Tag: <span>blog</span>

Published May 29, 2017 by

8 Questions for Wisconsin artist Stacy Blint

Fresh+Luck                                                                                           © Stacy Blint

 

Stacy Blint creates art that captures experiences, possibilities, and instances of the human condition. Looking at Stacy’s work is a visual treat. I am reminded that art is a free-flowing, organic force that combines everything life has to offer. I like her multi-disciplinary approach and her use of humour. You can see a creative mind at work. To see more, check out her website.

I asked her eight questions about her work and her current projects.

 

Tell me a little about yourself. Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I was born and raised in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Birthplace of Les Paul, inventor of the electric guitar, and home to three Nike missile sites during the Cold War. Waukesha also has long held the distinction of being part of one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in the country.

My father was a pharmacist and owned his own pharmacy. When I was young my drawings covered the walls in his store. A woman with a turkey on her head in the shape of a bouffant hairdo. Lots of princesses and cubes. It was my grandmother who taught me to draw three-dimensional shapes. Hearts, stars, rectangles, triangles; with my special power I could make any of them contain space.

In 1988, I moved to New York City to study painting at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, situated between Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant. I arrived at the height of both the crack and AIDS epidemics. This is something I have written about extensively in a soon to be released manuscript.

Currently I live in Wisconsin and enjoy its rich and not so distant history of pioneers and settlers. Compared to other middle western states, Wisconsin itself is somewhat eccentric.

There are the serial killers; Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein, Walter Ellis, David Spanbauer. The Green Bay Packers, beer, cheese, and proximity to Lake Michigan round out the offering. Family is also here. My father’s grandparents were the first generation in America, settling as dairy farmers in Wisconsin from Switzerland.

I also have an amazing and beautiful 16 year old daughter. My life partner is the brilliant poet Mike Hauser. Professionally I work as a creative director.

 

Pink+City                                                                        © Stacy Blint

 

I have been impressed with your collages, photos, and poetry. What do you consider to be your primary medium?

Listening and being. For as long as I can remember there has been a dialog taking place within the work itself, often between the modalities of the written and the visual. There have been moments over the years that these forms have merged to become installation, video, or performance. For me it’s really about what the work requires independent of medium.

 

Simone                                         © Stacy Blint

 

What themes are you exploring in your work?

Obsolescence. Obliteration. Emergence. Encasement. Humor.

I attempt to create a dialog between the visual and the written, to capture experiences, possibilities, and instances of the human condition—its splendor, its vulgarity, and its weird and comic manner. I am interested in exploring the domestic, the daily, the mundane, the overlooked, dreams, family, love, death, and relationships in my work.

 

Sampler                                                                              © Stacy Blint

 

What projects are you working on these days?

Currently I am in the process of documenting The Art Bunker, a site-specific environment that draws on a strong affinity with one of my earliest influences, the Wisconsin artist Mary Nohl.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Nohl_Art_Environment

 

Additionally, I cultivate a daily studio practice that includes writing, photography, and mixed media pieces. I like to make things with my hands and am fascinated by the hauntology present in the layering of these pieces.

 

Tell me a bit about your Disappearing Books project.

Based on the premise that with each breath we are erased a little, Disappearing Books is an ongoing multidisciplinary project that began about 7 years ago. A disappearing book is a one of a kind piece of art. As the reader ‘reads’ the book it’s original form is obliterated. It cannot be ‘read’ the same way twice.

There is a mail art component to these pieces. To date 19 books have been documented and shared with people in several countries, including Japan, Canada, England, Germany, Austria, South Africa, and America. As the concept evolves I find myself drawn to explore more performative aspects.

http://www.disappearingbooks.com/

 

Who or what inspires you?

Nature inspires me, unexpected combinations or words and images inspire me, music inspires me. Inspiration can come from anywhere and is most powerful when informed by an acute awareness that time is short.

 

Cerrusite                                                                     © Stacy Blint

 

One final question: Can you tell me briefly about a couple of artists I may not be familiar with yet but you would recommend checking out?

These are a few creators I draw inspiration from:

Bruce La Mongo, Artist

Michaela Mück, Artist

Mike Hauser, Writer

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6LsqnSATqgySnFEQkgtUDNYcms/view

Ferdinand Bardamu (aka Sascha Skotton), Photographer and Writer

http://faq-magazine.com/magazine/2017/41/taxi-driver.html

Jon Mueller, Musician

Kerensa Demars, Dancer

http://www.sanfranciscoflamenco.com/#home-section

—

Typos & brevity c/o technology

http://www.stacyblint.com/

 

Mermaids                                                                                © Stacy Blint

 

Many thanks to Stacy for doing this interview. I’m so appreciative of her thoughtful answers that provide insight into her work. Her art is always a source of inspiration.

 

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Published May 26, 2017 by

Friday roundup, May 26, 2017

Friday roundup, #fbf, news, news stories, social media, Toronto, Yonge Street, 1981, motor cycles,
Yonge Street, Toronto, 1981                              © Avard Woolaver

Friday roundup, May 26, 2017. Here are some news stories that caught my eye, and ear, on social media this week: #fbf

Toronto’s vibrant music scene,

Photographer Susan Meiselas on documenting women’s refuges,

This Harvard grad submitted a rap album for his thesis — and totally aced it,

Hey Rosetta! – Soft Offering (For The Oft Suffering),

To reduce work stress, Japan firms turn to office cats, dogs and goats,

Tulip Garden Destroyed by Hungry Moose,

The death of a daughter,

Canada’s “Come From Away” lands 7 Tony nods,

Teenage documentarians show the power of photography

 

Black and White Blogging Documentary Friday Roundup Photography Social Landscape

1981 Avard Woolaver blog friday roundup news stories social media The Image Journey Toronto Toronto Days

Published May 12, 2017 by

Friday roundup, May 12, 2017

Toronto 1995, Mill Street, 1995, Friday roundup, May 12 2017,
Mill Street, Toronto, 1995                   © Avard Woolaver

Friday roundup, May 12, 2017. Here are some things that caught my eye, and ear, on social media this week: #fbf

Music from Josh Tillman aka Father John Misty,

Meatloaf will give free concert in Toronto,

Taj Mahal performs with the amazing guitarist Jessie Ed Davis (1968),

Mystery photographer behind ‘lost photos of Barcelona’ discovered,

13 strange and beautiful Japanese islands you must visit,

New Brunswick roasts Ottawa for erroneously placing famous rocks in Nova Scotia,

German photographer captures everyday lives of refugees,

Diffusion photography festival in Wales

 

Black and White Blogging Documentary Film Photography Friday Roundup New Topographics Photography

1995 analog Avard Woolaver black and white blog film photography friday roundup Mill Street The Image Journey Toronto

Published April 28, 2017 by

Friday roundup, April 28, 2017

Friday roundup, Friday roundup April 28, 2017,
PEI Ferry at Cape Tormentine, NB, 1980               © Avard Woolaver

Here are some things that caught my eye, and ear, on social media this week: #fbf

How to tell if your child is a future art star,

Wonderful work from photographer Patrice Moreau,

Maud Lewis film “Maudie” is a blockbuster in Atlantic Canada,

Fort McMurray firefighters share pictures and stories,

Chris Coghlan’s leap to home plate,

Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq,

Aerial photos of London by Jason Hawkes,

Meteorologists examine Munch’s “The Scream”,

New York streets through the eyes of Mike Lee,

Burma’s punk scene by Jordi Pizarro,

Wintersleep’s “Amerika”,

Re-discovering Yousef Karsh

Black and White Film Photography Friday Roundup Photography Social Landscape

1980 Avard Woolaver blog film photography Flashback Friday friday roundup New Brunswick The Image Journey

Published April 26, 2017 by

Sleep strategies, images, and the cognitive shuffle

sleep, Halifax, Dingle, Northwest Arm,
Halifax, Nova Scotia, 2011                                  © Avard Woolaver             

Sometimes it’s difficult to fall asleep—your mind is racing; you’re tossing around; sleep just won’t come. I’ve tried various strategies over the years, and the one that works best for me is sleep-inducing music. It started several years ago with Brian Eno’s sonic masterpiece “Discreet Music” — calm, slow-paced music that comes in waves and is meant to be played at a very low volume. Eno says in the liner notes, “This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music–as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of that ambience. It is for this reason that I suggest listening to the piece at comparatively low levels, even to the extent that it frequently falls below the threshold of audibility.”

After I tried listening to “Discreet Music” at low volumes and found it effective, I experimented with other music played the same way. Jefferson Airplane, John Coltrane, and Erik Satie worked for me. Not only are certain songs reliably sleep-inducing for me, there are exact places in a song where I fall asleep. On John Coltrane’s “Shifting Down,” I nod off during Kenny Dorham’s solo at 6:45. On Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love,” it happens right around the start of the third verse, which begins at 1:43 (after first listening to the first two tracks on the album The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.)

Lately I have been listening to the Miles Davis album In a Silent Way as I fall asleep. I always seem to drift off at 4:50 into the song “Shhh/Peaceful,” during a high trumpet note.

While I’ve found music to be remarkably effective (I rarely have insomnia anymore) and, for me, strangely predictable in its effects, I’m searching for other ways to fall asleep quickly and easily. If my trusty iPod fails, I need a backup.

A new mental imaging trick, “the cognitive shuffle,” aims to silence fretful thoughts by deliberately filling the brain with benign images. In a recent article in O (the monthly magazine from Oprah Winfrey), writer Kelly DiNardo quotes sleep researcher Luc Beaudoin from Canada’s Simon Fraser University, who devised this strategy for falling asleep. “The brain’s sleep-onset control system need not know what you’re thinking or imagining.” he explains. “It just needs to notice that there is mind wandering and that there is visual imagery, as if you were hallucinating. Unless the brain is on drugs, these clues generally signal that the cortex is ready for sleep.”

In an article in The Guardian, writer Oliver Burkeman says, “The cognitive shuffle involves mentally picturing a random sequence of objects for a few seconds each: a cow; a microphone; a loaf of bread, and so on. It’s important to ensure the sequence is truly meaningless; otherwise you’ll drift back into rumination. One option is Beaudoin’s app, MySleepButton, which speaks the names of items in your ear. Another is simply to pick a word, such as ‘bedtime,’ then picture as many items beginning with ‘b’ as you can, then ‘e,’ then ‘d,’ then… Well, by then, if my experience is anything to go by, you’ll be asleep.”

I may try listening to music while thinking of random words. A cognitive shuffle with Miles Davis dealing the cards.

What interests me about this insomnia-defeating strategy is that it’s another use of created imagery in our lives, but it’s entirely mental imagery. Like photography, it’s a way of playing with things you see (or “see,” in this case) and combining them. Like photography, it has a lot of elements that you control and, especially as you’re slipping toward sleep, some that are out of your control. Like photography, it probably gets much easier with practice.

Yet, unlike photography, it’s utterly personal, so much so that the series of images you create can’t be shared with anyone else. It’s a reminder that our interior worlds affect us in so many ways, every hour we’re alive. As Professor Dumbledore famously says near the end of the final Harry Potter book, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Let me know if you try the cognitive shuffle. And sleep well!

 

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Avard Woolaver blog Halifax Nova Scotia sleep social landscape the cognitive shuffle The Image Journey