FINDING CHINATOWN, Opened At Craig Krull Gallery

With three blogs, I always have to figure out where to place news....

That said, the fact that the opening of my first solo show of my decade-long photographic project, FINDING CHINATOWN, was absolutely packed is worth placing on all three! More on my FINDING CHINATOWN Blog.

Kite Day with Tyrus

Beautiful day at the beach with Tyrus Wong and his family and friends.

Tyrus brought out his swallow kites, one of his earliest: "35 years old," he says, from his kite-making 40 years. "When I flew it, I had approximately 25 swallows up in the air." The hand painting of the swallows, the claws still beautifully depicted on the body, possibly with felt-tipped pens, take the appearance of a lovely watercolor. On each swallow, Tryus' name and phone number, probably if the kite ever broke away.


While I was there, the delicate nature and natural destruction of the bamboo structure made the kites at first hard to fly. But after I left, I hear that they were up. Tyrus promises to bring 20 of them next time, August. I cannot wait.


Below, a centipede just about to lift off.

Lines at Bergamot for Chain Letter Exhibition

Arriving at 9am to check in at 10am, hard even then to find a parking space as Martin Cox, my sometime co-curator, and I stand at already the 109th in line of an expected 1,000+ for Doug Harvey and Christian Cummings' show, CHAIN LETTER. In the chain letter/email that I received, the show is "based on admiration," sent by a photographer friend who tells me to send it on to 10 additional friends, all of us who are willing to then bring an artwork on today, Friday 22 July, to the Shoshana Wayne Gallery for exhibition.

And so we did, taking it for what it is, a piece that will possibly piled upon for it is a large gallery but not for 1000+artists with, as we saw, a huge and immense and often VERY LARGE variety of work. Our work is flat, a photograph, "Here's looking at you."

Some pics from the art/social day as we stood.



Don't know if I will brave tomorrow night's opening....

YouTube

My first YouTube video: On the 405 on Carmageddon Weekend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc3Zg0cn9kA
Driving ALL ALONE through the Sepulveda Pass.

Watch for louder noise as I lift the little Leica D-Lux5 out of the open sunroof .... freeway wind noise is loud. It quickly leaves.

Carmageddon/FirstPicsSaturday

From the Sunset Boulevard Bridge looking North.
Home by 5:30 after being out and about in WLA since 1pm. No traffic. Not on Sunset Boulevard which is usually a nightmare as it narrows before the 405. Not on North Sepulveda, the main artery through the pass other than the 405, the one I am old enough to remember taking from the beach to the ever-so-distant San Fernando Valley before there was a 405.

I was racing up (but not too fast. There are HUNDREDS of police and CHP out there!) Sepulveda because of a kind offer from Officers Karen Fowler (sp?) & Sara Faden of the Media Relations Section of LAPD who invited me to join the 1:30pm "Media Walk" on the 405, right south of the Mulholland Bridge. And there at 1:30 I was, walking down the exit ramp North of the Skirball Bridge, onto the north side of the 405. First pics downloaded here, including some on the south side of the 405 (I sneaked over).






For someone who has spent her life since age one in LA, this was like being in a candy store. I photographed and photographed with both my larger Canon as well as my trusty Leica D-Lux5, the camera I've been using throughout the Gridlock series.

And then, what I did not realize: the public could still enter the southbound side of the freeway from the Skirball Bridge and enter I did to find myself alone on this immense landscape of yellow and white stripes. I resisted the urge to weave but was in this state of heightened awareness as I rolled along the vacant concrete both north and south; the hewn mountains that formed both the natural and the later widened Sepulveda Pass; and me.



Alone I remained until Sunset Boulevard when a second car entered and with only one more addition around Wilshire Boulevard, we danced the freeways until south of the E/W 10. I was in an adrenaline rush.



Above: first pics from my walk on the freeway and a moment on the Sunset Boulevard Bridge, also in transition/widening. More to come. Still downloading.

GRIDLOCK

CARMAGEDDON/LA 405 is upon us. The freeway, a major N/S route through the Los Angeles basin is closed for the weekend to provide for the demolition of one side of a major bridge, the same closure to be repeated in six months for the demolition of the other side. All to improve traffic flow in my city.... or so they say.

I will be out photographing on the 405 today/tomorrow in connection with my long-term project, GRIDLOCK, a project that is very much about being a Californian, about being in a car, about being stuck in traffic. It was first exhibited in 2010 MOPLA Pro'ject LA 160 Photographers Photograph Los Angeles.

From my website: "I am photographing from my driver's window, mainly with my viewfinder-less Leica D-Lux3/now D-Lux5. Stopped. Crawling. Trapped. Riding on the clutch as I stay in 1st should the flow move on. Immobile in a place of presumed mobility. Hoping to catch that elusive abstraction even while those behind me glower and gently nudge my car along."

Due to a knee injury last summer I recently had to abandon my 5-speed standard shift car and in so doing, although I have continued the series, a major element of the chance and risk of the project has lessened and it feels like the project may be coming to an end. So.... I have decided that Carmageddon seems like a good time, the possible ultimate GRIDLOCK.

Thus today and/or Sunday, I plan to try to be somewhere in my car on the freeways or highways, probably on the 405 south of the 10, to experience and document what is happening in the same manner as I have conducted the series. Again, it is always about chance and as is seen so far, it could be a Y2K bust or, I may never get off.

So far, traffic seems to be light but I'll see firsthand in a couple of hours. http://www.405la.com


I will post some photographs during the weekend!

FINDING CHINATOWN: The Exhibition Catalogue

It's out and available at Craig Krull Gallery, even before the show (Opening Saturday July 30th)!
info@craigkrullgallery.com

See more at FINDING CHINATOWN blog.

On Photography Projects & Books

photo from Schilt Publishing Catalogue 2011
I picked this up on the FB Flak Photography Book page. I had met Donald Weber at a FotoFest review and have been a fan of his work. That said, his clarity about his intentions and the actual process of creation of his new book/project INTERROGATIONS on the linked interview from dvafoto and his book website http://interrogationbook.com/ is instructive.

I've written about editing before. As a writer and photographer I, like Donald, understand the symbiotic nature of both, even when a book is not the ultimate goal.