DISQUS

Oh my god. It just dawned on me. Dennis Leary is still sporting this Daryl Hall look. STILL!

Ah, I see. So this is the SuperEgo character? With a little Id thrown in?

A further challenge, and once again I've responded with the obvious.

One reason I like your videoblog is that it feels real, and it makes you accessible as an artist. Now I will have to sort out whether you're yourself or in character. It's in character for you to play with the form, and challenge viewers.

I'm sure I'll stay a fan, only now I have more work to do. :D

That was one hella sneeze! Gesundheit!

My friend Rachel and I tried to develop community with our gallery space that we rented for a year. You walked into the tail end of that for a PHXedit. We were trying to connect with people in physical proximity, but they couldn't seem to get their asses out of the house most of the time. What was surprising was the response from the web, which may or may not be what brought you there. I was afraid we'd fail, and ultimately we did, but I'm proud that we tried. I know I'll always pay more to support local, and do it happily.

For us, I can tell you, community was important to us as artists. We wanted to connect with other artist to facilitate collaborative works and meaningful critique that would help us all to grow as artists. I still want that. A lot of that appears to be right place/time, and right personalities. It's hard to find, and it's magic when you find it.

You look all "Risky Business" today!

While it must get old hearing that "what is it?" question, I don't know that I understand your response.

The people asking it genuinely do not mean to be stupid, obvious, or to devalue your work. They simply don't understand what they're looking at. You don't have to answer it.

But do you want to connect with people? Or don't you? If you do, why get mad at them for not immediately understanding your point of view that the object in the photo doesn't really matter?

For the love of god, don't become one of those asshat inaccessible artists that devalues the observer just because they didn't go to art school, and they don't immediately understand that they're meant to be challenged...

I think I asked you that question, or something like it. You were kind to me. You didn't answer, but you gave me the space to move beyond my instant question to think further about the work, and you avoided shutting me down or driving me away by being a snot.

This response seems like it's from the snot side. Come back to the light.

Brilliant! Gorgeous! Wonderful!

You remind me a little of my other photographer-friend, Rachel, who recently said "I felt my voice, which had been silent, speak in my images"

Totally cracking up at the audio intro provided by your pets. Rrrragghhrraghagggghhh.

Interesting topic. I can remember playing a board game called "Masterpiece" when I was little. Its premise is that the players are art buyers. You get little cards showing the art you're bidding on. You don't know what the pieces are or what their value actually is. I didn't realize I was looking at famous works of art. But I liked some of them, and I didn't like others. The object of the game was to amass the largest fortune in paintings and cash. But for me the object was always, always, to buy my favorite of the bunch, no matter what it cost me. If I ended the game bankrupt, but owning that piece, in my mind I'd won.

Now I realize looking at those actual masterpieces when I was a kid actually influenced me a great deal. Imagine my shock when I stood in front of Jackson Pollock's "Greyed Rainbow" at the Art Institute of Chicago and understood for the first time that the painting was real, and huge, and waaaaayyy more than just a postcard in a Parker Brothers game.

By the way, I own the game now, thanks to eBay. Want to play sometime for #pfn?

Your comment that "it's an American consumerist thing to say that a piece of art you hang in your house can become a defining part of who you are" struck me. You say it like it's a bit contemptible. Maybe I don't understand.

I commissioned a piece of art from a Maori carver. He works collaboratively with his clients. The client tells him a story about themselves. It needs to be a thoughtful, spiritually true story. I followed his cultural custom and spent three days fasting, taking plenty of time to myself to think / meditate on / pray for my story. On the day he created the work, I took time to tell him my story. He designed in collaboration with the muscles, tendons and bones of my body, with the spirit of my story, with me, and with the cultural worldview of Maori iconography to complete the design. I got to approve the finished design before he permanently carved/inked it into my arm.

My moko was absolutely, specifically intended, by me and by the artist, to become a defining part of my existence, to continue to influence who I am for the rest of my life, and by extension, to influence those with whom I interact. I asked for it to be placed on my body where I will see it every day.

I approach the art I buy this way as well.

Honestly I can't imagine beauty making something less important, though I acknowledge maybe that happens in the art world. I think that's why I prefer to make art where I can, but stay the hell away from the "art world."

I wondered what you were thinking about. I also thought about how to get the dogs to quiet down - my neighbor's dogs bark near my studio window and I find the noise distracts me from my own thoughts, and then I have to choose the distraction of barking versus the distraction of music. I thought about the types of music I find least distracting. And I thought, you are not alone in thinking about things and obsessing about things. I know I think like that, I am often that "thoughtful."

Hey Tyson, ignore that stupid rule about dead space in videos. Just because you don't fit the mainstream "rules" of video narrative language doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

I think people only feel uncomfortable with your pauses because it's unfamiliar. But your real audience will keep watching and hang with you through the gap. & they'll love it. I do!

You write that "Apple has cleaned up what’s missing" from iMovie, but what exactly is it that they've added that was missing? What few new features did you find noteworthy beyond video stabilization? Anything?

Oh yeah, and when you're talking about the way you see the world... I'm envious that you've had time to practice photographing the way you see the world. My husband and I both want to do that.

I'm nearsighted. I tend to get mesmerized by the macro view. I'm still learning how to make my camera focus on what I want it to, so I can show what I see. And my husband is super-nearsighted. He's the kind of person who would have only been able to fix very small things or make jewelry in the age before corrective lenses. He's photographing the fibers in money and stuff like that.

Ha ha! "This is gonna get weird."

My favorite yoga teacher says her wish for everyone is that they "go nuts with their personal courage." That's my motivator to pursue overcoming my fears. Because I'd really like to find out what life would be like if I did.

Thanks for talking openly about fears. You're right - it may have all been done before, but not by you. And since you're unique, we're all unique, if you don't do it, your way, the world loses a snowflake. I just have to trust that made sense.

Incremental change, and yet "you cannot step in the same river twice."

What was the book you held up? It went by too fast.

I would like to see you discuss some of your ideas in the context of your work. Oh wait, what does that sentence mean? I don't mean I want you to explain your work one piece at a time. But I'd be interested to see examples of your work in the video as you talk about your ideas about art. Do you ever photograph something with an incorrect composition and then correct it in the next photo? It would be cool to see little evolutions like that. Other than my own, I mean.

"Access to an audience without a gatekeeper anymore." That's the great thing about the web and videoblogging. Your audience is free to find you.

I don't enjoy going to galleries. You may gasp (probably not), but it's true. A First Friday type experience is awful for me. So many people seem to be there to be seen, look cool, and give the impression that they're "artsy." I want to be able to look at work without those people jostling me. I want to have a real conversation with the artist whose work I like that isn't utterly fragmented by all the other voices wanting the same thing.

I like this. I can look at your work as long as I want. I can listen to you and talk back. Thanks for that.

Just catching up with your videoblog after the craziness at semester's end.

I think sometimes people worry that there are secrets to [insert creative activity here] that they don't know, like you mentioned, and I think what that really boils down to is that you have to somehow give yourself permission.

Either permission to go ahead without knowing everything, or to own your expertise while being open to learning, and therefore changing, along the way.

Sometimes I think if we gave ourselves permission to go ahead, we could skip a lot of the learning process and just be experts already. Who set up this experts vs. novices scam anyhow?

Actually that's one of the more succinct answers I've ever heard - that you became an artist the day you consciously chose to pursue questions over answers. It's brilliant. It's gone down in my book of quotes.

"Content Generator" - Laurie Anderson was talking about artists as "content providers" over 15 years ago. From my point of view, it's not a new term, and doesn't refer mainly to bloggers & vloggers. Nice list. People forget that grunts and smoke signals are media too. But they are. Any message is media.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry reading this post. All great ideas. I agree with you on everything pretty much. Having been a small part of the web steering committee at a local community college for one semester, I look at this list and think: "Never. Going. to Happen." .... "Ever." As Karlyn mentioned, you've barely scratched the politics of implementation. You probably need to add several more factions to your list, starting with the IT Dept.

From my personal experience, my bet is that the IT Dept anywhere will not want to support such a plan or even touch it with a 10ft pole, and they are in a position to permanently kill it.

1. Design strategy ASAP - can't happen because a committee must be formed first, and the people who should be on it won't be, because clueless people with big egos and more seniority will be on it instead. After a whole 16 week semester, they *might* have studied the issue. Next semester they might make some recommendations. Eventually they'll get around to user / usability studies. Maybe in a couple years you'll have something ... that doesn't meet anyone's needs and is already out of date. This will happen with or without a consultant, because the ego people won't take the consultant's word for anything, they'll have to vet it against their own ancient outmoded ideas.

2. Offer server space/templates and support - the IT dept will be so blindingly uninterested in doing this, so against it, so diplomatic lip service in support of it while quietly killing it in the background... it will take your breath away like it did mine.

3. Quick alternatives / Ning - There is no "quick" by committee. There will be no Ning because they won't be on the school's approved vendor list, and Ning will just laugh at the ridiculously complicated archaic procedures they'd need to go through to become an approved vendor. If even asked.

4. Communicating strategy by getting people working together across departments? - HA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh my sides hurt.

5. Top down - I can't imagine getting my own top level administrators to care unless it would somehow directly, quantifiably and quickly bring money to the campus.

6. Student & Faculty input - all will fail without faculty input, because if they had no input they will give no support, same with student input. Students will give good input. Faculty will stick with what they know. The ones who embrace the web / technology / etc. will be right there with you. And the others will stubbornly insist we don't need this thing or insist many of their own outmoded ways be accommodated - to the point of making any solution ridiculous.

10. CM position? - HA HA HA HA HA HA! Oh my sides hurt. Again.

What, me, bitter?

Yes, actually.


Great post. But at so many places, this just won't happen. Sadly.

I. Love. This. Post.

Force + Form = Idea Realized. That's the creative formula & I get it.

I don't get how to price my work. My last round of work was made from garbage, so I couldn't believe anyone would even want to buy it. So I put it in a silent auction. Ha ha. Someone did buy it.

"more important than matching the couch" - Thank you.

Huxley! Squid! They are awesome. So are you. Glad you didn't believe them when they said you'd starve.

Really like this intro, Tyson. Glad you added me as your contact on Vimeo or I wouldn't have known! As others have said, this feels very authentic and I really appreciate that. You have no idea. Thank you.