Still looking for that summer music (thanks Paula for the Kanye track). I was aiming for older times and pulled out the classic Bakesale by Sebadoh. I was having an emotional day- so by track 4 or 5, I had already cried, reminisced about things that need not be reminisced and had to begun to be over-agitated. Some brilliant songs but too loaded for heavy rotation.
Anyways I popped in last summer's Wilco album Sky Blue Sky on a drive home with my family the other night and I've gotta say the first few tracks just hit the spot. This one - Impossible Germany - has this sick guitar work by Nels Cline. For me, its sorta edible, the sound has so much personality and texture. You just crave a way to get further inside it leaving you with air guitar as the most direct entry point.
Anyways my enjoyment of this pure guitar rock was brought to a halt as I noticed my wife, mocking my bliss with devil horns raised and a heavy-metal-head-nod. We got into an unresolvable debate about the validity of guitar noodling which she isn't big on. And though I know it is a bit tedious I find it to be rather tasty at times - the jam. And now I know to satiate my summer blues, I need to enter the abyss of glorious rock jams. Santana, Greg Allman, Jerry...here I come.
Untitled (Hoses) from Zack Bent on Vimeo.
Stop-motion animation from earlier this year.
Ok, I am no longer a student, so its time to make a living. Now my freelancing volume has be turned up. So if any of you out there know people who need photography (no weddings please!), graphic design, logo design, video creation or editing, dvd creation, or a random animation for inspirational purposes - point them my way. I will be right here on my computer just waitin'.
After the Wedding is a really somber gripping number - big time emoter. And its Danish - and you know the Danish keep it real.
I wish I could mention all of the awesome summer music I am listening to- but its just not so. The music well is a little dry these days. I like my summer music to be redundant as in you can listen to an album over-and-over and it still feels right. I tried to do this with Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited and it wasn't working for me but it was realllly close. Aesop Rock' None Shall Pass album has been closer.
Any summer offerings out there?
While I was stuck in Crawl Space Gallery, I read this book "Daniel Boone: An American Life" by Michael A. Lofaro. My main objective was to get into pioneer character while I was holed away as a metaphorical frontiersman making a home for my family. These ideas stuck with me for sure:
*Kentucky was the promised land! In it were bear, elk, moose, and loads of bison.
*Boone was INSANELY courageous. Imagine leaving your family for months on end with a lightly packed horse or 2 and a couple pals to go into uncharted land where people lived who would mercilessly kill you because you were on 'their property'. All the while surviving the cold of winter in make-shift cabin or lean-to so you could hunt hundreds of big game animals for pelts. Can you smell the dirt, blood, and guts?
* We have a violent and bloody history (we know this but isn't the reminder important?). Both in interaction with American Indians and with 'the resources' of our land 2oo years ago, namely big game animals.
*Boone was captured by Indians a number of times - once he was adopted and lived happily with the tribe so long people thought we was a traitor.
* While living in Kentucky Daniel Boone wanted to move to Missouri (new promised land) so he fell a poplar tree and made a 60 feet x 5 feet canoe to export all of his family in. That's really big!
* The Boy Scout's were modeled in spirit after Daniel Boone by its founder Dan Beard who regarded Boone "the greatest of all Scouts".
*The council my Boy Scout troop was in was called Buffalo Trace as it was in the northern portion of that migratory trail that Daniel Boone so blissfully hunted in Kentucky.
At the close of the book the author hits a few points regarding Boone's conflicted motivations as he was at once a true man of nature and a hunter, but as well a diplomatic civilian who help to establish many frontier towns that would become cities.
"Boone also mirrored one very central American concern- the conflict of civilization and the wilderness. Which was the ideal state?....These contradictory impulses are still with us. Farms and forests, factories and parks, energy economics and ecology- all are pairs of opposites that are integral though unreconciled parts of the American self-image that Boone represents."
It is fascinating to me that the life Boone lived a few hundred years ago was at once vastly different than ours yet in so many ways an extension of America's current psychological and intellectual make-up
The last few months were blurry and bleary-eyed. Not much energy at the end of the day for 'notices' or 'announcements', so this blog feels like a dry and desolate land. But alas, here is a recap of some art and life haps.
1. My thesis exhibit (a group show of all MFA candidates) was a great finality. My concluding work was a sideswipe, much different than I had anticipated upon entering graduate school, yet spot on. One phrase artist statement: Highly contrived performative, and mythical photographs of my family engaged in play and ritual.
2. The show was bashed by a local critic - headline - "BRAND NEW AND TIRED ALREADY". Ouch! A photo of my work was included in massacre....is that a good thing?
3. I offically graduated college for the 3rd time - Master of Fine Arts - University of Washington. Thesis is available for the scholarly interested...ha!
4. I missed commencement to live in this Crawl Space Gallery for a week. It was a 24 hour lock-in. All materials and survival stuff had to come with me on day one. No works in process were permitted. It was like camping in a basement. Alone with raw materials and powertools = bliss.
5. My family- Gala, Ezra, and Solomon- joined me midweek. Ezra turned 3 while in the hole.
6. We made a covered wagon thing and slept in it and acted the part modern pioneers. Lots of quick videos. Super tight timeline - one week of work and install the next day for the opening that night!!
7. Better luck in the papers this time: Seattle PI and The Stranger. I was particularly stoked by Regina Hackett's description of our images - "He and his family seem barely anchored to the Earth. On some fine day when the sun is shining, they'll sail away." This is my forever art/life objective!
8. Shows come down and Gala and I crawl to Mexico for our first vacation from the kiddos in a loooong time. Lots of siestas and cervezas.
"The three greatest tasks for film in the 20th century are (1) To make the epic, that is to tell the tales of the tribes of the world. (2) To keep it personal, because only in the eccentricities of our personal lives do we have any chances at the truth. (3) To do the dream work, that is, to illuminate the borders of the unconscious. The only film maker I know that does all these three things equally in every film he makes is Andrei Tarkovsky, and that's why I think he's the greatest living narrative film maker." - Stan Brakhage
The long winter.
Seriously...not any any environmental sense. The weather in Seattle has been bearable. But my family has been sick...over and over again. We just got out of our latest.... a 6 week bout of 2 rounds of flu...first the dreadful gastro nastro and then a respiratory chills and thrills thing. That apex of the gastro number was my oldest son Ezra going to the hospital IV style for 3 days on an severe dehydration mission. I feel like I have talked with most people at length on this, but alas I am still in awe.
Somehow, in the midst of my lil' man being hospitalized, I flew to Denver to speak at the Society for Photographic Education national conference. I barely made it to the podium (my own sick), but it happened and it felt good to verbalize my MFA experience. I did an interview with Todd Wemmer for his blog Lost and Found Photos after my talk that resulted in this podcast. Lots of photo speak, but it may be interesting to some. After words I sat on a bed and watched college basketball all weekend which became an image of subsequent weekends.
What the hell happened to Memphis??? I have had a nagging worry for the last week after they handed over the National Championship to Kansas. I will be driving and think, what am I worrying about,...oh, Memphis. Kansas wins in a apparent underdog run, the kind you always root for. But seriously, Memphis gave a up a 9 point lead with 1:30 left. I am still baffled. I have this deep aching sorrow for them. I need to quit watching sports...I get too emotionally involved...
Seriously...not any any environmental sense. The weather in Seattle has been bearable. But my family has been sick...over and over again. We just got out of our latest.... a 6 week bout of 2 rounds of flu...first the dreadful gastro nastro and then a respiratory chills and thrills thing. That apex of the gastro number was my oldest son Ezra going to the hospital IV style for 3 days on an severe dehydration mission. I feel like I have talked with most people at length on this, but alas I am still in awe.
Somehow, in the midst of my lil' man being hospitalized, I flew to Denver to speak at the Society for Photographic Education national conference. I barely made it to the podium (my own sick), but it happened and it felt good to verbalize my MFA experience. I did an interview with Todd Wemmer for his blog Lost and Found Photos after my talk that resulted in this podcast. Lots of photo speak, but it may be interesting to some. After words I sat on a bed and watched college basketball all weekend which became an image of subsequent weekends.
What the hell happened to Memphis??? I have had a nagging worry for the last week after they handed over the National Championship to Kansas. I will be driving and think, what am I worrying about,...oh, Memphis. Kansas wins in a apparent underdog run, the kind you always root for. But seriously, Memphis gave a up a 9 point lead with 1:30 left. I am still baffled. I have this deep aching sorrow for them. I need to quit watching sports...I get too emotionally involved...
