Design and illustration fads seem to dictate that there be some sort of particular animal to fetishize at any given moment. Over the past few years the trajectory has gone something like Birds/Swallows, Antlers, Deer, Birds, Moose, Antlers, Deer, Rabbits, Owls. I like the shape of antlers, I like rabbits and owls, but any fad image becomes boring pretty quickly. However, we seem to have come to sea creatures and I declare right now I will never, ever be tired of sea creatures. They’re often delicate, always alien-looking and endlessly fascinating for me. Also I figure the steampunk fad leads us to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea which has something to do with the popularity of tentacles and starfish and such on t-shirts, home accessories and jewelry lately. Maybe I’m reaching and it’s just a coincidence but hell if reading that book the other month didn’t make me want to command a vessel and dress myself only in seaweed and starfish. Ahem.

Anyway, I was thinking about this today as I trolled Etsy looking for inspiration and I found this fabulous jewelry artist named Laurie Brown who creates great stuff by casting real pygmy seahorses (among other things) in precious metals. I’m in love. Seahorses for everyone. I’m over antlers forever, honest.

The halls of my apartment building are often confusingly littered with bees.

Specimen I

My good friend and fellow photographer Logan sent me an article the other day about the death of photojournalism at the hands of the evil internet and the multitudes of Flickr type amateurs who have overrun the craft and buried it under thousands of poorly-lit snapshots. Phooey! I find this kind of sky-is-falling nonsense misses the fact that we’re living in the most vibrant, democratic and participatory visual culture in the history of the modern world, thanks in no small part to the internet and communities like Flickr.

As usual, he and I got into a long-winded but enjoyable sparring match about the state of photography. Much was stirred but we decided little and I was very curious to hear other opinions on the conversation. So join it, won’t you please?

. . . . . . . . . .

LOGAN:
Read this.

IRENE:
Basically this is just dinosaurs whining because their stranglehold monopoly on a particular market (be it photography or article-writing or news reporting) is being taken away from them by the unwashed masses who now have the technology to try their hand at something and are proving themselves able to learn things–and proving that perhaps the nepotistic cavalry of self-proclaimed experts might not always be better than, we, “the rest of us.”

Those of us lacking “connections” have reason to rejoice at the widening and flattening of the playing field; you might say this is in fact a new golden age for photography now that pretty much any asshole with a camera phone is able to explore it as an art form for simply as a form of personal documentation. When the barriers to entry for any field or art are lowered, there is of course more “chaff” to sort out but there are also more opportunities for good things to surface and be found; I am in short quite open minded about any such broadening of the creative fields even though it means my competition is stiffer and more voluminous; the other hand always holds the truth that this very broadening has made it possible for me, personally, to practice art and documentation and participate in the creative industries as I know them.

LOGAN:
While I do think it is good that more people use photography in their everyday artistic vernacular, I think that there has been a whittling away of standards of quality and because every generation is more and more educated by its peers than its predecessors a lot of these voices, though “new and fresh” or whatever, are also just muddying the waters because with photography in general (as opposed to just pj) there used to be a requisite amount of knowledge and time spent with the craft part of photo which is not necessary these days, and since there is not just more but ridiculously hugely and exponentially more photography to look at.

It is kind of like with bands now - it is not that more fresh stuff is surfacing, but that very few things surface at all unless picked by some old white guy with money and a market research viewpoint of what people want. It is harder to get fans because everyone is a photographer and no one wants to be your fan because their work is “just as good” even though they don’t know how to make a camera give them a shallow or wide depth of field. I don’t think Getty should have all the photo power, but someone ought - and not just the court of public opinion, but someone with a credible, knowledgeable and well-rounded understanding of the medium.
Read more »

I want to send this Wondermark to all my college Art History professors.

I love this necklace–very unexpected and striking the right balance of elegant and eek.

“Beautiful, delicate, unique, and even a little creepy, Stephanie Simek’s eyelash necklaces are unlike any other, Approximately 22 inches including clasp.”

Available at Habit, a repository of really lovely things that I should not be perusing since I’m absolutely not shopping.

I’m helping to organize and curate a photography show that will be opening soon. Fans of FIGMENT and those poor souls who missed it, please come see it!

PRESS RELEASE
Voyeur: A Photo Documentation of the FIGMENT Participatory Arts Event - Opening on Governors Island Sunday, August 10, 2-5 p.m.

Photo at left by Anna.

What: Earlier this summer over 10,000 people came to Governors Island over the course of three days to engage with art projects from over 200 artists. This highly eclectic 100% volunteer effort was a major success for non-commercial art in New York City. While the ruckus has subsided the artistic fervor remains. Voyeur is a photographic exhibition covering the merriment of FIGMENT 2008 located in Building 14 of New York’s most exciting parkland island. For more information on FIGMENT see www.figmentnyc.org.

When: Voyeur opens Sunday, August 10, 2008. Join us for an opening celebration from 2-5 p.m. The exhibit runs until October 12, 2008. Voyeur will be open for viewing Fridays 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Where: Building 14 on Governors Island. Free ferries to the island leave every hour from the Battery Maritime Building in lower Manhattan (right next door to the Staten Island Ferry). [More details]

Who: Voyeur is curated by a team of FIGMENT volunteers who just couldn’t get enough and features images from over 30 photographers.

Cost: Free

What else: While you’re on Governors Island, don’t miss the City of Dreams Mini-golf course. FIGMENT’s free mini-golf course features holes from nine different artists and will be open Fridays through Sundays for the duration of the summer. Donations are accepted to help fund FIGMENT 2009.

Images available upon request.
——————

FIGMENT is a project of Action Arts League, and produced by a coalition of volunteers in partnership with The Pure Project. FIGMENT 2008 is made possible in part with public funds from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and administered by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

The perfect clock for the discerning long-distance relationship couple. From Zwello. Too bad I don’t believe in LDR’s– I’m far too demanding and impatient!

via design-milk.