The area around 7th St. Stretching from Snyder to Shunk.
Tech: Nikon F100, Arista 400 film (same as Tri-X, I think). Lab development and scan by Photo Lounge.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
12 31 09 Images from the Neighborhood
The area around 7th St. Stretching from Snyder to Shunk.
Tech: Nikon F100, Arista 400 film (same as Tri-X, I think). Lab development and scan by Photo Lounge.
12 31 09 Update
Photo: Former Jeweler's Row jeweler, Harry Azoff discusses with Tom Carroll the finer points of harmonica playing.
The transferring and burning to DVD of the six plus hours of interviews took a big chunk of time. I already everything transferred but it took the better part of the previous evening and the morning of Tuesday, the 29th, to get everything on disc. Additionally, there were a number of musical references that surfaced over the course of the interviews and I put together a CD of them from my own collection. The interviewees were very happy to get both and I saw everyone except Harry Azoff, who probably stayed home because of the bitter cold that day. I got to spend some time just "being there" at the center rather than for some specific activity. I had a very interesting conversation, with a center-goer about felonious activities that used to go on in the neighborhood, something that so far none of those interviewed ever mentioned.
While I was in the neighborhood, despite the cold, I took some pictures, which I should have later today. I really need a dslr! The price of film and developing keeps on rising.
Phoebe and I are working this week to development a lesson plan for Taggart. I am meeting with Margaret Chin, principal at Taggart next week. More details soon.
Meanwhile, I am in consultation with Frank Siciliano, the man who built "Boris" my magic lantern projector, concerning building a prototype mutoscope as lead up to the final model. I have my Phase I wrap done save for the budget, which spurred my contact with him.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
12 23 09 Update:
I spent yesterday transferring all the interview video onto a mirrored RAID drive. I then need to convert the video again to audio mp3's for Tom Carroll to use, and to DVD format so it can go to the various interviewees and also be easily watched. I'm retaining everything on the one terabyte drive for easy future access. It's over six hours worth and though I didn't watch all of it, I revisited much.
There is more planned for after the New Year, which will round the Stiffel interviews out to eight. Additionally, I hope to interview other people who do not attend Stiffel.
Two things struck me as I watched the videos. The people interviewed rarely talked about objects and their acquisition. Many talked about poverty, but not about things they purchased other than perhaps saving up money for a musical instrument. My point being, as a group, their lives appear to have been very much not oriented around material gain for its own sake.
Also, recollections of how difficult or tough the neighborhood was in terms of street life varied with the women not mentioning it at all and emphasizing the connectedness and harmony in the neighborhood for the most part. The parallel story being that Stiffel has filled the void for many older residents, creating a new sense of community and even connecting people back to neighbors and relatives to which they had lost track.
The men had more "war stories," but then again it varied from recollections of doing a wrestling tackle on a larger opponent (David Welsh) to fending off a group of neighborhood toughs with a burning stick. (Joe Pepper) My only surmise is that like today, one's perception and experience has a lot to do with what circles one runs, personal temperament, and the ability to avoid trouble before it escalates.
There is more planned for after the New Year, which will round the Stiffel interviews out to eight. Additionally, I hope to interview other people who do not attend Stiffel.
Two things struck me as I watched the videos. The people interviewed rarely talked about objects and their acquisition. Many talked about poverty, but not about things they purchased other than perhaps saving up money for a musical instrument. My point being, as a group, their lives appear to have been very much not oriented around material gain for its own sake.
Also, recollections of how difficult or tough the neighborhood was in terms of street life varied with the women not mentioning it at all and emphasizing the connectedness and harmony in the neighborhood for the most part. The parallel story being that Stiffel has filled the void for many older residents, creating a new sense of community and even connecting people back to neighbors and relatives to which they had lost track.
The men had more "war stories," but then again it varied from recollections of doing a wrestling tackle on a larger opponent (David Welsh) to fending off a group of neighborhood toughs with a burning stick. (Joe Pepper) My only surmise is that like today, one's perception and experience has a lot to do with what circles one runs, personal temperament, and the ability to avoid trouble before it escalates.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
12 6 09 Update.
Tom Carroll and I visited the Lao Buddhist Temple on 20th and Washington on Saturday, 12/5. The space is extremely visually rich, overflowing with color and pattern. It was a bit much to take in, but we were made very welcome and I spent most of the time just gazing at the altar and the paintings on the walls, some done locally.
I found that I'm not the first one to envision a giant mutoscope. An RIT student and friends built one in 2008. I have contacted them, but no reply as yet. I have a pretty good idea how to go about constructing such a unit and what the engineering problems are, but it would be nice to talk to someone who has been that route.
Why a "giant" unit? I want the rig to be very hands-on and the larger the drum and more spaced the cards are, I believe, the better it will run with fewer problems of sticking cards, etc. Also a large size will allow for large, vivid images that have lots of detail and texture. I think that's important.
Where my thinking is right now is that I want to bring something to the mutoscope reel or the unit itself that is different and reflective of what I've found in the neighborhood. I'm thinking about "an interrupted narrative." That is, there would be some kind of story line but from that, I would remove sections or draw/paint/overlay them with other images. I'm thinking too that a great project for Taggert might be to have the students make flip books and incorporate some of those sections into the reel. It's really a daunting formal problem, which is probably why I like it so much--the permutations are virtually endless and full of possibility. Another possibility is to have two or more reels with different sequencing for people to view--sort of a them and variation or even have that within the one reel, having the same narrative repeat, but also change. I'm hooked.
Don't ask me why I thought of this, but a long time I had an idea for a conceptual piece that was a filming at foot level of the joining where building meets sidewalk of a full city block. Maybe something like that could serve as an anchor.
I'm going to need to make a small mutoscope soon, preferably one where the cards can be changed. I saw one online called a Retroscope. It's probably harder to build than it looks, but I think it would be a good starting point.
I found that I'm not the first one to envision a giant mutoscope. An RIT student and friends built one in 2008. I have contacted them, but no reply as yet. I have a pretty good idea how to go about constructing such a unit and what the engineering problems are, but it would be nice to talk to someone who has been that route.
Why a "giant" unit? I want the rig to be very hands-on and the larger the drum and more spaced the cards are, I believe, the better it will run with fewer problems of sticking cards, etc. Also a large size will allow for large, vivid images that have lots of detail and texture. I think that's important.
Where my thinking is right now is that I want to bring something to the mutoscope reel or the unit itself that is different and reflective of what I've found in the neighborhood. I'm thinking about "an interrupted narrative." That is, there would be some kind of story line but from that, I would remove sections or draw/paint/overlay them with other images. I'm thinking too that a great project for Taggert might be to have the students make flip books and incorporate some of those sections into the reel. It's really a daunting formal problem, which is probably why I like it so much--the permutations are virtually endless and full of possibility. Another possibility is to have two or more reels with different sequencing for people to view--sort of a them and variation or even have that within the one reel, having the same narrative repeat, but also change. I'm hooked.
Don't ask me why I thought of this, but a long time I had an idea for a conceptual piece that was a filming at foot level of the joining where building meets sidewalk of a full city block. Maybe something like that could serve as an anchor.
I'm going to need to make a small mutoscope soon, preferably one where the cards can be changed. I saw one online called a Retroscope. It's probably harder to build than it looks, but I think it would be a good starting point.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
11/18/09 A New Direction!
It was one of those "Aha!" moments. I love the idea of the magic lantern show (in fact I am still doing one on my own that I hope to tour with next year), but as the questions of public art started to be examined last week in our meetings, my thinking started to change. Returning to video work this week, via interviews I taped at Stiffel, planted some ideas in my head as well.
In 2005-2006 I spent a year making a twelve minute video collage: Earth, Water, Fire. The "Fire" section is on You Tube (Click here!) Shortly after, I got heavily involved with the Polaroid photography and the work that eventually led to Tsirkus. Many of the same aesthetic elements of my photography are also in the video: juxtapositions of imagery, bending of the medium, serendipitous visual intersections, things that connect old to new, and ambiguous narrative.
Somehow the idea of the old-style "flip-movie" machine got back into my head. These machines (called Mutoscopes) survived in old, dusty Bodegas in my old neighbourhood in Manhattan according to my older sister. I missed them by a few years, but was always fascinated by the romantic notion of low-tech, essentially hand-made moving images, something run just off a hand-crank that allowed you to glimpse into another, perhaps poetic world. OK. Truth be told, these machines were mainly about parting a quarter dollar from the patron and were often much less than artful, pornographic.
Using lantern slides, I had thought about multiple projectors to get a kind of collage effect, but that's complicated, expensive and temporal and not particularly public; it has to exist in a special space and requires a "performance." Also, I was somewhat concerned with overlap with Kate's idea to project video. Why not a Mutoscope kiosk that can be moved from neighborhood to neighborhood? It can eventually "live" somewhere permanently too, even if it has to be trimmed down, such as just keeping the essential optical-mechanical insides and the documentation?
A set of the flip-cards could fan out and become part of a mural or an installation. I think it will take about 300-600 cards to run a minute, it might be fascinating to see all the cards up on a wall somewhere or as a kind of funky, articulated banner/mythic animal before they become a moving image. The technology of making a Mutoscope is do-able, in some ways simpler and more straight forward than a high-powered lantern projector.
Bullet points:
-Allows collage-ing of video snippets, text, and images. I can even deconstruct an image, making it look progressively older.
-Endless loop of images with no beginning or end wherein there are layers and pieces that emerge and submerge, could be seen as a kind of metaphor. The hand-cranked image can be slowed, lingered over, and revisited.
-Creates a new, experimental medium that other artists might want to explore; possibly gives the project a continued life beyond this funded year.
-Brings the 7th St. Corridor to other neighborhoods since it can "tour."
-Will act as a magnet to attract visitors to the neighborhood during business hours.
-Allows for a detailed and complex images to be viewed, much like the magic lantern.
-Can be appreciated on many levels: aesthetic, conceptual, mechanical/technical.
-Participatory, but not totally passive.
-Quick! Something someone can check even if have a minute or two.
-Will encourage dialogue on the street.
-Design and construction of the kiosk casework would involve local artists like Phat Long (Cambodian sculptor) , Ricky Tenaglia (painter), and John Tenaglia (woodworker).
-Fits in well, I think, with the works planned by the other project artists.
-Connects old to new both technologically and visually.
-Links with the history of popular entertainment in the neighborhood. As far as I can tell, other than pool, movies were the prime entertainment outside of the home.
-Requires a "looking in," essentially a discovering of what lies inside, much like the way I have found things in my own explorations. What you see is NOT what you get--it's way more.
-Needs no power source, just sunlight.
I look forward to hearing what other people think about this idea!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
11/15/09 More updates/ The Stories Emerge
The week following Halloween got away from me. I did what turned out to be an enormous, all-night Halloween party as a public shoot in NYC . You can see the images in the gallery section of of Tsirkus.org . The post-processing of forty-three images in the span of a week ate most of my time, but timeliness, especially with something like this is crucial. Although not directly coupled to this project, there is always indirect value added by doing related work. In this case it was figuring out how to handle large numbers of images (I definitely need a better/faster scanner and computer arrangement). Additionally, I think the overall photography and technique took a significant jump forward on this shoot, giving me even more ideas.
Not to justify idleness, but even in a supposed "down time" from the project, there is a large amount of cogitation going on, especially with a project as vast and involved as this. I'm thinking at this point that I do still want to magic lantern plates but to also do additional photography (such as in the streets) that would overlay the images as they are projected and these would be 35mm glass mounted slides that are cheaper to make and easier to project. The visual combining/subtraction, connections and juxtapositions will act as metaphor for the neighborhood as an evolving structure of parallels and intersections. Ideas that I try out and those that arrive through serendipity will be part of the experimental structure. Kodak carousel projectors are very cheap right now and it could be perhaps four to eight projectors orchestrated together, maybe even "played" in a sense and combined with some projected video and music/sound track.
In terms of gathering more material to work with, I'm still leaning toward one or two large public shoots. Essentially, these would be orchestrated as an event, a party, for the neighborhood, where the "admission price" is to bring a story or something that connects the person to their family history and the history of the neighborhood. Food is essential! Apparently a big draw at Stiffel is that they feed people. I also like the idea of food as cross/cultural sharing.
This Thursday and Friday, Tom Carroll interviewed people at Stiffel and I videotaped them. A picture of the neighborhood as it was in previous years really started to emerge in a very real, human way. Four people recounted their life histories, most exceeding the half hour we had allotted for each interview. A number of common threads seemed to emerge:
1. The area in some ways was like an old world "shtetl;" most people lived, worked, worshiped, and played within a fairly small boundary, only occasionally making special trips outside that perimeter.
2. Those who stayed were content and didn't see the need to move away.
3. Most people were poor but making a go of it. Children were not pressured to work.
4. Various ethnic groups generally lived on separate blocks; although there was some ethnic but no racial intermixing of housing. African-American children might visit a white neighborhood where they had schoolmates, but apparently not the reverse.
5. Generally, the various groups got along although occasionally there were instances of kids beating up other kids and words exchanged.
6. Row-house synagogues abounded (often "landsman" from a particular region would band together) and apparently pool was a big community entertainment with a number of pool halls operating in the neighborhood.
7. Baseball and its street variants were very popular.
8. Although parents knew Yiddish, they talked to their children in English. Still, the children apparently did pick up the language, at least minimally.
9. Interviewees mentioned attendeding Hebrew School, but none Yiddish day school, such as those run by the Arbeter Ring.
10. Brick and mortar establishments were predominantly Jewish, with African-Americans not owning any.
I've always kind of known this, but being steeped in Yiddish through my work at Penn, I always hoped I would find out otherwise, but people gave up their yidishkayt (Yiddishkeit) very quickly as is evidenced by the three Jewish men we interviewed. Baseball became more important than reading Peretz, Sholem Aleichem or studying the Talmud. Bennie Goodman, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Lunceford, et. al were more important than singing folk tunes from the old country and if music was made at home, it was more likely to be an American standard than anything else. However, some attachments don't die. When, I believe Nathan Pepper was asked about why it was important to not let the Emily St. ("Little") Shul close he said, and I paraphrase: "It would be wrong, a waste, a sin."
Stories/Images:
1. A 90lb boy, working for a grocer having to haul one hundred pound sacks of flour from one store to another using a wheelbarrow. He wheeled the sack to the recipient store, perhaps ten blocks away, and the owner demanded that he bring the sack of flour inside. He refused. His boss fired him.
2. Mrs Rubinstein, the the "Nut Lady," who supposedly weighed 500 lbs, could barely get around and had a business on Seventh Street selling all kinds of nuts, including roasted "Polly" (sunflower--most likely since pet birds "Pollies" ate them too) seeds.
3. People would buy a bag of seeds for 25 or 50 cents and eat them on the front steps, letting the shells litter the street.
4. The immigrant Italian grandfather, a baker, who was too poor to afford shoes and used burlap bags as boots.
5. A Jewish boy leaving the Toyre Talmud and being set upon by a band of neighborhood toughs, grabbing a burning branch (probably from a burning trash barrel) and fending them off.
6. Working in a factory making Jack-in-the-boxes, operating a stamping machine and getting a hand caught in the works.
7. Toiling for a $1 a day at a pushcart on seventh street. "It was so cold we couldn't speak."
(Not on video, told to me during a lunch at Stiffel.)
On the historical research front, my friend Sandy Lehan, who does house histories has turned up some information on the four locations in the neighborhood, nothing earth-shaking but it does show a fair amount of turn-over, also women holding land title and many sheriff sales, The sheriff auctions are not surprising given the poor and risky character of an emerging neighborhood. Also, I remember finding out when I worked for HSP, evidence that loan associations were predatory, even to their supposed "own." A quick way to turn a dollar (especially when interest rates were very low) was to issue a loan to a marginal customer and then foreclose a year or so down the line, keeping the paid-in equity, and then buying back the property to re-sell, yet again. This was corroborated by my boss at Penn, an 80 year-old ex-real estate lawyer.
This coming week we will be looking at ward maps of area and seeing if we can get census data (hopefully it has been culled already) to get a picture fo the neighborhood demographics from approximately 1890 to 2000. We are also going to take a stab at finding out where the row-house shuls were since it appears they would have been tax-exempt properties.
Not to justify idleness, but even in a supposed "down time" from the project, there is a large amount of cogitation going on, especially with a project as vast and involved as this. I'm thinking at this point that I do still want to magic lantern plates but to also do additional photography (such as in the streets) that would overlay the images as they are projected and these would be 35mm glass mounted slides that are cheaper to make and easier to project. The visual combining/subtraction, connections and juxtapositions will act as metaphor for the neighborhood as an evolving structure of parallels and intersections. Ideas that I try out and those that arrive through serendipity will be part of the experimental structure. Kodak carousel projectors are very cheap right now and it could be perhaps four to eight projectors orchestrated together, maybe even "played" in a sense and combined with some projected video and music/sound track.
In terms of gathering more material to work with, I'm still leaning toward one or two large public shoots. Essentially, these would be orchestrated as an event, a party, for the neighborhood, where the "admission price" is to bring a story or something that connects the person to their family history and the history of the neighborhood. Food is essential! Apparently a big draw at Stiffel is that they feed people. I also like the idea of food as cross/cultural sharing.
This Thursday and Friday, Tom Carroll interviewed people at Stiffel and I videotaped them. A picture of the neighborhood as it was in previous years really started to emerge in a very real, human way. Four people recounted their life histories, most exceeding the half hour we had allotted for each interview. A number of common threads seemed to emerge:
1. The area in some ways was like an old world "shtetl;" most people lived, worked, worshiped, and played within a fairly small boundary, only occasionally making special trips outside that perimeter.
2. Those who stayed were content and didn't see the need to move away.
3. Most people were poor but making a go of it. Children were not pressured to work.
4. Various ethnic groups generally lived on separate blocks; although there was some ethnic but no racial intermixing of housing. African-American children might visit a white neighborhood where they had schoolmates, but apparently not the reverse.
5. Generally, the various groups got along although occasionally there were instances of kids beating up other kids and words exchanged.
6. Row-house synagogues abounded (often "landsman" from a particular region would band together) and apparently pool was a big community entertainment with a number of pool halls operating in the neighborhood.
7. Baseball and its street variants were very popular.
8. Although parents knew Yiddish, they talked to their children in English. Still, the children apparently did pick up the language, at least minimally.
9. Interviewees mentioned attendeding Hebrew School, but none Yiddish day school, such as those run by the Arbeter Ring.
10. Brick and mortar establishments were predominantly Jewish, with African-Americans not owning any.
I've always kind of known this, but being steeped in Yiddish through my work at Penn, I always hoped I would find out otherwise, but people gave up their yidishkayt (Yiddishkeit) very quickly as is evidenced by the three Jewish men we interviewed. Baseball became more important than reading Peretz, Sholem Aleichem or studying the Talmud. Bennie Goodman, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Lunceford, et. al were more important than singing folk tunes from the old country and if music was made at home, it was more likely to be an American standard than anything else. However, some attachments don't die. When, I believe Nathan Pepper was asked about why it was important to not let the Emily St. ("Little") Shul close he said, and I paraphrase: "It would be wrong, a waste, a sin."
Stories/Images:
1. A 90lb boy, working for a grocer having to haul one hundred pound sacks of flour from one store to another using a wheelbarrow. He wheeled the sack to the recipient store, perhaps ten blocks away, and the owner demanded that he bring the sack of flour inside. He refused. His boss fired him.
2. Mrs Rubinstein, the the "Nut Lady," who supposedly weighed 500 lbs, could barely get around and had a business on Seventh Street selling all kinds of nuts, including roasted "Polly" (sunflower--most likely since pet birds "Pollies" ate them too) seeds.
3. People would buy a bag of seeds for 25 or 50 cents and eat them on the front steps, letting the shells litter the street.
4. The immigrant Italian grandfather, a baker, who was too poor to afford shoes and used burlap bags as boots.
5. A Jewish boy leaving the Toyre Talmud and being set upon by a band of neighborhood toughs, grabbing a burning branch (probably from a burning trash barrel) and fending them off.
6. Working in a factory making Jack-in-the-boxes, operating a stamping machine and getting a hand caught in the works.
7. Toiling for a $1 a day at a pushcart on seventh street. "It was so cold we couldn't speak."
(Not on video, told to me during a lunch at Stiffel.)
On the historical research front, my friend Sandy Lehan, who does house histories has turned up some information on the four locations in the neighborhood, nothing earth-shaking but it does show a fair amount of turn-over, also women holding land title and many sheriff sales, The sheriff auctions are not surprising given the poor and risky character of an emerging neighborhood. Also, I remember finding out when I worked for HSP, evidence that loan associations were predatory, even to their supposed "own." A quick way to turn a dollar (especially when interest rates were very low) was to issue a loan to a marginal customer and then foreclose a year or so down the line, keeping the paid-in equity, and then buying back the property to re-sell, yet again. This was corroborated by my boss at Penn, an 80 year-old ex-real estate lawyer.
This coming week we will be looking at ward maps of area and seeing if we can get census data (hopefully it has been culled already) to get a picture fo the neighborhood demographics from approximately 1890 to 2000. We are also going to take a stab at finding out where the row-house shuls were since it appears they would have been tax-exempt properties.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
10 27 09 Updates
Tom and I met with Margaret Chin and Jason Mango at Taggert Elementary to discuss the possibility of joining forces and working part of the Journeys South project into the curriculum. We also toured the school and met with various persons including Mr. Riffel, the art teacher there. He had done a lot of research at HSP and was pretty sure he remembered seeing me around the reading room. All around, everyone was quite enthusiastic. At this point, Tom and I, in concert with the advisory board need to come up with a proposal that we will shoot back to them and see if it's do-able.
We did more roaming of the neighborhood including the big Vietnamese (?) supermarket at 3rd and Oregon behind the Oregon Diner. As an aside, the prices were extremely low, beautiful produce (though not organic) and all kinds of spices and teas (which I intend to sample).
We then had lunch at a place oddly named "Happy Clams," a Cambodian restaurant right on 7th by Snyder Ave. We were the only ones in the place, were made extremely welcome, and we got to talk with one of the owners who is an artist named Phat Long. He has a workshop right in back of the restaurant, works at CRC, an industrial chemicals plant, in Warminster four days a week for ten hours each day and runs the restaurant Friday-Sunday. The restaurant has a lot of sculptures and reliefs from the Reamker (Ramayana) that he did.
(For $6 I got a big plate of big flat rice noodles and some kind of green vegetable that was perhaps Chinese broccoli all topped off with a delicious sauce. There were additional hot sauces on the table. Very satisfying although it was clear that this vegan request was unusual. The whole menu is either meat or seafood.)
A return visit is definitely in order to talk to Phat and see if perhaps I can photograph some of the sculpture to incorporate into the project and also to talk more about his experiences of immigration and the neighborhood.
Tom and I then proceeded to Stiffel to discuss doing oral histories and we plan to videotape them on Nov. 12th and 13th. I may use some of the videotape in my project at least to inform what I do. I also asked Susan Hoffman to move the shooting at Stiffel to January since I suspect that any shoot I do will end up being THE shoot and I want to have time to prepare.
Today, the 29th, I brought the Pecha-Kucha style slide show that I made for First Person Arts to Stiffel. I was actually able to read my notes since the room wasn't pitch black and it went very well. I was more practiced and I think the group of eighteen or so seniors really enjoyed my patter. I'm hoping to create at least a little bit of a buzz so that by the time I shoot people have an inkling as to what Mural Arts, the project, and me are about.
Next week I plan to do some some photography on the streets of the neighborhood, possibly with the the Graflex, but more likely with my old Rollei that makes a pretty high-resolution image on 120 film. I want to get some images before the weather gets too cold.
Lastly, I am starting to get some ideas for how I want to assemble the final project, but I'm still keeping flexible and my cards close!
We did more roaming of the neighborhood including the big Vietnamese (?) supermarket at 3rd and Oregon behind the Oregon Diner. As an aside, the prices were extremely low, beautiful produce (though not organic) and all kinds of spices and teas (which I intend to sample).
We then had lunch at a place oddly named "Happy Clams," a Cambodian restaurant right on 7th by Snyder Ave. We were the only ones in the place, were made extremely welcome, and we got to talk with one of the owners who is an artist named Phat Long. He has a workshop right in back of the restaurant, works at CRC, an industrial chemicals plant, in Warminster four days a week for ten hours each day and runs the restaurant Friday-Sunday. The restaurant has a lot of sculptures and reliefs from the Reamker (Ramayana) that he did.
(For $6 I got a big plate of big flat rice noodles and some kind of green vegetable that was perhaps Chinese broccoli all topped off with a delicious sauce. There were additional hot sauces on the table. Very satisfying although it was clear that this vegan request was unusual. The whole menu is either meat or seafood.)
A return visit is definitely in order to talk to Phat and see if perhaps I can photograph some of the sculpture to incorporate into the project and also to talk more about his experiences of immigration and the neighborhood.
Tom and I then proceeded to Stiffel to discuss doing oral histories and we plan to videotape them on Nov. 12th and 13th. I may use some of the videotape in my project at least to inform what I do. I also asked Susan Hoffman to move the shooting at Stiffel to January since I suspect that any shoot I do will end up being THE shoot and I want to have time to prepare.
Today, the 29th, I brought the Pecha-Kucha style slide show that I made for First Person Arts to Stiffel. I was actually able to read my notes since the room wasn't pitch black and it went very well. I was more practiced and I think the group of eighteen or so seniors really enjoyed my patter. I'm hoping to create at least a little bit of a buzz so that by the time I shoot people have an inkling as to what Mural Arts, the project, and me are about.
Next week I plan to do some some photography on the streets of the neighborhood, possibly with the the Graflex, but more likely with my old Rollei that makes a pretty high-resolution image on 120 film. I want to get some images before the weather gets too cold.
Lastly, I am starting to get some ideas for how I want to assemble the final project, but I'm still keeping flexible and my cards close!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
10 13 09 More Updates.
The reverse-processed slide worked quite well. I fetched Boris from Langhorne on Sunday and then brought him to the Arts Bank on Monday for a tech. The slide is very vivid, but a bit dark. It's clear the projector needs some technical upgrades and the slides need to be made a bit less dense, but these are all reasonably easy. If I'm to project outside and really large, I'll need to fabricate a new projector. Boris is beautiful, but not efficient enough in my estimation for really huge projections.
I have tentatively set three dates with Stieffel. One to show slides and discuss my work and two to shoot. The dates are:
Work discussion/side show: Thursday Oct. 29th at 1-2pm. I'm still hoping to get someone who wants to present work back-to-back with me, but I'm not banking on it and am pretty sure I can talk for an hour.
I have two dates for vintage portrait shoots with the persons who visit the center. They are:
Friday, Nov. 13th and 20th from 9:30 to 2:30. I hope to shoot about thirty portraits each day.
I love the idea of bringing something forth as a way of connecting and I think this will be a great way to feel things out in terms of creative participation and my own way of working.
Additionally, I met today with Kathy McFadden an artist who lives on the 2400 block of Darien and she gave me some insights, nothing I'd consider earth-shaking, but I feel like each piece of the landscape I accumulate brings me closer to some synthesis.
I have tentatively set three dates with Stieffel. One to show slides and discuss my work and two to shoot. The dates are:
Work discussion/side show: Thursday Oct. 29th at 1-2pm. I'm still hoping to get someone who wants to present work back-to-back with me, but I'm not banking on it and am pretty sure I can talk for an hour.
I have two dates for vintage portrait shoots with the persons who visit the center. They are:
Friday, Nov. 13th and 20th from 9:30 to 2:30. I hope to shoot about thirty portraits each day.
I love the idea of bringing something forth as a way of connecting and I think this will be a great way to feel things out in terms of creative participation and my own way of working.
Additionally, I met today with Kathy McFadden an artist who lives on the 2400 block of Darien and she gave me some insights, nothing I'd consider earth-shaking, but I feel like each piece of the landscape I accumulate brings me closer to some synthesis.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
10 06 09 A Few Details Worth Noting.
I have contacted Susan Hoffman at Stiffel about bringing a slide show there and talking about my work. I have also suggested doing a free community portrait shoot near the December holidays.
I'm meeting with K.A. McFadden, an artist in the "Stiffel neighborhood" next Tuesday.
My friend Sandy Lehan who does house histories is going to research the chain of title for a number of locations in the neighborhood that appear to have been occupied by Jewish immigrants. These will likely include 115 S. 6th, Philadelphia, Pa. Cong. Talmud. Torah Adath Jeshurun, N. E. cor. 6th and Cantrell, which is now an African-American church. I identified it by the Yiddish above the door and then found the details on Google. Also 2118 S. 7th which appears to have been a Jewish-owned business. I suspect these "handings-off"of stewardship may play a role in developing the final project.
I'm meeting with K.A. McFadden, an artist in the "Stiffel neighborhood" next Tuesday.
My friend Sandy Lehan who does house histories is going to research the chain of title for a number of locations in the neighborhood that appear to have been occupied by Jewish immigrants. These will likely include 115 S. 6th, Philadelphia, Pa. Cong. Talmud. Torah Adath Jeshurun, N. E. cor. 6th and Cantrell, which is now an African-American church. I identified it by the Yiddish above the door and then found the details on Google. Also 2118 S. 7th which appears to have been a Jewish-owned business. I suspect these "handings-off"of stewardship may play a role in developing the final project.
10 06 09 Slides and Diapositives!
I just got back the second batch of digital images converted to 35mm glass mounted slides. They look amazing! I always suspected the images I was making would look cool big and they do! I also got back the first direct from a digital file, reversal-processed image on 4x5 black and white stock that will go in "Boris" as a test image. It too looks really fine. So, I may have a methodology for producing these lantern plates. The diapositive (image on transparent stock) is a true silver matrix on a heavy polyethylene base. These have already proven extremely hardy and are estimated to have a shelf life of 200 years under cool and dry conditions. Sweet. The glass slides are pricey, but not expensive--about $32 each to make. This is not so terrible considering what inkjet printing and framing costs. I can even make bigger ones should I chose to.
Call me a Luddite, but I like the idea of making a simple black and white image that is a stable physical artifact. I really have my doubts about the durability of even gold CD's and files squirreled away on servers or hard-drives. An lantern slide can sit in the bottom of a trunk for a hundred years and then be taken out and "read" or even be re-digitized and remade.
Call me a Luddite, but I like the idea of making a simple black and white image that is a stable physical artifact. I really have my doubts about the durability of even gold CD's and files squirreled away on servers or hard-drives. An lantern slide can sit in the bottom of a trunk for a hundred years and then be taken out and "read" or even be re-digitized and remade.
10/05/09 Forays into the Neighbourhood
This week and last, Tom Carroll and I visited the Stiffel Center, first to meet with Susan Hoffman, and then to introduce ourselves, talk with people, and start to get a sense of the area. We also did a lot of walking around, talking, and looking making visits to various sites such as the "Little Shul" on Emily Street, the converted shul that is now a Cambodian temple, as well as visiting with people who run an after-school program in the neighborhood for local kids. I hope to make it to an art session they are doing on Oct. 20th.
I will be back in the area next Tuesday to meet with a local artist and talk about community connections. I hope to bring a slide show of my work to the Stiffel residents in the next few weeks. I'm also lining up meetings with Rakhmiel Peltz and Harvey Finkle. Thinking about possibly a public shoot in the neighborhood even before the actual art creation starts as a kind of ice-breaker and way of feeling things out; possibly doing it as part of the help-portrait project which does free portraiture around the December holidays.
Also, Tom and I found some "marker points" that I hope to investigate with the help of a friend who does house histories...places that once were occupied by Jews but are now Southeast Asian or African American. There is a place at 2118 S. 7th that was a gold and lapidary supply house called "Shapiro's." Also we found a Church at 6th and Cantrell, near Snyder that had much Yiddish/Hebrew writing. I could make out: "Toyre Tamud (unreadable) Eshrun." This appears to have been a religious school. It's now an African-American storefront church. We also walked to Dickinson Square to see where merchants from Seventh Street used to live. Lots of Pompeian brick houses whose interiors I'm sure have rich wood and pocket doors, but are otherwise fairly modest.
I will be back in the area next Tuesday to meet with a local artist and talk about community connections. I hope to bring a slide show of my work to the Stiffel residents in the next few weeks. I'm also lining up meetings with Rakhmiel Peltz and Harvey Finkle. Thinking about possibly a public shoot in the neighborhood even before the actual art creation starts as a kind of ice-breaker and way of feeling things out; possibly doing it as part of the help-portrait project which does free portraiture around the December holidays.
Also, Tom and I found some "marker points" that I hope to investigate with the help of a friend who does house histories...places that once were occupied by Jews but are now Southeast Asian or African American. There is a place at 2118 S. 7th that was a gold and lapidary supply house called "Shapiro's." Also we found a Church at 6th and Cantrell, near Snyder that had much Yiddish/Hebrew writing. I could make out: "Toyre Tamud (unreadable) Eshrun." This appears to have been a religious school. It's now an African-American storefront church. We also walked to Dickinson Square to see where merchants from Seventh Street used to live. Lots of Pompeian brick houses whose interiors I'm sure have rich wood and pocket doors, but are otherwise fairly modest.
Monday, September 28, 2009
09 29 09 Mixed Results
The 35mm conversions from digital, even the black and white ones mounted in glass look spectacular! The 4x5 black and white for the lantern projector was an expensive bust. The image has not contrast and the black areas are grey and watery.
I contacted Dave Wood at dr5.com today. They specialize in direct positives for black and white. I think they will do what I need and it's not hugely pricey-$27 an image to convert from a digital file and reverse process to archival standards. I should have another test image back in a few days.
We had an interesting conversation about the toxicity of photo chemistry as well. He's a chemist so he's probably not as much of a nut about this stuff as I am, but he seems to feel that conventional analog photography has less of an environmental impact than all the heavy metals and pigment inks that will make their way into the landfill because of digital photography. He may be right. His point was even dichromates can and are neutralized before being put into the sewer system and that photographic chemicals when pre-treated pose virtually no environmental hazard if they go through conventional municipal sewage treatment.
I contacted Dave Wood at dr5.com today. They specialize in direct positives for black and white. I think they will do what I need and it's not hugely pricey-$27 an image to convert from a digital file and reverse process to archival standards. I should have another test image back in a few days.
We had an interesting conversation about the toxicity of photo chemistry as well. He's a chemist so he's probably not as much of a nut about this stuff as I am, but he seems to feel that conventional analog photography has less of an environmental impact than all the heavy metals and pigment inks that will make their way into the landfill because of digital photography. He may be right. His point was even dichromates can and are neutralized before being put into the sewer system and that photographic chemicals when pre-treated pose virtually no environmental hazard if they go through conventional municipal sewage treatment.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
09 22 09 First Digital Lantern Slide
I'm doing a Pecha-Kucha style presentation at First Person Arts on Oct. 14th. I'm going to show mostly 35mm slides mounted in glass, but I am also unveiling Boris with a slide or two.
I just sent off the first image to have it converted to a real silver (archival) black and white negative on polyester stock. The background for the composite was taken with an 8mp camera, so I had to interpolate the image upward. I did this by increments of 5%, even more slowly than the 10% that is often recommended. It looked great. So, now we wait and see. I reversed the image black to white, so when it is shot, it will develop as a positive! These conversions are fairly pricey, $20 a pop, but it obviates the need for additional optical conversions as well as a printer, copy lens, etc.
Boris is getting his finishing touches Oct 4, which consist primarily of a cruelty-free faux alligator covering on the case and the necessary handles and latches to carry the projector when it's in its custom-made case/mount. The whole projector with case weighs about twenty pounds. The projector is also getting a dimmer in case the image is actually TOO bright for the auditorium or if the slide is light, I can crank it down.
I just sent off the first image to have it converted to a real silver (archival) black and white negative on polyester stock. The background for the composite was taken with an 8mp camera, so I had to interpolate the image upward. I did this by increments of 5%, even more slowly than the 10% that is often recommended. It looked great. So, now we wait and see. I reversed the image black to white, so when it is shot, it will develop as a positive! These conversions are fairly pricey, $20 a pop, but it obviates the need for additional optical conversions as well as a printer, copy lens, etc.
Boris is getting his finishing touches Oct 4, which consist primarily of a cruelty-free faux alligator covering on the case and the necessary handles and latches to carry the projector when it's in its custom-made case/mount. The whole projector with case weighs about twenty pounds. The projector is also getting a dimmer in case the image is actually TOO bright for the auditorium or if the slide is light, I can crank it down.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
09 15 09
I met with Tom Carroll at the Pemberton Street studio on the 9th and spend about an hour and a half discussing ways I might approach the project and get started. He is interested in possibly exploring pinhole photography and this may get integrated into the project. We are going to have our first foray into the neighborhood on the 29th, meanwhile, I will continue to research.
We identified the big issue as how to connect the photographic end to the individuals and the community as a whole.
I was in Pittsburgh this last weekend and got trained on Gigapan, a new technology that can shoot extremely high resolution panoramas by stitching together smaller images. This may end up as part of the project as I'm thinking about juxtaposing the pinhole images against Gigapan images. They would look amazing as lantern slides.
We identified the big issue as how to connect the photographic end to the individuals and the community as a whole.
I was in Pittsburgh this last weekend and got trained on Gigapan, a new technology that can shoot extremely high resolution panoramas by stitching together smaller images. This may end up as part of the project as I'm thinking about juxtaposing the pinhole images against Gigapan images. They would look amazing as lantern slides.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
09 05 09
Contacted Tom Carroll in an email discussing the issues I see as unique to the project I'm doing.
We have agreed to meet on Sept. 9.
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