.

12. My research and own discovery have only been a positive experience, exciting spin off ideas have emerged that could potentially keep me busy for years.

The following information may be useful in designing an interactive map featuring images and image locations.

Google earth has a “Sight seeing tour” feature where you can upload your way points along with photos for other to go on your journeys, my photos would be purchased in print form with the GPS coordinates on the back of the card, designed to get you up and out on a path to making your own experiences.

A look at the bag of thriftshop postcards- part three

As a reminder the numbers below the post card correspond to the  following categories of investigation.
1. subject matter
2. framing of the image
3. intent or message of photograph
4. how the image impacts me

1. subject is modern air travel, more specifically the"Arrival Building — John F. Kennedy International Airport", Idlewild, Queens, New York
2. panoramic with a large portion of the image featuring an area of landscaping
3. the planes would suggest air travel, but the garden suggest soothing earth bound contemplation, complete with fountains nearer to the airport
4. I just love this image, it is a conundrum of sorts, the air planes look pasted on, I would think that a facility of this magnitude of this could do better. This is a naive presentation of a world class airport. This image gives license to do montage work on my own work.

1. "Avenue of Flags Liberty State Park" Jersey City, New Jersey" need I say more
2. a nice diagonal of color with little sense of the park except that it is on a body of water with a bridge visible in the back ground
3. given the variety of the flag this is an historic site with little else than an open area of ground, a visitor souvenir
4. a nice safe image, generic, the beauty here is in the mundane, I hope to capture and show the beauty in the ordinary

1.tourist "spin off", a destination that cannot be mistaken "West Yellowstone is the western gateway to Yellowstone National Park".
2. a "staged" photograph in more than one way
3. a fun stop, the myth of the wild west town is recreated here... with pavement
4. this image leaves me cold, little to engage in, an image compromise for all the shop owners

1. "Flame Azalea in bloom in the Southern Appalachian Mountains", natural botanical
2. a close up defining clusters of blossoms
3. a beautiful blossom that defines the environment
4. this is a "universal experience" for me, I had the good fortune to hike the Roan Mountain in North Carolina a few years ago while this wild Azalea was in bloom with bushes scattered about an open mountain meadow, the sight was a testimony to natures beauty. This post card does not do much for where the plant is found naturally. The shame is the plant would not exist if the environment it grows in were not protected. Here we have half awareness but can appreciate its beauty. The card succeeds.

1."Washington's Bedroom at Mount Vernon" a historical site/museum
2. Nice interior shot, well lite, slight diagonal, with window and door to add "expectation"
3. to provide a visitor with a professional view of their experience, take home collectable
use to jog the memory of a complicated arrangement
4. This is the only interior in the bag of images, suggesting that exterior views are more popular or that not as many public sites have interiors that are open to visitation. I will try and find at minimum one public interior to photograph. I give this postcard two thumbs up.

The Cure for Thinking is Work

“all scholars – need to do less thinking and more working.” When your thinking," Stallybrass writes, “you're usually staring at a blank sheet of paper or a blank screen, hoping that something

will emerge from your head and magically fill that space. Even if something “comes to you’’ there's
no reason to believe that it is of interest, however painful the process has been’’ (1584). This is a
key insight that students and scholars alike need to be reminded of: tortured and laborious
thinking does not automatically translate into anything of importance."


http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/the-cure-for-thinking-is-work/37908

Thank you Mark Sample for relaying this bit of inspiration by Peter Stallybrass