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27-6
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27-6
Reception: Saturday, February 27, 6-9pm
Open Gallery: Sunday, February 28, 12-5pm
Candelabra Gallery, 412 E. 7th St., Tucson, Arizona

You’ve seen 27 online, now it’s time to see the show!

27 is how different artists approach the same theme.
27 is to be excited and inspired by photography.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxed27/

***Come to the Saturday reception for to take part in a surprise interactive photographic experiment!***
Music + refreshments

Work from MAXED ART members not limited to:
Rachelle Diaz, Alex G!, Christian Ramirez, Steven Soloway, Alex Von Bergen (Tucson, AZ)
Molly McClintock, Alex Nelson, Sylvia Sewell (Brooklyn, NY)
Jaxun Doten (Portland, OR)
and others… or perhaps not all of these people.

27 is an international group art project occurring on the 27th of every month. The project began in September 2009 as a collaborative photography experiment among mixed/multi-media artists and friends originally based in Tucson who, over the course of a few short months, found themselves living in different cities and missing the connection once accessible when it was easy to meet in person to share and talk about art.

Each month, we pick a different theme simple enough to shoot on a busy weekday, but one that also requires conceptual thinking and attention to detail. Past themes have included Place, Colors, Reflection, Transport, and Portraits. However, we’ve self-imposed a few technical limitations in order to make us stretch our imagination further within the given subject, leaving room for nuance and surprises. Images can only be taken within 24 hours on the 27th of the month, and only “lo-fi” cameras including disposable cameras, vintage cameras, toy cameras, cell phones, webcams and even scanners may be used.

But 27 is more than just a picture-taking/picture-looking/documentary project. We then share the resulting images online for commentary ranging from introspective aesthetic feedback to humorous quips. 27 has not only provided an outlet for communication within our collective, it has also made us grow as artists through examination of our personal thought processes and technical inventiveness.

[Image by Jenny DuPont: "trophy" from Reddy Set Go]
digital, life, www
Houses I’ve Lived In
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All the houses I lived in through childhood via Google Street View & Google Maps.

1980-1984

1985

1986

1987

1988-1992

1989-1990

1992-1993

1993

1993-1997

1997-1998
life, words, www
You’ll ruin your eyes
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Since beginning The Outside World links lists on Tu Scene, I’ve peeked into whole new art worlds: the state, national, global art arenas. Frankly, I find it incredibly daunting and rather confusing. One reads so much about so many things, it morphs into a viral canon about what’s hot and what’s not at the moment. Instead of informing one’s thought and aesthetic through one’s unique filters, it only serves to make it bend to an unseen peer pressure. Keeping up with it all also takes time away from doing Real Work. I admire writers who manage to blog incisively on a local scale yet seem to be in touch with a wide range of web presences. Maybe it’s because, as a graphic designer, I instinctively feel set against RSS feeders like Bloglines and Google Reader. Same thing with Twitter. Although I know they may make my internet life easier, experiencing the aesthetic of a particular site helps me understand where the writer is coming from.

Some of this questioning also comes from being honest with myself about my sphere of influence. I’m an emerging artist and don’t necessarily aspire or expect to be famous (at least, not in my what is currently the last year of my 20’s, or into my 30’s). Establishing myself on a local scale is a main goal, so that is what I look for in my regular reading about nearly anything. I do keep in touch with several Texas sources, since that’s where I’m from and have many friends, but that’s about it. I haven’t lived here long enough to even touch Phoenix, or anywhere else in Arizona for that matter. Since I’m still peeling back the onion that is Tucson, I don’t feel I’m ready to approach those areas.

There’s a real tension between honesty and growth. Being honest with oneself and accepting limitations and inclinations, and growth through nurturing technique and expanding one’s realm of thought. Growing isn’t easy, it’s just plain annoying/frustrating and potentially painful. Here’s an example: for me, asking questions seems more important than finding concrete answers. Yet, if I don’t push myself to really think about possible answers, have internal debates and tête-à-têtes with friends, I’ll never know myself. And acquiring self-knowledge is a form of honesty.

Blogging confounds this even more. Not as a blogger myself, but as a reader, in reading a piece and then following the thread of comments therafter. It gets so tangled! You could say this about a lot of literature and journalism, actually. Two books I read this year, Wayne Koestenbaum’s Hotel Theory and Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper, are broken up to the point that you wonder what the hell is going on a lot of the time. But in the case of blogs and reading articles on the web, the private conversation between the writer and you is disrupted. I take this to heart because reading inspires me so much as a visual artist. I don’t mean I create things that interpret what I read, but I like to read things I attempt to express through art, yet only seem to come out properly in words. (I admit, I’m pretty insecure, although I’m not fishing for praise here).

It seems like every other week there’s something circulating in various media about the death of the newspaper and publishing. What they need to realize is that there’s a new form of reading taking shape on a massive, sweeping scale that I’m trying to grasp, that feels more natural someone 10 years younger than me. The sooner they understand this and try to change instead of forcing/marketing obsolete methods, the better chance they will have to survive. Am I nostalgic? No. I’m sure somewhere down the line, a simulation of consuming printed media will return, not a straightforward fake like the guys hawking handbags on the side of the road, but a sur-reality, the way fashion has been regurgitating the past since the 1970’s, the way suburban shopping centers are designed to look like urban cores, the way “found objects” (both real and reproduced) and crafts in interior design steal the soul of the original. Who knows where this is all going.

All I know is, right now, I feel like I’m looking for some answers. I need some answers. But the questions have slipped my mind so I don’t have much motivation to figure out where to look.
drawings, www
Colorspace
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Colored pencil on wood
May 2009
part of the Staring at Screens series

in researching this project the word “colorspace” popped into my head. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this term before in my cluster of thoughts. since I work for a digital printing company full time as a graphic designer, “colorspace” enters my vocabulary all the time in discussing CMYK, RGB and Pantone colors. Each has totally different quirks and foibles in what we see on screen vs what the design software reads (e.g. Adobe) vs what the print driver reads vs what the printer itself reads vs what we see produced. This is about how that image we see on screen, the digital eye of the machine (interpreter [screen]/producer[printer], and what we see physically, is altered in that process, particularly through digital photography: translation of images seen by the human eye into pixels, 1s and 0s, and that mutation of form and message through television, movies, and internet presences such as personal websites, image/video sharing and social networking sites. It begins and ends with The Eye. Consciousness of the Self and how it is reproduced in these media, as well as ubiquitous Unseen Eyes, digital and human, viewing, interpreting, reproducing the Self, infinitely, obscurely. In drawing and painting images produced by machines, I am attempting to reclaim natural vision. Let us take our understanding of “The Work Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” a step further, or in another direction (whatever your preference), and look at our present circumstances in “The Self in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
critique, ideas, oracles, style, www
Artiquette
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Well, my prediction about the Tucson city budget meeting earlier this week was fulfilled: the impending fallout is now a bitter controversy. As Tu Scene is not a place for critique (yet), I shall blow hot pixels here, opinionated Art Diva that I am. Who knew everyone and their dog who opposed the hotel and renter’s tax would also be wearing red? Next time arts-supporters should don something more unique, like purple and yellow polka dots or balloon hats… or maybe just dress up a little so as not to look like the rest of the rabble.

Lately I’ve been thinking that artists need to re-consider the way they present themselves to the public in dress and unfortunately, in some cases, basic hygiene. As governmental entities and charitable organizations run lower and lower on funds, public outcry grows against their financial footing of non-essential projects that support lazy artists. Now is the time for us to combat that crank stereotype. I’ve seen artists who go all-out on the presentation/installation of their work to near-perfection yet viewer-ly accessible as possible, and arrive at their own opening in blown-out khaki shorts, birkenstocks with nasty cracked toenails hanging out (in the over 35-ish crowd) or stanky All-Stars, pit-stained t-shirt and oily hair (if they’re under about 35).

Same goes for interaction with non-artists. By the word interaction, I mean interpersonal relations beyond things like manners, etiquette, sense of humor. Throwing our visionary weirdness in in the face of squares who will never “get it” doesn’t help to win respect and will continue to put us on the fringes of public opinion in emphasizing the vital role the arts play in everyday life and education. Rather than being militant eccentrics in our dealings with average Joes, let’s shift that energy to doing really, really awesome work and producing mind-blowing public shows with the best of the money, time and energy we have. This will take a lot of honesty with ourselves: honesty about our own apperance and actions, honesty about how the other half really lives and thinks, honesty about our own expectations vs expectations of others. It takes a great deal of consideration, maybe not quite courtesy or “dumbing-down,” but consideration nonetheless.

It’s OK to be who we are, knowing that we can let ourselves go with other creative types, but I’ve found it’s effective to meet people halfway upon similarities, rather than getting them to come “up” to your level. For me, this is not an easy thing to do; it takes a lot of energy. Sometimes the most open-mindedness you can sneak into a stoic viewer is a nod of acknowledgment; other times, a little consideration in your interactions with a person opens doors and windows in them that they didn’t even know they had.

If you are going to ask for public or private financial charity, take extra care in how you present yourself. While the mystique of the bizarre worked for 20th century artists shaking the centuries-old system of academies, salons and commissioned funding by patrons, we’re now on the threshold of the post-fame era. Luck is running out, being in the right place at the right time is a four dimensional gamble in which the odds are against you a kajillion to 1. Now, anything, happening anyplace and anytime can be self-promoted online, yet needs to be well-presented to get the attention. I’ve noticed that art and fashion blogs (and bloggers, as they choose to reveal their appearance) whose photos/graphics/writing are well-realized, hitting the ideal nail on the head, get the attention, while others slightly less than masterful in those forms — however inspired — fall more or less to the wayside.

Presentation isn’t about marketing — I think that conversation is being phased out, slowly, as laypeople’s web and photography skills increase, and also simply because marketing lacks what is at the core of art: grabbing someone by the lapels out of the Everyday and teleporting them through a psychic pneumatic tube into the hyper-temporal, spiritual Whatever. And not always on an “elevated” or “higher” plane, just a different, and important one. Making them honorary shamans.

Maybe this “etiquette” I speak of is the backlash away from the self-centered focus concerning embrace or rejection, sobered into the austerity of simply being respected.
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Me!Me!
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Just for fun, a Flickr meme via la Patri.

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Rachelle
2. What is your favorite food? Salsa
3. What high school did you go to? St. Joesph High School Victoria
4. What is your favorite color? Yellow
5. Who is your celebrity crush? No comment
6. Favorite drink? Red wine
7. Dream vacation? Romania
8. Favorite dessert? Bread pudding
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Artist
10. What do you love most in life? Friends & family
11. One Word to describe you. Multilayered
12. Your flickr name. art diva

Credits: 1. Rachelle Delgado’s 18th Birthday, 2. Chips & Salsa with Frieda Kahlo (finished version), 3. HISTORY OF THE QUEEN’S HEAD PUBLIC HOUSE, 4. vw, 5. No no no !, 6. VinRouge – Dressed & Undressed, 7. Path of Color, 8. Bread Pudding, 9. Eden Park Artist, 10. Love XOXO, 11. a5865 Back to Backlight, 12. Goddess Art Pin
ideas, photography, www
Photography & Reality
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There are things that photograph well but aren’t that impressive in real life.

- Pre-framed/matted Art prints sold at big box stores. I can imagine that some of these actually look like craigslist submissions.

- Creatively displayed but poorly executed art installations. It bothers me that the mere presentation of something can make up for lack of substance and quality. Yet in saying this I point the finger of blame at myself, a graphic designer/marketing geek/art installer. Because what’s fun and interesting to me about my work is that you can control people’s expectations and impressions of things. When you do that, you can influence reality a great deal. One could completely power trip off of it, but when you work with clients in the real world, you must often bend to their will and accommodate their quirks and foibles. Make them look good, but compromise.

- Street fashion. I’m kind of glad last year’s silliness and excess is going away a little bit. It’s still there but it’s being drawn back into practicality. My fashion philosophy is combining function AND expression.

- Outdoor weddings.

- Non-pap shots of celebrities.

- Giant interstate highway mixmasters.

And there are beautiful things in real life that underwhelm when photographed. Maybe most things are like this. Sunsets, people, black clothes and rose bushes come to mind. What are your ideas?

***

As a child, I adored looking at the impeccably decorated interiors and lush, expansive gardens featured in my mom’s Southern Living and Better Homes & Gardens (this was in the days before Martha Stewart). I’d linger on every photo, picturing myself living in each one: cooking for guests in the (futu)rustic kitchen at my country manse, soaking in a big Roman tub with the sun streaming in through the retractable skylight in my alabaster bathroom, coming home to the white noise of my mid-century modern loft in the heart of a bustling city, sitting on a stone bench contemplating my lotus-covered water garden, walking under my fragrant rose arbor, etc.

Now in addition to lingering on paper, we can also linger on pixels. There’s an ever-growing number of websites, blogs and Flickr groups that enable users to easily share photos of one’s home online. The lighting, the placement of objects, and the lack of personal knick-knacks in some scenes look as though they were styled and shot by professionals. The controlled environment of the photograph is deceptive, yet as we live more and more of our real, public lives on the web, it’s easy to confuse this illusion as reality. One begins to see one’s clothes and home – intimate expressions of self – as a scene in a photograph. How unsettling to be a voyeur in your own life.
life, style, www
Absence makes the heart grow…
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I’ve been too busy to post on, much less check, the wardrobe_remix group on Flickr for the last 6+ weeks. I’ve been a much happier person since I quit worrying about how many views my photos got, getting comments, acquiring new things to show off, being heavily influenced other people’s clothes. My absence has also solved a quandry I’d been facing for a couple of months that had been causing me some mental “wear” & tear: what is my style? Experimenting and trying new (to me) looks since I joined the group in December of last year has been a bold, positive step forward, but I felt like I was losing myself in the process. I felt like I had to be constantly searching for the perfect accessory, evaulating every detail of what I was going to wear the next day, growing tired quickly of what I already owned, stressing about wearing the same outfit twice, and jealous of what other people had on.

And yet I couldn’t stay away, even though I knew that was the key to release. Since work and extra-curricular activities have forced me to withdraw from the group, I’ve re-discovered some things about my habits and style.
- I’m definitely a fashion chameleon, changing constantly from day to day.
- I tend to get stuck on an outfit or accessory of the week or month that I wear constantly.
- I like looking, but not buying. I put a lot of things back before I check out at the register. It’s not just the money-spending that bothers me, it’s also that I don’t want to get things “for fun” that don’t fit in. I can usually tell when I’ll get tired of something quickly or never wear it.
- I like simple, elegant, interestingly-cut clothes with bold accessories.
- Fit is all-important.
- I like black, and bright colors. I don’t like neutrals or pastels.
- This could be interpreted as subconscious/psychological: I like either prim, ladylike styles or androgynous, un-feminine looks.
- Dressing my age is important to me. So ladylike is the operative adjective in the previous item; I don’t like to look girly.
- Trends aren’t that important. I have always chosen clothes intuitively and find I am much happier when I don’t pay attention to trends.
But wardrobe_remix also impacted me positively and really helped me grow as a person.
- Best thing: I’m not afraid to experiment anymore. In the past, when I’d get dressed to go out, I’d have on an unusual-looking (to me) or potentially too-dressy outfit that would never make it outside my bedroom. I’d change into something reliable at the last minute only to regret my conservatism later.
- I’m better able to put outfits together, which I think is also confidence-related. Some mornings, I still agonize about what to wear, but for the most part I find it easier to choose things now.
- Customizing and making my own clothes has become a cool new past-time.
- Being exposed and contributing to a global, online, fairly young community has provided feasts for thought.