A few moments and thoughts for 2014

Near the end of 2013 Ben had a conversation with me about composing to a schedule.  This being about a song writing challenge group, and how it might help overcome certain hurdles.   I wasn't fully comfortable with joining it, but it did inspire me to write a bunch of mostly terrible pieces.  Here is a work in progress that I dislike less than most of the others.

http://youtu.be/6h24jmmpvew

Also the images are some of the random balancing of objects I used to do while in public spaces (I mainly just do it with any coins in a tip now standing them on edge).  The movie editor required that I have some kind of image content so I used those stills.  Feel free to not watch, it's not exciting.


The (working) title is Forever Stops Today, but i suspect that is a bit too ridiculous even for me so it will likely change.

what steph and i did on friday...

WE HUNG MY SHOW!

i found a call for hudson valley artists to hang work at a brewery in windham, ny (an hour north of me) and got it!  when i went to view the space though, it was so bright orange...i knew only one series that would really fit in the space...and it's these guys. the four big prints are left over from the scad days...glenn actually printed them for me back when photoscad was still around. they were 4x5 negatives printed digitally. then i added a few 35mm negative/digital prints i shot a couple years ago of bunny rabbits. and then a couple polaroids from the roadtrip of a hippo and rhino finished off the series. they are fun prints. and we had fun hanging it, steph and me, in less than an hour. it felt so refreshing to pull work out of the closet and go get it framed. i also made a wonderful connection with the frame shop lady in woodstock, who gave me a discounted rate for everything and helped with my tight deadline. it also forced me to sign up at the woodstock center for photography and get some time in the digital lab there to scan and edit the smaller images. it was like the best kind of fire under my ass, throwing me back into things and meeting people here. anyway...

pictures below are of the installation (courtesy of steph and her smart phone). artist statement below as well.

Picasso Faces: The Ladies of the Modern Occidentals

Ben at Julliard

Oh my love/Lay me down

This song has been floating around in my headspace for a while, and it feels good to put something down. Sorry for the shabby recording. I put words to it this morning, but those might change. Also, I'm not sure of the title. I think "Lay me down" might work, but not sure. Here it is: Oh my love

aesthetics of joy » Blog Archive » A color language

I thought this was awesome and worth looking at.

http://aestheticsofjoy.com/2011/04/a-color-language/

The Jalopy Theater

So Ben and I went here last night to hear a show.  It was quite the experience.  I thought I would start sharing the ideas I had for recording and setting up his second album there.

Mastering

Since you guys couldn't be there I thought I would share some images of our time in the mastering studio.

Better Luck Dead Man

So,  Haven't posted on here for a little bit.  I thought I would share the music I have been making.

In recommended order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RHz8UOFYLY&feature

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDZKrsL7X-w&feature

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNAahTHv2Mk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbE44I3rgkc&feature=related

honey work

in progress...jar not full yet.
taxidermy rat, honey, hydrophilic polymer beads, glass vase. I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe the answer is in the process.

click for larger image.

i like this. sharing w/you (artist).

Simple people, people who don't exist, prefer things which don't exist, simple things.

"Good" and "bad" are simple things. You bomb me= "bad." I bomb you= "good." Simple people(who, incidentally, run this socalled world) know this (they know everything) whereas complex people—people who feel something—are very, very ignorant and really don't know anything.

Nothing, for simple knowing people, is more dangerous than ignorance. Why?

Because to feel something is to be alive.

"War" and "peace" are not dangerous or alive: far from it. "Peace" is the inefficiency of science. "War" is the science of inefficiency. And science is knowing and knowing is measuring.

Ignorant people really must be educated; that is, they must be made to stop feeling something, and compelled to begin knowing or measuring everything. Then (then only) they won't threaten the very nonexistence of what all simple people call civilization.

Very luckily for you and me, the uncivilized sun mysteriously shines on "good" and "bad" alike. He is an artist.

Art is a mystery.

A mystery is something immeasurable.

In so far as every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery of every man and woman and child. In so far as a human being is an artist, skies and mountains and oceans and thunderbolts and butterflies are immeasurable; and art is every mystery of nature. Nothing measurable can be alive; nothing which is not alive can be art; nothing which cannot be art is true: and everything untrue doesn't matter a very good God damn…

item:it is my complex hope that the pictures here exhibited are neither “good” nor “bad”, neither peacelike nor warful—that (on the contrary) they are living.


~ee cummings, i six nonlectures (excerpted from an essay prefacing the catalogue of an exhibition of his paintings)

sketches continued...with words?

and, new photos.

Erasure #1 Page 1

AND THE SEA WILL TELL

At once beautiful and forbidding, this uninhabited tropical atoll is off the well-traveled path of the trade winds. Situated dead center in the Pacific Ocean, Palmyra was discovered by accident only in the last century. If one were to search the high seas for a setting that would lend itself to impenetrable mystery, this lonely outpost would not disappoint.

     From afar, Palmyra is seductive: tall coconut trees and stretches of beach are enveloped by a coral reef and the brilliant shallows of the tropical ocean.

     Once ashore, however, one finds that the vegetation that looks so lush and inviting from a distance is impassable except with a machete. Hordes of land crabs claim squatter's rights to much of the island. The beaches are not sandy, but rocky, and surrounded by coral as sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, capable of shredding the ribs of the sturdiest vessel. Only a narrow passage in the reef on the southwestern side allows access to a lagoon populated by schools of colorful fish, temptingly meaty but poisonous to eat. And it doesn't take long to notice in the... 

recording is unfun

For some reason, it takes me so long to record something. Even when it is just with a phone. I want to do it more often, but alas, so many other projects get in the way. Ok. Enough complaining. I finally recorded my first 2 tunes I wrote for violin/voice. More is coming soon. Just kidding. More is coming a long time from now.

Get Into The River

Bird Song

recent assemblages

Some of the small pieces currently kicking around my studio. I think of them as sketches.

New Photo series.

Howdy folks.   No one has posted here in a while and so I thought I would invite everyone to post through their own email accounts so that there is one less signing in step, making it easier.   Also we can use this to lock down the site even further by making it available to the authors only (us when we are logged in).


Enough about that, I have been doing some photographitization.   The only one I haven't shot yet from this group is Ben, which necessitates a meet up of some kind me thinks.   Pictures are below.  Steph only shows up in two of the test exports and Anna in none.  I will update in a few weeks or so, have taken a pause on this series.    Will write more about it after the images.

The original idea was to create an automatic camera process that would create some form of cubist-esque images, as illustrated in the last two in this post.  But I started getting more into the images above creating chains of self and combining self with others. There is a good chance I will do some form of singular portrait with all the images I take, but I don't know how interested I am in the original idea.

2 tunes

here are a couple tunes. the first one is hank williams' lonesome whistle, and the second is my tune called let's jump.

it would be nice to have a way to put tunes here that i didn't have finished. ie an online open mic. otherwise i'm waiting for finished products to show to the world. maybe i should just use youtube? thoughts?

"Looking for that Lost Photograph" | Sketches

Please go to Stephanie Lazensky to see a fuller (though not complete) collection of images. I have been photographing like this for almost 4 years, tucking the images away in a small sketchbook (not their final destination, I hope). I will write more in later posts, but first I would like to get general comments and questions. The working title of this series comes from a poem by Maxine Chernoff.

Old Photocopier stuff

In going through some stuff in storage I came across some images I made in Japan. They are highly varied, but I am just posting two right now, since all of the others that I captured came out blurry. my plan is to make high-res scans of them so that I can play with them more easily. The smallest of the images are 8x10 but most of them are 10x14 ish. I will post more when I have slightly better photos of them and if people seem interested, in discussing them.

Studio Door Affirmations

Affirmations are positive statements that describe a desired situation, and which are repeated many times, in order to impress the subconscious mind and trigger it into positive action. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the affirmations, they have to be repeated with attention, conviction, interest and desire.

What will your affirmation be?