ROSS EVERTSON, PHOTO (BLOG, INFO)

My wife and I visited the AGO (about half a block away from our place) on X-Mas Eve. I made a snarky little note on one of the public feedback/artback kiosks. My wife rolled her eyes and we went on, until we saw…

Snark vindication!

I have to admit that I really like the new building, although I am disappointed that an architecture-pleb like me called this one while sitting at a kiddie table drawing smiley faces. I feel that fashion aside, a buildings first priority should be to keep the elements out, and in the name of A-R-T especially.

Regret: Not having photos of the completely shut down main staircase in the Daniel Libeskind designed Denver Art Funnel (which I don’t have to admit that I like, as opposed to the AGO).

With my other steeds in Toronto, I found myself needing to build a commuter. I’m not a huge fan of fixed gears in the winter, and I don’t feel like doing much adjusting, so a single speed it is. The base is an early to mid-90’s Bianchi, which was cobbled together in a rather poor fashion (the brake lever was attached with a length of leather rope). The hunt is on for some proper bits to make it comfortable and road worthy.

There is something about not having the option of riding a bike that has been making me crazy. I don’t mind taking the car when it is a choice, but when I have no other alternative it makes me grumpy—and pine for human propulsion.

Denver, Colo. 2008

Hey Tim—you look tired. Are you enjoying your new desk? What about that other art director—do you think he is going to quit soon? Remember how I tried to keep you from getting hit by that train? I guess I should have figured that you knew what you were doing, but I know how you are.

You say you are having a busy month, but I wonder if that maybe you just forgot what it was like to be truly busy and you honestly do have enough time to talk about the book with me. What are you doing right now? Probably eating yogurt or a choco-graham. I couldn’t imagine a better time to chat on the internet about an interesting project.

My friend Mike Essl made a website encapsulating the perpetual question between the disciplines of art and design. Totally stripped of context and debate, free from the defense of ego people can vote on one of the most annoying questions that follows designers from their first viz comm class to their death bed interview.

http://isgraphicdesignart.com/

There are so many levels to both “disciplines”—from a preteen grandson making a website for his grandmothers quilts, to Damien Hirst living to see himself make millions and millions of dollars—how do we place ourselves on this spectrum for the purposes of a conversation like this?

I imagine, for most people that are informed in an average way about the fact there is potentially a difference between design and art, it is a matter of “I know it when I see it.” I think this is a totally reasonable place for most people to be. After years and years of their son going to various school for design, photography, and fine art, my parents still don’t understand why or how I delineate those three things, and they get along just fine.

For me, I stopped worrying about the delineation because it served no real purpose except for to occasionally help describe what I do in a more palatable way. To my wife’s parents I am an “art director” because that is my most recent job title. To my brother I am a photographer because that is what he sees me doing.

I don’t know many people making a living as a graphic designer, art director, creative director, design researcher, design analyst, interaction designer or anything else calling themselves “artists.” At least in regards to their day job. They don’t have any need or interest in defending any particular position. Design being design is just fine, they don’t have to aspire to be artists.

All this terminology is very loaded for anyone even remotely creative. I remember my first art history course, and the teacher kept referring to “plastic” and an hour or so into class a girl stood up and screamed “WHY THE HELL DO YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT PLASTICS!?”

Since we all have different backgrounds and have no idea what someone else might think the word plastic means in the context of art history, it is very hard to have our comments accurately received.

In a conversation with Mike last night he put it simply, “…graphic design is graphic design. I don’t care for it to be anything else.”

Littleton, Colo. 2008

The 80216 area code has been called the most polluted zip code in Denver. Residential neighborhoods sit next to (and on top of) smelting plants that have been in operation for over one-hundred years. ASARCO’s smelting facility in Globeville had been operating since 1886. Taken to court in 1983 by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, a settlement was reached in May 1993 and the area was put on the EPA’s National Priorities List that July. Residential clean-up, which included digging up and replacing yards, was completed in 2002.

My interest in the EPA’s Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (aka, CERCLA or more commonly, Superfund) stems from a desire to clarify the nature of these areas in and around Colorado. I have no specific agenda, I do not intend this to be a journalistic exposé, it is more of an attempt to satiate my curiosity surrounding these sites.

The following photographs are from areas around the neighborhood, including the oil refinery a mile or two north in Commerce City. They are from the first visit of the most convenient site…it is hard to speak to the future of the project. I would like to visit every major site in Colo. just to get a well rounded idea of the aesthetic states of these various sites.

Initially when I started at the paper I wanted to jump in and redesign the whole thing. I’d still like to, but in the time I’ve been there with the new editor (who started as the same time as I did) we have just been working on the back end…Capacity building, getting the schedule to a more reasonable place, trying to figure out how to be autonomous money wise…

Of all the collateral documents that were floating around, the one that should be the most useful and informative is the shipping list, and the one that we were using was neither. It was adopted from another publication at some point. Put together in Excel it was small and hard to read. The first month I was there the issue got rearranged and it took us 2 weeks to realize we were short two pages.

I wanted to put something together that was more accessible, but would still retain all of the relevant information. I ended up making a more visual document, that illustrated spreads, basic layout, word count as well as communicating the names of the writers and artists for each article, and the due dates and acceptance of submissions.

You can see the grey blocks inside of each page which represents the space allocated for each article, and a slightly newer version also includes the word count for each space. Everybody working on the paper gets an updated copy weekly, and everyone has their own way of using the document. I need to keep track of the progress of layouts, and as I get things finished I get to cross spreads out with a sharpie so I have a very obvious read of what is done, and what needs attention. The editor uses it as a way to manage versions and locations throughout the editing process.

It hasn’t been as glamorous as redesigning the paper, but considering we are all dealing with this document all day everyday I wanted to make sure it was as pleasant and useful as possible.

Pasadena, Calif. 2006

Since I am not very consistent with my blog posts, I will steal a comment I made on Christian’s blog regarding Joerg’s question What Makes a Great Photo?

I don’t respond to single photographs the way some people do. If they are funny or ironic or insightful or informative I will appreciate them as such. But really, one image out of context really does nothing for me relative to a series or body of work.

In my opinion one of the most wonderful things about photography is how it can document a persons perspective, or a particular take on a place or idea. Sometimes that is supremely boring (my recent photographs near crushingly boring levels), but as a whole I hope they speak to something far more interesting.

The point of “hero” photographs in advertising and editorial photography makes complete sense, and are necessary since most magazines aren’t interested in publishing Ross’s 20 favorite photographs from the shoot. When it comes to making my own work, however, I have the opportunity to be as slow and deliberate with my description of something as possible.

Pasadena, Calif. 2006

Pasadena, Calif. 2006

I would tell my 22 year old self, a freshman at Art Center, to stop being an idiot. I would tell him that in about a year and a half, you will figure out what all of this photography shit actually means to you, and while you won’t give up on complaining, you will at least start making work. I could explain that the frustration with a school and a town was irrelevant to what you wanted to do, so you might as well just make photographs.

For a year I couldn’t take pictures in Pasadena. It felt completely unphotographable to me, partially because it was just too convenient and partially because that early frustration just made it all look like utter crap to me. Then I moved and really only saw the place because I had to just kiss the ass end of it to get to my favorite sushi restaurant.

About two years later I found myself working on a project for the school, and for the City of Pasadena. I was to shoot a survey of architecture in the city, as some visual component to a lecture that was going to be given by Richard Koshalek. I believe it was meant to open a dialogue about the cheapening of the beauty of the existing building by making a entire city block an eight story brick of stucco.

Regardless, I found myself in that unphotographable city, making countless images. I would drive somewhere and park under an oak, and then walk and shoot until I was out of film. It was the kind of ‘collecting’ that I was doing prior to my Art Center beat down and that will hopefully always be a component of my practice.

There was nothing cerebral about the project, but it was enlightening for me. The photographs are always there. I would tell the 22 year old me to just stop complaining long enough to take them.