News

With the CRAZY influx of new followers today, I wanted to take a moment to say: Welcome.

What I do here seems pretty obvious (to me, at least); however, if you questions, please send them my way.

A NOTE ABOUT SUBMISSIONS:

Yes, I do technically have a submit button. But really it’s less that I take submissions or want to take submissions and more general laziness. (Plus, I’m toying with using it for something else as yet underdeveloped and amorphous.)

Lastly, special thanks to God Loves Bacon for the unexpected (and undeserved) kind words.

Apologia

Dear Followers,

I want to apologize for the inconsistent quality of posts lately. I’ve been riding crests and sliding into troughs for more than a month now.

Unfortunately, It’s gotten to the point where giving this blog the attention it deserves is more than I can manage.

The truth is: I’ve been looking for a job for six months now and haven’t gotten so much as a callback. I have to find a job in two weeks or I will be homeless. I’ve been homeless before. It is the worst.

I am just on the no-danger-to-myself side of suicidally depressed.

Plus, I learned unequivocally that perhaps the last person who I truly have feelings for admitted in her estimation, there’s no chemistry between us.

This year I’ll be 37. My health is middling on a good day. One way or another I’m simply not long for this world.

That’s okay. And probably better for all parties involved. The little light I try to bring won’t really be missed.

This post isn’t the end. I promise I will be back. I don’t know when. It’ll be a minute.

I’ll still be around, though. Feel free to say ‘hi’. I’ll do my best to respond.

Lastly, thanks to Yumiko Campbell for reading from very early on. I appreciate it and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

(A.P.–not sure you’ll ever see this–but in no small way this entire blog has been for you. All the things I’d never know how to say, are here between the lines. All the ways I love to touch you if the wanting was even a little mutual.)

250

Despite the frequent pretense, I run what boils down to a smut blog. The point isn’t lost on me. Thus, every 50th post I like to take a moment to address a tangential ‘real’ world issue that intersects (however glancing) with issues of sexuality and depictions of desire.

Unfortunately, living just below the 45th parallel north, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) dawns in mid-October and runs through March; instead of fighting the good fight, I’ve pretty much curled up under a rock this year.

It’s more than just SAD… I was forced out of my job mid-July. It wasn’t the best job in the world but it was the best job I’ve ever held in that 65% of it was spirit-crushing political power games and 35% of it was the most rewarding work I’ve ever done outside of social justice activism or creative endeavors. I worked with, advocated for and loved on brilliant but economically disadvantaged college students. Making their lives a little easier, pouring a little more light and bringing joy came so much closer to balancing the bullshit-to-reward ratio than I’d ever expected to find.

It did, however, present limit my abilities to explore my creative urges. I tried to look at it as a blessing in disguise when I was told to accept a ‘generous’ buyout and resign or I would be fired and get nothing.

In that I spent three weeks bouncing around between Iceland, Berlin, Amsterdam and Madrid, it was a blessing; I still haven’t completely processed the experience.

After four months of looking for a job that will pay enough to support me, allow me the time and energy I need to at least be more consistent with my photography and finding exactly fuck all; I am out of time and nearly out of money. I feel completely trapped.

This is compounded by the fact that I have never once in my life gotten anything I wanted. That sounds entitled. Let me clarify: it seems as if whenever I allow myself to admit that I want something, the universe kicks me in the face and illustrates in the most cruelly malicious fashion that wanting is the fuel on which impossibility voraciously feeds.

All the jobs I’ve ever gotten have been accidents. I’ve been in the right place at the right time and given a chance based on nothing more than abject desperation. Same with everything else except finishing college. I am not sure how that happened but I am definitely going to pay for it for the rest of my life. (I have no regrets.)

I don’t know why I’m venting all this. I don’t presume anyone does or should care. And I know it’s narcissistic that I am hijacking the venue for discussing things in the context other than insular smut criticism. But I have been feeling a degree of disingenuousness lately. I’m posting all this stuff about desire and wanting when I don’t even believe any longer that such experiences are ever mine to have again.

Truthfully, due to my continuing–and now rendered completely mysterious by the fact that a battery of extremely expensive tastes has deemed me surprisingly healthy for a late thirtysomething, high-functioning alcoholic–health issues, I pretty much figured I’d lose my job and make the most of the time I had left figuring I’d have died by this point.

But I am still here. And while yes, I may be going blind. And even if someone ever was insane enough to ever want me, maybe I’ll be so sick I can’t offer them pleasure.

As stupid as it sounds–and it sounds idiotic–the truest impetus for this blog was an effort to leave a record of the things no one wants to discuss openly but which I find so compellingly beautiful, which haunt me. That way maybe when I am gone, someone I loved deeply but was to afraid the telling would ruin everything might stumble upon it and in reading this record know how desperate I wanted to connect with them but I knew the desire to connect was not mutual–and I can’t do non-mutual. So I did this, I said in a horse whisper to secrets and silence: this is a kiss that demands no kiss-back.

And then, on Thursday, in a conversation that could have gone very badly and didn’t go at all like I expected–and I am still not at all sure what was decided by it–there was a moment when someone I love acknowledged my vulnerability and admitted her own. It was like the sanskit namaste: the spirit in me acknowledges and greets the spirit in you. Except: it was the fragileness in me acknowledges and greets the fragileness in you.

And it was like two years of unresolved anger evaporated in that moment. Like all these years I’ve been struggling to remember the name I was given but had forgotten and then in the hearing it uttered, remembering.

I want to live and I want to grow and learn–be more than less. I want to love. It’s just so bloody difficult to love the all–the good, the bad– and not the you with its good and its bad.

I’m lost but maybe you’ll find me if you are willing to look. I’m looking for you. Maybe I’ll find you, too.

When I was a student I used a view camera. A 4 by 5 color negative cost three Deutsche Marks, development was another three Marks, and I was able to do the contact print by myself for 10 Pfennigs. That meant that each time I wanted to take a picture I had to very carefully think about whether I could spend the six Marks. I always took just one image. It’s likely that helped me to work very precisely. Now when you work digitally…

Thomas Ruff. Read more: A conversation with Thomas Ruff on Conscientious. (via thephotographicimage)

Source: thephotographicimage

100+ Followers & a Few Notes

After hovering in the low-to-mid nineties for months, I finally reached 100 followers earlier this week. Of course, within an hour I was back down to 99.

Flattering reblogs by Knitphilia and Emmeroids–from which I am still suffering a residual blush–brought in a baker’s dozen of new followers.

Two other Tumblr bloggers deserve thanks. Wyoh and Boudoirboudoir keep me on my toes.

Also, if you like some of the more porn-y material I post, you should be following Danish Principle and motion detect.

Looking ahead: my hope is that I’ll be able to reach 250 posts before 2014. This is probably a naively optimistic goal. But I am going to make a real go of it.

If you’ve been here for a while now, thank you for sticking with me. As I am prone to saying regularly: I’d do it regardless of followers; but with you it’s so much better.

And if you are new here: welcome.

Struggling to regain momentum

Dear Followers,

First, thank you for bothering with what I try to do with this humble Tumblr. I appreciate each one of your time and consideration more than I can articulate.

Second, you will finally–for real this time–start seeing some new posts again. It’s probably going to be sporadic at first and honestly things are likely to be erratic and all over the fucking place for a bit. I apologize in advance. I have worked aggressively over nearly the last year to ensure that I never “phone it in”. However, it seems at a certain point: anything is better than nothing.

Lastly, if I am honest with myself, I am really not doing so well on any level that wellness is measured. I understand if you feel the need to part ways with this blog.

Be well.

sketchbook: 67 (no wait, 68) Tips For Art Critics

zaksmith:

1. Assume any young artist you _don’t_ write about will die of starvation tomorrow. (They won’t, but their art might.)

2. In the time it takes you to go to an art opening, you could have seen hundreds, maybe thousands of artworks online—-go to the opening, drink their beer, then go home and look for more artists.

3. Stop using events as reasons to write about artists—that just privileges the ones lucky or rich enough to be having events.

4. TUMBLR

5. DeviantArt

6. Stop asking for artist’s statements. If the statement makes you like the art more, it sucks and so do you.

7. Go to art fairs. MOVE FAST. Talk to no-one. When you find good art, demand to be alone with it for an hour.

8. Interview artists. Ask questions _about the art_ not about where they grew up or what they named their dog.

9. If Andy Warhol could have made it, do not write about it

10. Look at things that are just there for free: teatrays, pickles, pigeons. If the art is like that, don’t write about it.

11. Given a choice between “What the artist I like said is crazy” or “What the artist I like said is over my head” assume the latter & ask

12. Realize that if you can’t say a thing in clear English, you don’t understand it. Do not write in IAE.

13. Never say an artist “undermines” anything that you didn’t even believe when you walked into the show.

14. Never reward an artist for broadcasting stuff _you already knew_ to a bunch of other gallery-goers.

15. If you need context, it sucks.

16. If the artist hired someone to make their art for them, go find THAT kid and make THEM famous.

17. Interview art students & assistants to find out who is pretending to make their own art but doesn’t. Out them. Destroy them.

18. FACT CHECK FACT CHECKFACT CHECK FACT CHECKFACT CHECK FACT CHECKFACT CHECK FACT CHECKFACT CHECK FACT CHECK & then CHECK YOUR FACTS

19. Realize that the subject of a work of art is easy to write about & the style isn’t. Don’t waste time writing about the subject.

20. If reality TV, Netflix documentaries, Vice, Youtube or anybody else are already doing what the art does better, don’t write about it.

21. Never waste column inches saying something that’s obvious from the picture accompanying the column.

22. Realize the best & most honest way to talk about the art is to reproduce it. Demand your editor include lots of pictures, good ones.

23. Do not go and take a shitty snapshot. The gallery and artist have really good pictures, ask for them.

24. You see wonderful art: but, fuck, it has no story. Do NOT build a story. Close your eyes. You are Baudelaire. Rebuild the experience in words

25. If all the art does is show rich old people things in a gallery poor young people already knew outside the gallery, don’t write about it

26. Great artists can be born, ignored all their lives, and die. That can happen. Realize that does happen. Moby Dick was a failure.

27. If you’re writing about an artist, you’re doing PR for them if you want to or not. Your loyalty should be to the truth.

28. Ask installation artists where the money to put their show together came from.

29. Do not reward art just for being big. More generally: do not reward artists just for being rich or beloved by the rich.

30. Start a band or do some music journalism. It will free you of the obligation to try to meet people to sleep with at art openings.

31. Sometimes students make the best art. Sometimes 17 year olds who can’t afford art school make the best art. Galleries won’t tell you this

32. Realize all group shows are bullshit. Use them for what they are: mercenary opportunities to get the folks you like in front of people

33. Don’t pretend your opinion is fact. Instead: if you want authority, state your prejudices upfront. Like so.

34. Read: David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film (that’s how you describe people)

35. Read Borges “Collected Nonfictions” & David Foster Wallace’s “Tense Present” & Orwell’s “Politics & the English Language”

36. Read Lolita. This is the best & most extended work of art criticism in the world. Humbert is the critic, Lolita is the art. Be careful.

37. When in the presence of beauty or talent, be humbled by the realization that it is unknowable & bigger than you OR the artist.

38. If all the kids like it and all the grown-ups don’t, the kids are right.

39. You can chip away, but you can’t know it all. Mathematicians admit there might always be another solution

40. Don’t look for messages or meaning. Everything has tremendous meaning. Look at art like food: it’s tasty—find out how it got that way.

41. Read Susan Sontag “Against Interpretation” & at least one essay by Sarah Horrocks on some comic book you never heard of

42. Read David Sedaris’ 12 Moments In the Life Of The Artist. Use it as a gut check: am I one of these assholes? Why not?

43. The artist’s goals and intentions don’t matter in evaluating the art any more than the baker’s in evaluating a cake

44. The wall text is there for people who hate art but feel class anxiety telling them they shouldn’t. Ignore it.

45. If it tastes good, it IS good as far as you will ever know. If it tastes bad, it IS bad as far as you will ever know.

46. Once you read 12 Moments in the life… read Thorsten Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. You write about Veblen goods. Don’t forget.

47. If you are interested in the artist: go be interested, write a book. But it won’t tell you if the art’s good or bad.

48. Abstract art had a very short heyday because critics had a hard time writing about it: no subjects to grab on to. Be better than them.

49. Go to the little church in Rome where they keep The Ecstasy of St Teresa. If it isn’t at least that good, don’t write about it.

50. If you don’t know, don’t _guess_. Ask. You are, after all, a journalist.

51. “Important” just means “influential” which just means “easy to copy”. None of those words mean “good”.

52. Never ascribe to simultaneous spontaneous mystical agreement what can be explained by capitalism.

53. Vasari started a tradition of art criticism where the Renaissance was a sort of TSA gate you had to go through to get to “real” art for 100 years, hard-working art historians have been tryna correct that mistake. Listen to them. If you don’t know who Bihzad is, learn.

54. Once a year read a major article in that month’s Artforum. Then ask everyone you meet in the art world if they read it. (they didn’t read it, but it’ll give you a sense of proportion to realize they didn’t)

55. Remember the art isn’t just competing with other art, it’s competing with everything else you could do that day. It must win anyway.

56. Remember the current critical consensus was formed by people who are so high they still like jazz. Drugs make boring things interesting.

57. Never trust an artist, critic, or curator who says they are “interested in problems…” that they aren’t actually trying to solve.

58. The gallery business survives by claiming they found a genius once a month. The excuse is “Well they might be..blah blah….test of time…blah blah….” (There is no test of time)

59. ..and even if there was: a world where it’s in nobody powerful’s interest for art to ever depreciate short circuits any test of time

60. When there is corruption or injustice artists & dealers cannot afford to name names. Not even Banksy names names. You can. Do it.

61. Right now some would-be great artist is exhausted from just spending 12 hours making an elf ear for some tv show. Realize that happens.

62. Arthur Danto said The Polish Rider was deeper and more searching than a random agglomeration of paint that happened to look exactly like The Polish Rider. And he _still had a job_ afterwards. So: the bar’s pretty low.

63. Don’t say “we” unless you’ve read a lot of neuroscience.

64. If it looks like a prop or film still from a movie the artist wishes they’d made but didn’t, don’t write about it.

65. This is Roy Lichtenstein.

This is Jack Kirby:

This is what class warfare looks like.

66. It’s 2013 so everyone gets to be told what artists have been told since the ’60s: your ability to get noticed is not just more important than your job, it IS your job. You enjoying that? Is it making your work better?

67. Anything can ignite debate with a high enough ratio of how loud you are to how boring it is.

…thank you. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to get some noodles

See you next time.

p.s. should add one more:

68. If you disagree with any of this—or anything an artist or critic says—and don’t talk to them about it: you’re part of the problem.

sketchbook: 67 (no wait, 68) Tips For Art Critics