Catch-up On Eidsvig Randomness

So, yes, the blog hiatus is over, as evidenced by the pictures of Reference Point, now showing at the Moakley Federal Courthouse… as well as photos of those paintings in progress… with more shots of the Reference Point show to come later today.

But, yes, I recognize that this doesn’t settle up completely on an overdue account. Where are the irreverent comments on day-to-day studio living? Where are the random observations on popular culture and art? What have you been doing for the past 2 months besides painting?

So, here is a little catch-up on life behind the scenes:

MIRRORS AND MODEL CONSUMER

In prepping for some of the pieces for the Reference Point show I was scouring magazines for inspiration. For “Choppy Chop” I was looking for some ideas about a couple, at dinner, with some glamour or atmosphere obvious in the picture. I scoured bookstores, pouring through every magazine.

Here is the weird part: all the food magazines have no people in them, only images of food neatly presented on plates. The kitchen and remodeling magazines and the restaurant/travel magazines are the same. You see pretty tables set up, or the expanse of an empty restaurant… but no actual people. And I am talking about literally hundreds of magazines I went through.

French magazines, British magazines, Bon Appetite, Italian Cuisine, etc., etc. Image after image after image of beautiful food with no one to eat it. After a while it got sad, or spooky. Like a ghost town of gourmet food and fine dining with me the only voyeur into this world as I flipped through the pages of magazines.

And the women’s magazines and fashion magazines were no better. Being early spring all the double-edition extra-big fashion issues are out and as I flipped through Vogue, Elle, and what not (yes, the notion of being seen flipping furiously through page after page, issue after issue of women’s fashion magazines did make me feel like I was doing something wrong or was some sort of deviant) the exact opposite occurred from the food and design magazines.

Now it was page after page of people… many at clubs or restaurants, standing near tables… without a morsel of food in sight. It made a little more sense to me than the food magazines. With the food or kitchens you would think conveying the message “look people are happy eating this,” or look, people are happy sitting and laughing in this remodeled kitchen,” would be good. But with the fashion magazines I was sure the editors were saying “don’t give them any ideas about eating.” Or, “great photos Jim, but take out the plate of oranges. Our styles aren’t meant to mix with people who eat.”

So, plates of food with no one to eat it, or collections of people who are trapped in some dream world where they are being starved to death in punishment for their beauty.

Here is a line of poetry for you: "Plates of people with no one to eat, or collections of food trapped in a dream world." Ahh, the absolute poetry of dyslexia.

Anyhow, lots of internet searching later and I found some inspiration... which is a whole other story. To all you parents out there, be very wary. The most innocent words like “couple, Japanese restaurant,” can produce some racy results on a Google image search.

All of this is just a long segue into talk of the Model Consumer series I started this past summer. See the following posts for some info:

http://617midway.blogspot.com/2007/11/gulu-gulu-meet-artists-night.html

http://617midway.blogspot.com/2007/08/in-progress-model-consumer-and-matisse.html

What was interesting in looking through all these magazines is how often the device of a model taking a photo of themselves is used in the media all of a sudden. Take a look at the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue for example, or just walk through a magazine aisle and you are likely to see a take-off on this idea used as a cover, or for a major section of the magazine. And no, I am not suggesting I had this idea first or some crazy thing like that— it is just interesting how these ideas seem to bubble up at the same time. Here you are seeing mass culture (i.e. people taking photos of themselves for internet sites, or with their phone cams) influencing professional photography and art, rather than vice versa. And it is pretty great. More and more of this is on its way.

LITERARY GENIUS AND ALEXIE

One other thing I have been doing over the past few months, besides creepily scanning women’s fashion magazines in bookstores, is reading, reading, reading. Had to catch up on my Christmas reading— Don Rickles autobiography, Picasso, Abraham Lincoln (“Team of Rivals,” which was really good)— and also on some reading I have been needing to get to for a while.

I posted on Sherman Alexie’s book “Flight” after I attended a reading of his last year.

See:

http://617midway.blogspot.com/2007/06/sherman-alexie-coke-commercials-and.html

and I finally got to the book this past month. Now, I was thinking I was semi-genius (again) when I caught some connection between “Flight” and Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five.” I was expecting Cal Berkeley’s Literature Department to compete with Harvard’s in an attempt to be the first to give me an honorary PhD. So, it was humbling when I opened up the first page of Alexie’s book and saw:

“’Po-tee-weet?’ Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five.”

Not only did someone else notice this connection, Alexie himself acknowledged it in his epigraph. And clearly intended it. I guess it is back to the drawing board for genius status in Literary Criticism.

PICASSO

Put “The Mystery of Picasso” on your Netflix queue. I have been looking for this movie for forever... I saw some bits of it in a class at MassArt on my magical mystery tour of colleges years ago and every time I tried to buy it it was in the hundreds of dollars for a dvd or vhs. And needless to say it wasn’t at Hub Video here in Southie.

But you can get it on DVD through Netflix and it is extraordinary to actually watch Picasso paint. Some isn’t so exciting, sure, but to watch his mind work as he paints an image and changes it from a fish to a rooster and back again… or to see a bull appear through black lines and red, throwing a matador in the air… is to see greatness navigating lines on a page. Check it out

COUNTING CROWS

And what would a return to blog babbling be without some mention of music and music videos?

I was downtown last week (2 weeks ago?) and walked into Newbury comics, remembering the new Counting Crows album was due out. I finally, embarrassed, asked the guy at the counter.

“Yeah, it came out today. We sold out in 2 hours.”

2 hours? The Counting Crows? And I was embarrassed that I was going to buy their new album? Are they a mega group? Is my embarrassment the vestiges of a Naughty by Nature, NWA, Public Enemy fan who scanned by Mr. Jones on VH1 (back when music channels showed music)? I have no idea. But I got my hands on the album. It is pretty good. Above, see a live video for “Los Angeles.” Sure, it’s no “Anna Begins,” but what is?

And that, my friends, is your catch-up on Eidsvig randomness….