Proud as a ...



Peacock Feathers
iPhoto with Paint-Fresco effect

 Peacock feathers are the subject of today's photograph.

I don't know how I came by it, but I receive Facebook link to "Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts." I don't always have time to read the entries, but today's I did. It was about Zero Hour, a radio show broadcast on WRIR, Richmond Independent Radio, with host Tim Bowring, who interviews visual artists, curators, critics, and editors. Blackbird provided a link to an out-of-issue archive of such interviews from 2006-2009.

I downloaded a couple of them to my iPhone and listened while I was working on a jewelry project. Although I wasn't familiar with any of the people interviewed, it was interesting to hear other artists discuss their slant on their art.

One I particularly enjoyed was the interview with Gordon Stinnett, photographer and at the time of the interview (2008, I think) he was teaching at Virginia Commonwealth University.

In the course of the interview, Stinnett spoke of a project he was working on to publish a monograph of photographer Gita Lenz. She was in her mid-nineties and Stinnett felt her work warranted bringing it to a larger audience. He started an independent publishing company, Candela Books, and they released the art photography book in September of 2010.

Stinnett's photography is quirky, deceptively simplistic, and his comments about his subject choices were insightful. One comment in particular hit home with me. He was talking about how he works, his process, but he said it was difficult for him to keep on task, or stay focused. Invariably he would meet with other creatives and he would experience "project envy" and go off on some other tangent because he wanted to try what "they" were trying. How well I understand this!

Anyway, Gordon Stinnett's work can be seen at http://www.eyecaramba.com/ and if you want to download any of the 20-30 other interviews, go to Blackbird at www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v10n1/

Yes, right ... peacock feathers! I came across these in the least advantageous of positions, but I'll show you the original digital photograph and the effect filter I applied to it. I reformatted it to a square, because there was a lot that didn't add anything to the image.




Peacock Feathers
iPhoto reformatted to square