We were sitting with Jason Wilder on a blanket in the middle Parcel 5 on a magical Sun Ra Sunday when I took this photo. I spotted Jason’s name on the list of First Friday art shows so we made Fatty’s our first stop. A new building in a newly developed section of town, the atmosphere in Fatty’s is more cafeteria than bar. Kyle from WAYO’s “Up on the Roof” was spinning 45s. Fatty’s struck me as over lit but the section devoted to art is under lit. I took a photo of Jason’s statement so I could read it at home.
“I’ve been rebelling against the 21st century codification of photography. To me, everything is becoming blurred and losing meaning. I’m beginning to wonder if the act of making a photograph means less about documenting the human experience and more about the aesthetic value of the photograph or photographer.
In an effort to explore this, I no longer view or share photography via social media. Instead, I print my photographs and sort them in portfolios and photo albums. As I do with my own photographs, I started writing notes about them, which then became fictional stories about the places and people in the photographs. Feeling the need to collaborate with other creatives, I asked around to see if anyone had the desire to write, in any form, about found photographs in my collection.”
A woman named Emily improvised short pieces based on some of Jason’s found photos and pairings are magical. I would suggest stopping by in the daytime when there is a little more light on the work.
Up on the fourth floor of the Anderson Arts Building Diane Foley was showing her “Drawings from Memory.” Some of the figures were so detailed it was hard to believe she was not drawings from life and they did not look like drawings so I asked her about it. Diane said there was only one actual drawing in the show. They were indeed drawn from memory but she photographs her drawings and takes them into photoshop where she layers other scans and textures onto the drawing.
Next door at Coleen’s four tattoo artists were showing their paintings in an exhibition by Art Collective Stanley DuBois: Who made the Potato Salad?! with Alexander Bost, Cedric Harris, Story and Sage Williams making it real. We got pretty comfortable at this show and discovered Story plays saxophone. He and Peggi talked shop and Story put the next Margaret Explosion gig on his calendar. Colleen, who grew up going to a Black church, explained the significance of the potato salad question but I didn’t follow it.
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