I find myself here on a Sunday, recovering from a party at my house last night, and art is on the brain. I've got some new work to share from one of my current portfolios, but also some work that is a bit different than...well...anything I've ever done.
First, the new but not the completely new. I recently created a new photograph for the renamed "Playthings" portfolio on my website (formerly "Vintage Toys"). Here it is:
So, as you can see, this follows the general concept of the existing series. But, to get describe it a little further, here's a freshly worded artist's statement about this body of work:
"In this series, I’ve chosen to represent the concept of
memory through objects that are fraught with emotion during a relatively short,
but important time in our lives.
Toys are created not merely as play things, but also as a way for
children to relate to the adult world. These memories are then packed away in playrooms, toy chests and boxes as they are replaced by “real life” experiences. But what happens when
these toys are given new life in the “grown-up” environments they were
originally created to mimic? The
lines between our innocent, child-like selves and our adult “reality” become a
bit more porous… and we realize that maybe the world of our childhood is just
as “real life” as the one we now occupy."
I've known that I wanted to take this photo for over a year, but I had to wait until just last weekend. See, the problem is that I don't have regular access to an airport...you know, TSA rules, the fact I'm not a pilot and all those other pesky details. Last weekend was our local airshow and during that event, they let the general public into the airport facility to see the planes there, watch the events, etc. So, I brought my 1950's Marx prototype toy plane along for an impromptu photo shoot. I got some very strange looks as I was down on my belly photographing this thing, but it was worth it. I shot over 100 photos in less than 10 minutes so I could get in and out of there before someone got suspicious, and the one I ended up using was frame #1. Probably the first time in recent memory that's ever happened.
Now, back to the title of the post. In this case, the "something completely different" is actually a series of line drawings I did a few months back. If you read my recent interview on F-Stop (or Medium, LensCulture or Wobneb... pick your poison), you'll know that drawing, for better or worse, had a major impact on the early part of my photo career. Well, I saw some work by a Japanese artist named Ko Ushijima and immediately became inspired to create my first ever series of line studies. For about a week or so, it became an obsession and I was doing one of these a night and posting them immediately to Instagram and Facebook to get a some real-time reactions. Feedback was quite positive...possibly because they're so different from what I normally do, but I'm pretty pleased with how most of them came out. Here's a few for your viewing pleasure, in case you haven't seen them already:
I've got some additional images in the hopper and hopefully some more exciting news in the next couple of weeks. Enjoy the start of my favorite month of the year, and stay tuned for some more new work!
-Marc
