Nobody to blame but my elf.

Just Take a Little Off the Sides

copyright Gordon Stettinius

Okay, since I have decided to pimp my blog... I probably should occasionally update it. I have been shooting here and there. A wedding, Best Friends Day, ladies arm wrestling, etc. Pretty much the same old for me. Trying to slip along the margins of things. But also for the last couple of months, I have been doing some self portraiture. Or not exactly self portraiture because I am going to a commercial photo studio for the actual photos. But I have been styling and art directing the shots I guess you could say. It started with a perm I got a couple of months ago. Then I did kind of a private school girl's senior portrait which was sort of a beehive and drag kind of thing. Then I did a Duane Allman meets Bret Michaels sort of thing. Last night I shot a couple more which I will probably put up somewhere before too long. A mullet which, if the character had to be described somehow, would belong to an early nineties fitness instructor perhaps. And then we did a skullet which I hope came off well enough. That one had something of a western theme. Maybe what I should do is write a little fiction piece inventing the character of each photo subject. That might be fun.

Anyway, today, I am off to get a trim to take advantage of my current baldness with a combover and then I will season the look with a spray tan... hopefully a nuclear orange or an unholy umber. So, as always, stay tuned.

Rapture Dollar

copyright Anonymous Fundamentalist

Here was a pleasant surprise I received in change with a cup of coffee recently. A rapture dollar! If the scan doesn't hold up so well, it reads:

"Rapture May 21, 2011; World Ends Oct 21, 2011"

I am now wishing that I had saved some of the other random altered monies I have received over the years... seems I have seen some Anti Bush Money and some Lesbian Money in years past. But Rapture money raises the bar, in my opinion, and helps put the fun back into fundamentalism.

And now I have a firm deadline for my current project also! Maybe I should pre-sell copies...

Gone Fission

copyright Gordon Stettinius

August means summer has turned the corner. Life has been really good to us of late. A lot of travel and low stress have made for a pretty good stretch. I had hopes for another trip at the end of summer to Burning Man but just don't think I will be able to swing it with the childcare for such a nine or ten day stretch. And then finding substitutes for my first classes, which while doable, doesn't feel quite right. The theme this year is American Dream which pretty much has me salivating. But... hey, it is only an art+altculture+technology+survival congregation of muses, musicians, artists and majestic offerings, right? Bums me out that I haven't yet made it out there. I had a small crew out of Minnesota I was likely to hook up with but they have decided to stay at home this year so that they might help to artistically subvert this years Republican National Convention. The duties of an artist are not really written down anywhere but I am thinking that creatively tangling with the RNC would be somewhere near the top of the list.

Anyway, an easy recap of the summer breaks down into an extremely busy June with two bigger shows and three group shows... Richmond, Zurich, Charlottesville, New York and somewhere else which I cannot conjure up just now. Which all sounds great apart from the fact that I have almost nothing on the schedule going forward apart from a show next April at Page Bond Gallery.

While my son went to camp for a couple of weeks, I did a roadtrip through the bible belt. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri more or less. Meditating mostly upon God and barbecue as I was also picking up imagery for a barbecue restaurant job. I am trying to cobble together a body of work that explores the intersection of religion and entertainment. Suggestions are welcomed.

Then my son went to the beach with a friend of his that he plays music with and I took a shorter trip into the hills of North Carolina where I tried my hand at shooting some digital video. Basically, I have three or four somewhat solid video/film ideas but have very little to offer in the way of video/film skills. I am trying to learn a few things while writing/developing these ideas. I feel strange and blustery attempting narrative tale spinning but I may yet break out of my solitary 2-D visual artist groove. More on that maybe or maybe I'll never speak of it again. Do you care though? Are you there even?

And now... a small commercial job is on the schedule. And then also, I am getting ready finally to make some headway with the project involving the photographic work of Gita Lenz. Later this month, a New York gallery owner is coming down to spend a couple of days with her archive - which is really just a large set of shelves in my office - to determine what he would like to take on in terms of a show and potential sales and possible catalog and such. It has been over a year since I have had any movement on this one and I would really like to do something concrete with her work.

Blah, blah, and oh yeah! Working up a self portrait series... will maybe follow up with a few blogposts about that. Not revolutionary mind you but semi entertaining.