Sunday, November 25, 2007

Jeff Wall and.. photography?

this is what i found

"Jeff Wall was born in 1946 in Canada. Growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Wall pursued his artistic talent with support from his family. Yet, his decision to attend the University of British Columbia and not an art school surprised his relatives. This would be only one decision that seemed out of character for an artist. Wall earned a master's degree in art and continued his doctoral education at the Courtauld Institute in London. However, "feeling that he had acquired enough learning to serve his creative purposes," commented Lee Robbins in ARTnews, Wall left the Institute and began a career, not as an artist, but as a teacher."

hm. right. so, the basic idea for everyone, especially those who had a real education in studio art, is that art gets better as life gets better. art making is, i've heard, a visceral experience. or to put it in another way- you make what you got. how long does the undergraduate experience feed into your next project that will go up in the gallery?

wells. i remember telling myself that.. jeff wall has a phd, so i should just go for it. uh... i don't know. so far i feel that this phd student status is kind of vague. and.. what do i have to report? lets see- except that i am trying to finish as soon as possible because... reading 1000+ pages a week and writing is kind of hell-ish. granted, this is my first semester in the program. but... gosh. it's a strange experience. almost all of my friends are pure artists types:

bfa-freelance-mfa-freelance.
or
bfa-mfa-freelance*

*freelance meaning any kind of try at the shot of becoming.. dunno, an art star(?)

where are the weird ones? bfa-phd-@$%@$#%

it'd be nice to know that someone else is doing the same thing- as it is true to all things right? it'd be nice to know that you're not too too far away from main stream.
this is what 7 hours look like:
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

and this is maybe 9 hours
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

what can i say.. i somewhat miss the times when every minute is spent waiting for the prints to dry. or taking forever to spot an image in the computer lab (and accidentally picking up leaked gossip). or... standing around for greasy food at sunny's because they always forget about my order.

wah... =*O

today

hi.
well.. first day is always weird. i feel like i'm talking to air. but..
so, this will be a place i post thoughts and ideas on art, films, the unforgiving life of a grad student, and hopefully not everything in my head because.. it's a crazy place.

uh... sigh. need to take care of readings nows. what i'd like to watch is christopher nolan's "following"- as one friend tells me that it's weird but the other tells me that it's brilliant.