Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Labels

Now that the postings are mounting, I wanted to mention how helpful the labels can be to look at a specific subject. For example if you are looking for India Ink drawings, be sure to click on the label 'india Ink' and all of the posts with that link attached to it should pop up. Some helpful labels might be: Chicago, panorama, drawing... They appear at the bottom of each post. I will include them all here. Give it a try, don't be afraid.

Mirror Lake









Here are a few photos from a series I made in 2007-2008 called 'Mirror Lake'. All the original images were made in Chicago, along the lake front. I won't say anything about my manipulation of the photos, it's obvious and the title of the series, says it all. They have a quality about them that evokes, for myself, a feeling of being near the waters edge of Lake Michigan. There are still a few of the original images floating around Las Manos Gallery; and the Gage Restaurant on Michigan Avenue has a couple very large prints in their dining rooms from this series.

Winter Panorama

Tulips


As an antidote to all this cold weather, a tulip drawing from last summer.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Winter Storm in Chicago


Early winter continues to rage on. Today it's snow, tomorrow the temperature drops dramatically. This photo is a couple years old and has never been printed or shown. I thought I might shoot a series of panoramas of pedestrians on State Street in Chicago during different times of the year. I did not get very far on the series but this winter one was fun to construct. I'm standing at the corner of State Street and Washington in the Loop. The clock is on the old Marshall Fields building, now Macy's. Some day I will finish the series, I have a good image of people in the rain, and another of people on their cell phones. Keep warm where ever you are.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The Last Telephone Pole Drawing?


I have plowed my way through nine drawings in the 'Telephone Pole' series. Pictured is the ninth, and for now, the last drawing in the series. The drawings became a little more complex as the series progressed as I searched for more, and then more, over-burdened telephone poles in and around the north-side of Chicago. I would take my bike and camera out on a warmish fall days and ride up and down the alleys of Lakeview and Uptown. Neighborhoods with dense housing stock and a population of internet and cable users made for good hunting grounds. The cross hatching did not get any easier as I moved through the nine drawings; The large, inky areas generally went quickly but I sitll had anxiety when faced with all those long, thin, telephone lines. One slip and....

No plans to show the drawings at this time. The still need to be trimmed and signed. It feels good to have a series finished and in the bag, now I need to determine just the right context in which to show them. You can see the rest of them in a couple earlier postings. Use the labels at the bottom to see posts by catagories, in this case click on telephone poles. They deserved to be framed and I'll have to save up some cash to make that happen. I see them in a three by three grid, in perhaps natural wood frames. No rush.

Winter Has Arrived Early


The image is a panorama made off my balcony last weekend, during our first big snow. It's early December and we have already had two significant snowfalls and weeks of very cold weather. Winter is in full swing and we are all in a bit of shock with the sudden transition from the warm summer and prolonged fall. I'm hopeful that a cold December makes for a warmish January. That's what happened last year; frigid in December then the rest of the winter mild with an early spring.

I do love the winter view from my windows. The snow softens the city. As a word of explanation; the tall buildings on the left of the photo run along Lake Shore Drive, but there are no tall buildings directly in front my building. The roof tops at the bottom of the photo run along Hawthorne Place, as street full of many beautiful historic homes. You can usually see downtown Chicago off in the distance, but not on a snowy day. This image could become my default Holiday card.