Artist Lecture-Paul Shambroom

First of all, I thought this artist lecture was much much better then the last one. I really liked the ideas behind Paul Shambroom's work. My favorite series was the "Meetings" series. I like that he visited small towns and observed the goings on in their town meetings. I think that is much more interesting than what he was talking about before with the big, corporate meetings. I love photographs of small towns, in places I've never heard of. It makes me want to travel all over, so I can see these places I've never heard of and experience them for myself. I know he didn't pose any of the people in his photographs and I really like that. I like how into it all of these people are getting, for what might be something small and unimportant. I think you could take his work in a more ironic tone, one that would belittle the people in the photographs but he doesn't think that way. 

I also liked his series with the army weapons that are displayed in public places. That really reminded me of home because I grew up in a town with a HUGE army base and I always saw stuff like that growing up. It's funny because I never thought of how weird that is until I saw his photographs and I thought, "hmm...what is the point of displaying that?"I think it's really cool, what he does, because he gets to travel to places all over the country, taking pictures that showcase these huge objects on display that most people don't think about at all. It's just part of the landscape.

First Fridays 2/6/09

I hadn't been to First Fridays in a long time, so I was excited to go to this one. I had read up on some of the galleries and shows beforehand and there were a few places I really wanted to check out. One of my favorite galleries of the night was ADA gallery. I almost always end up liking whatever is shown there. That night there were some drawings on display, my favorites were the drawings by Rob Lee. I just love his style. His style of drawing is how I want mine to be, if I could draw better. I really can't draw at all, so I try to avoid it at all costs. His drawings were pretty funny, they involved people and random creatures. I really liked this one drawing, there were headless people and weird animals and the clouds looked like they were melting. It was mostly done with red ink and pencil, which I think is what drew my eye to it in the first place. After the first look though, I kept staring just because I was trying to figure out what was going on. 

Another really good exhibit from the night, another one of my favorites, was the show at Gallery 5. It was put on by the YWCA. They were showing art that had been done by victims of domestic/sexual abuse. Next to each piece, there was a short description of what the artist was feeling when they did the piece, how old they were when they were abused, and how old they were when they did the piece. Overall, it was a very moving show. It was hard to read some of the personal stories but it was very uplifting to see how strong some of these women were in the face of adversity.

Maggie

I was able to make it to the Emmet and Elijah Gowin show the day it was ending. I'm glad I did because it was awesome. The whole set-up was really simple and plain. The walls were plain white and the frames were minimal. The photographs were spread out one after the other on the walls. Besides the fact that the photos were printed really well and were really beautiful to look at, there was also a good story behind them. You can tell that the artists are truly obsessed with this woman and everything about her. The photos of her are almost reverent sometimes. I really liked the photos that looked like they had been set up. The candid ones were good too but I preferred the tableaus. There was one in particular that I really enjoyed. Maggie is standing in front of a shed and it looks like she is holding this flock of birds by strings. There's another one where she's standing in front of a shed and she has paper moons strung up on a line. I really like these because they look surreal and from another world. I enjoyed the more realistic prints too, I think because they reminded me of my own family. I liked the closeness of them and the fact that the photographers were so comfortable with their subject.