POSTal

So I just found a great website and I'm super excited! Thanks Ben Speckmann for getting fellow facebookers involved via Proximity Magazine, which launches its live site tonight at midnight. The website is The Post Family which is a collective art magazine, blog, gallery, store, and website based in Chicago.



In other news, I will be interning for Tony Wight Gallery starting December 31st which I am uber excited about. Tony seems pretty open for ambition, so I have a feeling I'll learn a great deal and get to push my ideas more as an intern here at Tony's than in most galleries or institutions.

That's all for now.

Tied Knots

Los Angeles was more amazing than I expected it to be. In fact, I didn't actually take that many pictures and certainly not any serious ones. I know I love a place when I don't feel like I have to capture every moment with a camera; i want to just enjoy the moment without a lense between my eye and the world. There were many awakenings while in the city of angels, and angels i did find.

What LA experience could be complete without a trip to the movies? I went twice to this highly executive-feel and highly executive-priced movie theater in hollywood where i guess all those hollywood openings take place. The day I arrived my friends Eric and Jason picked me up from the airport and after briefly planning our day together it was torn to shreds after Jason convinced us that nothing could surpass going to see a matinee of Rachel Getting Married. And boy was he right.



Anne Hathaway stars in this beautiful film about a recovering addict who attends her sister's weekend wedding that feels so real it's remarkable. No film has completely absorbed me like this one; the performances are all outstanding and make the viewer feel as if not only they were apart of the wedding party but a part of this family. Director Jonathan Demme captured human drama so well that even viewer's deepest unrelated feelings will become unearthed and somehow parallel the film's drama. By far the best film of the year and by far worth throwing our day's plans away for. All three of us sobbed like babies. Here's the trailer:


If ever I get married, this will be the way! What a beautiful, spiritual, and REAL way to get married. And speaking of marriage, congratulations to my best friend Freya Jess D'Amico and her boyfriend, Keith Potempa for their recent engagement! They also traveled to LA for T'giving and it was wonderful having them and their love around us as well.

And speaking of spiritual. Quite unexpectedly while driving in a cramped car with four other people from Hollywood to Beverly Hills with the windows rolled down, the sun setting, and a soundtrack of Nick Cave, I had a spiritual experience and revelation. Not in a long time have I felt such peace and love. In that moment I understood love of humanity. I was surrounded by the greatest loves of my life to which nothing could harm me. With their unconditional love and truly understanding of me, my faults, my praises, and likewise, it allowed me love everyone. This is my God. I understand that God is love now. It's not some bearded white man in a scene of pink and purest white clouds. God, and as cliche as this sounds, really does exist in us, if we allow it. It's not hippie or new age bullshit; it's real, and if you're in the right place at the right time with the right people, I hope you feel it too.

Buddha of the Mountains
Originally uploaded by nkimadams

Needless to say Los Angeles was a revealing trip and also in the art world. I met with DNJ GALLERY which was extremely helpful. I have an interview with Tony Wight Gallery tomorrow about a possible internship with them that would greatly increase my chances of getting a paid gallery job when i move to LA.

Coming back to Chicago was not a great thrill and after spending a week in my friend's LA neighborhood, Echo Park, it makes Chicago's concrete landscape look quite dull. I had only one loose end to tie and now that it is done and settled I am sitting on the knot waiting for March 31st, the day my lease expires and I will move back home for a couple of months before trekking my goals to LA. It is strange to be presently in Chicago, knowing now that it only represents my past.

meditation on time
Originally uploaded by conceptvessel

more on that later....

New Email

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

Tomorrow I leave for LA for a week. Exciting times and soon to have pictures! Also, my email has changed since I don't use mobile.me except for email, so it's not worth paying $190 for. New email: elise.crowsfeet@gmail.com

Pen Pal Me! er...keyboard me!


hearts,

- e l i s e -

A-List Alias

From my recent experience and observation, people are starved for human connection. Why? There are billions of people on this planet, yet very few strive to have interaction with even a tiny fraction of the world's population. Yes, yes, there are those internet dating sights and it is no new news that people are in anxious determination to find love with someone. But that's someone, not humanity. We have become a stifled race with social anxiety, stigmatism, and paralysis. We no longer have the basic skills of how to communicate with others, and when we do happen to find someone in a brief encounter that we connect with, we chicken out because of the before-mentioned problems.
I work at a small upscale grocery market in Wicker Park where I have human interaction constantly. For the most part, people are generally cordial, but every now and then there is the 30-something woman buying her wine and cheese that is too busy gabbing on her iphone to notice the person behind the counter that is depleting her infinite checking account. An even smaller percentage of those I encounter are the ones i find a connection and actually enjoy there encounter at my register. One girl in particular who is around my age and works at my favorite boutique down the street comes in every week. Our first encounter was sparked by our love for FREITAG bags and the store she works. The next week we exchanged names on her initiative. Since then I am all smiles when she comes in because I know a stranger that in a rare circumstance I was able to connect to. However, for these same reasons I'm afraid to pursue any more human interaction besides the one that exists in the grocery market. Fears that surround the "what if she thinks i'm hitting on her" or "what if she thinks i'm creepy, i'm just her grocery clerk," overtake my want to hang out with someone new and someone who seems cool. Was human interaction always this fearful? How did people connect without the internet?

And do you really get to know someone through the internet? My mother has been recommended to join many dating sites recently. Her response has always been that it was too creepy because anybody can lie about themselves. I told her maybe she should have a little more faith in humanity. She then met yet another success story from theresplentyoffish.com a free internet dating site. My mother cynically checked it out and filled out the profile since it was significantly shorter than the others and she is a busy woman. After answering the twenty questions or so, the internet cupid displayed a list of about 15 thumbnails of men that best matched her personality and she was sure to have a connection. Number One? Her ex-husband. Number Two? Her best friend's ex-husband. Needless to say she proved herself right and has refused to look into any more online dating sites, anyone can lie. So when do the internet love-matching guru's figure out that mr. or mrs. right, ain't so right? I guess as soon as the rest of us do with non-internet loves, eh?

I would say in my opinion that most people are pretty comfortable within their large or small circle of friends. No one has time beyond their work/school schedule and time with friends they already know and that know them, to put any effort into someone new, especially if it means that the other could think you're creepy or, heaven forbid, the opposite sexual orientation that you really are, unless it is of course, for love. We tend not to notice that our circle of friends could be expanded until we go through something devastating and lonely, or perhaps just the opposite happens.

In any case, human interaction can be beautiful and well-needed, especially since we're entering the dreary winter months. I implore you to take a risk and strike up a conversation with someone you don't know at all today.

Another amazing resource that is all about basic human connection: Couch Surfing (my personal choice for personal interaction. Couchsurfing keeps me alive and real.

And to throw some art into the mix, this artist, Nick Rodrigues, seems to be doing exactly what I'm talking about.

Working Woman

I am a workin' gal. Though, I must say it is somewhat depressing when someone I know from school comes in to my less-than-glamorous jobs. It makes me feel as though I have failed them in some way; that i am not working my potential. And I'm not. But working 7 days a week 48 hours a week to bay bills hardly cares about your potential, and neither do the loan companies. Holy. mother. of. god. I spit on loans! blechk! If only I could shout out to them while I'm bagging their $15 pasta and Mrs. Meyers soap, "I'm trying! I'm trying!" and, "I tried! I tried! I'm just a proud mary and I'm not going to settle for some crap photo-related job. Instead I settled for crap jobs in a non-related field." Somehow that makes things feel better...and temporary.
It's the pinches of minutes and seconds I have in between two jobs when I can glimpse at some of my recent photos, touch them up, or for god sakes! take a goddamn picture, that keep me sane. Here are the recent pinches of my efforts:




And speaking of temporary. I'm visiting Los Angeles for Thanksgiving to visit my friends/brothers who are a part of Scratch Frame and while there I will have meetings with galleries, including DNJ Gallery which represents Jon Gitelson and Nate Baker and will have their show up while i am there, to talk shop! I plan to move to LA in the spring/summer of '09 so I'm trying to line up possible jobs or at least be pointed in the right direction. How fitting that Jon will be showing his work from "Dream Job." Coincidence? I think not!


In other news you ask? I've sent my canon 5d to the shop finally. ok fine, i haven't yet, but tomorrow i'm off to the post office and then to VOTE! So when i get my camera back you will have the viewing pleasure of seeing more from me, and in a lighter mood photographically. I'll have finally discovered what LA is all about, I will be photographing whatever comes to me, and some easier sketches. Till, then..... VOTE!

What Can You Do With a Sentimental Heart?

currently scanning. not as excited about these as the shower ones, but still promising. i can't wait to shoot another 3 ideas i have. one including the talented miss sarah-louise walker, which by the way, has some stellar photos soon to arrive. I know this because i computer stalked her in the digital lab at school and opened her folder. Nothing short of beautiful. Forget about Michael, Slu's has a fantastic love affair with her new Mamiya 6x7. Also, check out this acquaintance of mine, Nikkita Cohoon who just put up a lovely new website. She's in my links, because I'm too lazy to make her name a link.

n joy

Results

these are rough drafts so excuse the non-matching color correction

coming soon...










and i'm using photos i took a year ago at the beginning of photo sem. i knew i would use these again and they may be some of my favorite photographs i ever took while at columbia.









[more]

Calamity

new pictures will be here soon. in fact, the negatives are right beside me in my purse. negatives of thighs, panty lines, shower scenes, and lactating nipples. needless to say, i am excited.

I don't want to spoil too much fun, but I am in serious collaboration mode. I've met some new people in different areas of the arts that know how to do things i don't. Let's just say that sculpture will be a new-found material in my photographs. And then I'm realizing some old friends' potential in creating something outstanding together. Quite frankly, I feel that if one thinks they can achieve something brilliant in this day of art on their own, they might just suffer from a case of pretention. However, I do have a hard time explaining the big idea in the beginning stages, so a collaboration could just turn into calamity. we shall see.

In other news: I've met some people that want me to collaborate with them, ie, help someone write a book? who knew! The auction benefit for The Renaissance Society, Lovely So Real, went smashingly well for everyone involved. I was able to make some great contacts and got to see with my own eyes the celebrities of the art world in chicago...it was sorta strange.

Things are looking up for me even though I find myself completely surrounded by people too busy to look down and notice me. But every once in a while, someone sneezes, and there I am to hand them a tissue.

Up-Swing

It's no surprise that I should take much more fulfilling pictures post grad and that i would be more inspired creatively after escaping the bog-down of deadlines, instructors, and classes. I have begun to schedule and plot out photographs. and i'm excited.

YOu guys have just seen me write this way. My more formal writings for the THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY are now up on their website for their auction in september. My initials are on the pieces that I wrote for. You should at least check it out to see new art. Some of it's pretty cool. Others are okay.... as usual.

chao.

Googley-Eyed

I've been thinking about the misuse and misunderstanding of common words in the English vocabulary. As a society we're told constantly that we are visual, everything relies on visual context, we listen with our eyes, and basically we've become completely illiterate because we no longer read, unless it's the captions underneath a photograph. This has undoubtedly changed our perception of words, their connotation, and ultimately their meaning. I would not be surprised if a dictionary in a few years became obsolete, replaced only by images of course. Google, I'm sure will jump right on that, since they practically have become THE image database. I decided to an experiment on words that seem to be the most miscommunicated and misunderstood in my own personal experience. I google imaged 6 words: Woman, Man, Desire, Love, Lust, and Sex, and I collaged the first five image results from these words. The results were interesting, but unfortunately not surprising.

WOMAN



MAN



DESIRE



LOVE



LUST



SEX



While coming across the first image in the sex one, there was an interesting article attached to it about hardcore art. check it out here

Removing Linear

I knew the first thing I wanted to do with my work as an artist when I finished Columbia was to move away from linear and series-based photography. It's so boring, so expected. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it's a yawn fest. I don't want to be just a photographer. I'm interested in using all mediums in one project (gasp!) - something Columbia wasn't too friendly with. I still want to discuss the same issues as my senior project but yes, in a different way. I think that people didn't hear me in critiques when I said I wasn't happy yet with the project and how it was photographed. For the time and place it was in the project it was as successful as it could be. People took me saying that I wasn't willing to loose the idea of the project, as me saying I wasn't going to budge photographically or aesthetically. This was THE most frustrating and irritating to handle throughout the nothing-but-frustrating project. Anyways, my head has been spinning with creativity and ideas, but I have no direction. And having no direction is absolute bliss! I know I am guilty as charged for trying to get the point to the viewer as clearly as possible and ended up taking photographs that I would never ever want to take. Caught in that mindset though, I was proud of them. Whatev. Live and learn. I didn't listen to my gut-instict back in photo sem, so after that everything spiraled into a Columbia-inspired, cut and dry, linear piece of crap.

Here are some sketches of ideas that have been running through my head that I've managed to capture on film. It is completely different from my final project but still has the same ideas, which means I'm completely excited about it. I love sitting in a certain way and being instantly inspired. That's what happened here:



Ironically this example is linear, but in a much different way. ha! when i speak of non-linear I mean One photography, the next one, photograph number three, blah blah blah. I'm thinking of Wolfgang Tillmans, who i actually don't particularly care for, but the only example I can think of.

I also like it when you take pictures for a completely different reason that what they turn out, when in context of others. Lika zis one:



Especially in context with this one:


and this one:



And here are some others I like:

Musings

Aha! Reading and visiting Nashville always does me good, creatively anyways. I've currently started writing my screenplay that I am super duper excited about. I didn't think that I would be excited really at all, but I am. I've also got some vague ideas about where my burdened project will continue. Donna Arntzen has gracefully allowed me to use her for my model temporarily. Here is a polaroid sketch of sudden inspiration I gathered from her house:


Here are some more musings from that day:







I've also just today started to storyboard an idea that I've had for about a year or two now. It will be fun, but all I'm going to tell you now is that it involves this car, or one similar to it. So if you know where I can borrow one for a day, let me know.



In the steady stream of trying to find a job that doesn't sell my soul, I came across this artist, Helen Maureen Cooper Beautiful Inspiration from her series "Birds of Appetite."