In respone to the previous blog

I think I have something a little in my gut that I feel I need to say.

After looking past my disgust for the art wold, and the bane emptiness that i see in it I have really done some self examining.

I really took a long hard look at why I'm an artist, and it has taken me to some places within myself that I have since started to work on. I'm trying to purge myself of all the create for attetion, fame, or fourtune that I let myself fall into. I am working myself back to a place this is both romantic and honest.

I need to create because it's my only way to make sense of the world around me, not to gain the affection of others. The ever fleeing feeling of importance that comes along with a great image has really become the focus of my creation, and i'm working on that.

I think artist need to be more true to themselves then any other people, and without complete honesty the artist's work becomes lesser. Like your favort local band signing to a label and changing their sound, or that kid in middle school that hated cheerleaders until one liked him.

Artist who are untrue lose respect in themselves, and in their work. Our generation simply can't afford that to happen...

This may be a bit heaver then what your use to

So, alot has been going on since my last post. I have had a couple of blogs brewing in my gut for a while now and I just found this online. It's one of a few blogs that I have been putting together mentaly for the past couple of weeks.

I may right a life update blog soon, but for now all I have is this. I didn't write this, by the language you should be able to tell that. I do however agree, and have had very much the same thoughts. The expression of it in this way couldn't fit my feelings any better though, so here it is.

If this offends you, then it probably should. I really think that is the whole point

You find this comment between other interesting comments here:

http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2008/07/things-still-being-only-whispered.html

"I am an artist and I am tired of spectacle.

I am fed up with 2 million plus dollars sculpture 'made' (by assistants, engineers, young artists) by persons with ex-modeling careers.

I am vaguely amused but oh so bored with pretty-boy nightingales with wide-open end-eyes and all that homosexual fucking into artstardom.

I am an artist with an MA and I am fed up of MAs and MFAs. I am bloody hell tired of meeting artists who have summarized their so-called statements to sound like cultural theorists.

I am absolutely horrified with artists with full time jobs who like secretaries know the language of how to write a good proposal that a critic-jury will approve.

I am most fed up with the utilitarian mindset that plagues us even deeper today it seems than ever.

I am tired of curators and their fingering masturbatory hand in all these...oh how they finger and finger the thing so that it may speak --and only speak-- precisely the distortions eminent in their own fastidious rhetoric.

I am no anti-intellectual but oh, how weary am I of artists who, listening incestous to curators rush about pretending art was some matter for sociology and the artist therefore, the sociologist-cultural-theorist.

I make art one may called visual but I know too visual art is and will never be near the power of poetry, the art of music nor even that of the novel. I know visual art is an industry brewed from a mesh of moneyed conceit being peddled by anxious-for-fame conceits.


Having said all these, I hereby DECLARE WAR ON ART.

I ask artists to say no to empty spectacle and sheer materialism;
I urge a move towards the romantic;
I urge a REFUSAL of our life as it is: GIVE UP your banal worries, your high-end rents apartments, your shallow living and expenses!
BE BOLD and have the courage to live by the spirit of art and ideas!


Make art, make it, make it towards great, meet with like-minds, stay up all night with madness and with the fever, drink wine, read voraciously, live simple!

LIVE AS ONE WITH THE BOLDNESS AND COURAGE TO BE A HUMAN BEING "

As Promised

I did decide to go out and shoot. I was just outside with the camera and was begining to get real discouraged because I really just couldn't find anything that sparked my interest.



I was getting ready to give up when I found this little guy! The guy from duke engergy was here and I heard him shut his car door so I ran around side the house to see who it was and almost steped on it. After some quick small talk he read our meter and left. So I guess I kinda owe this image to him, I wouldn't have ever ventured over to this side of the house without him.

As in anything, if it's worth doing it worth doing right, I was in and out of the house about three times to get this image. Every time I thought I got what I wanted I found some fundamental flaw in it, and had to go back outside and re shoot it. I'm pretty happy with the final image though. It is very grainy, but that is done on purpose I fell it helps create the mood of the image.

So yeah, there you have it.

You thought I was done

Well then,

Last time I wrote here there was 12 inches of snow on the ground, and I think today's high is in the lower 80's.

so It's been a while I guess. I don't really have an excuse why, I just didn't. I have been working at a steady pase on things, but the wonderful world of being an adult keeps getting in the way.

There is talk about moving the studio to another location here in town. We are getting married next May and need to find a place to live and work out of. We have found a wonderful little four room cottage that was built in 1900 and are trying to work out the logistics now of uptaining the loans to make it our home. Needless to say that is swallowing up most of my time.

Photography has all but stoped in my life for now, aside from client work I just have lacked the motavation to pick up my camera and do anything. I guess it may be the stress getting to me, but that is going to end soon. I need to create, it is the thing that bring balance to my life. I'm going to pick up my camera today I promise.

In other news, I have noticed some changes in myself recently. I guess as I grow old (I just turned 21 yesterday) I am growing more comfortable in my own skin. I think Cassie has alot to do with it. My passions are showing themselves to be more true, and with time more tested. I have heard the name "Greenie" thrown around the blogosphere a lot lately and I am starting to adopt that label for myself. I guess it's a mix of the word "green" and the word "hippie". I would say that I am very much both, and as it is my nature to want to classify everything and pick favorites I am ok with using popular lables to decribe myself.

This update isn't going to be a lone ranger I promise, it's about time to breathe some new life into this thing

White Death is Here

Snow, Snow, Snow, all day long...and blizzard warnings for tonight.

Well,
Sorry for the lasp in updates, but it was spring cleaning week around the studio. We got alot done, not only does the entire house smell like Pine-sol but we have some great new products to offer!

We secured a deal with two really great up and coming local artist to do custom paintings of our pictures. They both are very nice, and extremely talented. I'll drop a link to their site here. Make sure you go and check their work, especially the links to their personal gallery on the about me page of their site.

The book also came in this week! It was the best 12 bucks I ever spent. It has great directions, and a wonderful storybook like set up to introduce new animals. If you are into this sort of thing it really is worth it.
We have made so many of them that we had to find space around the studio for them. We found a nice home for everyone in a prop tree in the camera room. Cassie has deemed it "The Club House", it's really working out I think. Pictures of our new friends will go up in the next post I think.

I also think learning to sew is coming along, Grandma came over and showed me how to use Cassie's twelve dollar pink sewing machine. It's nothing too great, and very small but works good for me. I have affectionaly named it "The Pink Monster", on account of it breaking ALL THE TIME!

That brings me to my new and most favorite bit a news. Just like I produce my photography in series I think I'm starting to bend that over into all of my work.

These little creatures don't have a name or a story yet, but the powers that be are working on that. They will have a more proper introduction in a couple of days after I work all the bugs out of their background but here are some pictures.

They are definitely toys, and always ready to play.

If you would like something from this series, I could be bribed into making one for you I think. It would only cost you a small box of Cadbury Eggs, you know the ones with four eggs in them. No two are alike, and they are totally worth the trade!

In closing, I love Cadbury Creme Eggs and my count is up to eight now. That is, I have had eight so far this year.

Here's to hoping that count will go up soon!

Something On My Mind

It's been a good weekend, filled with a ton of fun and friends. The whole weekend, and really this last week though I have been having a reoccurring theme or thought.

Find in yourself those things that you love, and give yourself to them. Dive into your passions and don't look back.

This is greatest risk you will ever take, but without taking it there is no way to truly live.

For me this is Cassie first and foremost. (I really love this picture) She is the driving force behind most of what I do. It is both my right and my privilege to protect and care for her, and I find so much joy in doing those things. Followed by my family and friends(some of which I am growing to think of as family). It is also my work, both job and art.

I wish I would have taken this attitude earlier. I lived for too long in fear of what others would think of a boy who loved art. I wished I would have learned how to sew when I was younger, and given all of myself to learning all medias that I wanted to. I will never know what richness that would have brought to my life.

So, it's been decided I'm going to ask my Grandma to teach me to sew...

I fould it!

I just wanted to say that I found a copy of the sock and glove book! I made a quick trip down to the quilt shop here in town and they were able to order it for me from a supplier! She said it would be in sometime next week, I can't wait.
I just finished another more different glove creation. Cassie hasn't given it a name yet, and I have no picture either. I'll make a post in the next couple of days with a picture of it I'm sure.

In other news, I woke up this morning and after getting to the studio and yelling jombo a couple of time with cassie I found something on google that made my day!
It's leap day! Don't you just love that frog? Thank you Google!

So I admit there isn't much content to this post but I do have this to share that might give it some note worthy quality.

These are both images from a working series I'm doing. They are all from the house where the studio is. This house is over a hundred years old, and there are so many interesting nooks and crannies around. I'm hoping to get a third image into this and call it done I guess.
Comments are always welcome!

It's a cold day in Luman Imagery

The furnace is broke!
...well not anymore, it's fixed now. Turned out to be a broken nozzle and some bent metal things that was the culprit.
I'd like to give a quick plug to Trenton heating and air conditioning, they came out and fixed our furnace today. It was the son of the owner that ended up at the studio, and he was very helpful.

In other news, I have been working on something new!


Cassie has named him Winklebottom. He is made out of two of those one size fits all gloves that you can get two pair of for a dollar at Target. I found this and a rabbit pattern online, they are from a book by a japense artist that has been translated. The book is called "sock and glove", you can find it here. If I can find this book anywhere I think I plan on buying it. Sewing is my new thing I think.
What, boys can sew too can't they?

Beginnings have to start somewhere

Hi,
I'm Christopher, a twenty something with a purpose. (or so I like to think)
I'm part owner of Luman Imagery, we are a home town photography studio in Trenton, Oh. I was born and raised here, and grew to love this town.
I'm so much more then a photographer though, I like to play in other mediums as well. As this blog progresses I hope to make it place to show all of my work, as well as myself.

So, here is to beginnings starting somewhere!