Tag: #Film

  • If Art is Made And No One Sees It, Is It Art?

    Today, I took the kid over to the Museum of Modern Art. This was our second time there, and I let her lead the way. Explore what she wanted, ask whatever questions, and just let her discover what she liked.

    What really set her on fire today was the Henri Matisse Cut-Outs. At first, she just liked the colors and the shapes, but when I read the description of the work provided by the museum, she quickly made the connection that she too cuts out construction paper and makes pictures! She decided that she needed to sketch these cut-outs so she could try it at home.

    It was pretty busy today, so we found a bench in the adjacent gallery so she could draw in her sketchpad. The gallery we were in was displaying films and photographs of artists who were documenting their different cities that they lived in during the late 60’s and early 70’s. This I found interesting and inspiring as it seemed like something I should be doing, and could be doing as well. (Maybe I am doing it?) But I came to a question; Were they documenting for themselves or for an audience?

    You can make all of these things, follow these creative endeavors, but at the end of the day, do you need someone to share it with? Does expression need to have an audience to be expressed to? My uncle, who was an artist, would have said no, that art doesn’t need a witness. He would say art is a process, and not explicitly a product.

    Maybe he was right. Maybe the work is the thing.

  • Sharing Photos with the Kid

    There has been a project that I have been meaning to get started on, which is getting photographs framed, and up on the walls. I have been squirreling away picture frames for some time, because when we go to IKEA, I pick up one or two. (Yes, I have a very unhealthy obsession with IKEA.) With it being Spring Break this week for the kid, I thought this might be fun for us to do together. We went out to our storage space, and grabbed the boxes for pictures and frames, and settled in on this project last night.

    When I started pulling out the pictures from the box, all still in that folder envelope that your pictures would come in after they were developed, the kid wanted to know why they were like that. (She has only lived in a digital world, and will never know that you used to have to wait for your pictures, and even then, you weren’t sure that they would turn out.) The pictures that I had were from Fall of 1995 to Summer of 2006, as after 2006, I used a digital camera, and never when back to film.

    And as I shared these pictures of my early and late 20’s life with my daughter, she had a perplexed look on her face. I remember feeling confused when my parents would show me pictures of their life at Southern Illinois University, or back in their high school days in Kankakee. Little six-year-old me was confused because it was hard for me to fathom my parents had a life before me and my brothers. My parents were fun, but serious, responsible people who ate their vegetables, paid their bills, and went to bed on time. Who were these people with beers in their hands, smoking, captured mid-laugh in photographs? Who were these people?

    The kid looked at the photos of me, with long hair, circle glasses, beer in hand, smoking, and wondered what I wondered when I was her age; who is this guy? Who are these people with Dad? What are they doing? Why is that guy hugging a tree?

  • Old Friend Birthday Wishes

    Old friends. I was struck by this idea this morning as I texted an old friend from college, wishing him a happy birthday. He’s in Texas, and I am in New York, but to be honest, we could be in the same town and that would not be a guarantee that we would be able to see each other.

    Old friends. I can say that now without irony. I have known him for 20 years. Our friendship is just about to be old enough to drink. I have a hand full of friends that I have known for over 35 years. Those friendships should start thinking about setting up retirement accounts.

    I am missing all of my friends, as we all are. I think things getting Spring-like warm in the City isn’t helping, as this would be the time that I would make an excuse to go take a walk around the park with a friend. To grab a seat on a bench with an old friend, and talk. Nothing complicated, just simple and basic; a conversation.

    Old friends who inhabit those fading pictures that were developed off of film are sprinkled on the walls of my home. The orange-yellowing of those images reflect the sanding of the sharp corners of my memories. It was all fun and silly, though those emotions then were stronger, and deeper, right? Only an old friend of mine could conform my nostalgia, or honesty.

    Happy birthday, old friend, and all of my old friends.