I'm Your Biggest Fan

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Jesse, Braven and Unknown Feature Dancer, 1995 © Juliana Beasley

Juliana Beasley recently revealed a series of Polaroids taken during her stripper days. They are like mesmerizing dispatches from the planet Ta Ta. Rumor has it that more of these fantastic images will soon see the light of day.

To learn more about the fabulous Miss Beasley, read interviews on Conscientious and Nymphoto.

Dark Was The Night

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In 1999 the Red Hot Organization produced Red Hot + Blue, an album of contemporary artists reinterpreting the music of Cole Porter. In doing so they raised the bar on the benefit compilation. Since then the Red Hot Organization has produced thirteen additional compilation albums, including the amazing Red Hot + Riot, all in the name of raising funds to fight HIV and AIDS.

On February 17 Red Hot is releasing the latest album in their benefit series, Dark Was The Night. The album features 31 exclusive tracks produced by The National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner. I'm excited because the artist line-up looks like a muster roll of my Last.fm library.

You can pre-order Dark Was The Night now, but if you want an early taste, download The Books and Jose Gonzalez cover of Nick Drake's beautiful "Cello Song" via I Guess I'm Floating.

UPDATE: Download no longer available, but you can hear snippets of tracks on the Dark Was The Night site.

I Love Gifts in the Mail: Graham Miller and Kevin Miyazaki

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It's been a while since I wrote a Gifts in the Mail post. This ass-up economy has put a crimp in the gift sending that once made my mailbox an almost weekly pinata of arty treats. Today the negative gift trend was busted in a big way.

Rhonda + Chantelle © Graham Miller

Graham Miller sent me a gorgeous print from his Suburban Splendor series. As I unrolled the image of Rhonda + Chantelle my knees buckled and I let out a series of ooohs and ahhs. Just stunning. It will be on my wall very soon.

© Kevin Miyazaki

Also arriving today was a small print from Kevin Miyazaki's 100 Very Small Observations show at MIAD. It is such a delicate and beautiful image.

Another recent gift in the mail was Susana Raab's self-published book A Sense of Place. Beyond showcasing her great talent, Susana's photos of the homes of William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Eudora Welty challenge us to think about the role of place in the creative process. You should own this book.

Finally on the recent gift list is a copy of Sadkids #5. Sadkids is a self-published photo 'zine featuring the work of the true San Francisco treat, Geoffrey Ellis. You can order your own copy of Sadkids for only $10, but you better hurry because they tend to sell out quickly.

Thank you all for such wonderful gifts.

Dexter and the Art of the Title Sequence

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I am late to Dexter. The series just finished its third season on Showtime and I have only recently watched the first two seasons on DVD. It is a great show on every level including the brilliant title sequence created by Digital Kitchen. The sequence does a masterful job of capturing the tension between Dexter the mild-mannered blood-splatter expert and Dexter the dutiful serial killer.



In my mind the Dexter sequence joins the opening credit sequences for To Kill A Mockingbird, Six Feet Under, and Anatomy of a Murder as the best examples of the form.

To Kill A Mockingbird title sequence by Stephen O. Frankfurt

Six Feet Under title sequence by Digital Kitchen

Anatomy of a Murder title sequence by Saul Bass

If you want to soak up some more brilliant title sequences, spend a few hours touring the Art of the Title Sequence Web site.

Have You Seen This Cat?

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Via. Reminds me of the this.

Walton Ford: Man and Beast

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Ornothomancy No. 3a © Walter Ford

I have been enjoying the profile of Walton Ford in the January 26 issue of The New Yorker. As someone who spends half a project doing research on their subjects, I can appreciate his approach to making work. As a fan of all things beautiful, I can't help but fawn over his lush watercolors.

Here Walton talks about the story behind his painting, Monkey Banquet.



For more Walton Ford you can view an audio slide show on the New Yorker Web site. The Art:21 site has a proper bio, plus lots of interactive goodies.

Time Warner On Demand Service Sucks

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We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog topics to talk about the heaping mound of pixelated crap that is Time Warner On Demand. The Time Warner On Demand service is completely unwatchable most times and when it does actually play, it will allow you to watch 98% of a show before cutting out.

Someone please tell me how WALL·E ends!!

I am hardly alone with my Time Warner On Demand troubles. A Google search reveals many a subscriber with the same issues. Hell, there is even a You Tube video where someone recorded the exact problem experienced by many Time Warner On Demand customers.



Is there another industry besides cable TV that would allow a completely unusable product to enter the marketplace without fear of consumer revolt. That, my friends, is the power of a monopoly.

And, please, no screeds about how I shouldn't watch TV or about TV being a vampire on the soul of society. I have read your bumper stickers and don't want to subscribe to your newsletter.

What I hope for is that this post about Time Warner On Demand service not working will rise in the Google rankings and force them to finally confront this issue. And when I say confront I'm not talking about rebooting my machine six hundred times or sending another yahoo out sometime between 9am and 6pm to "fix" my On Demand service. I'm talking about a recall or some other massive action where Time Warner comes clean and addresses the failure of the Time Warner On Demand service.

Not bloody likely, right?

Thank You, Penn!

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Gallbladder Canyon © Kim Brickley

Before the week gets away from me I wanted to extend a big thank you to the hundred or so folks that braved the cold on Thursday to attend my lecture at the University of Pennsylvania. I also want to thank the wonderful students in the Penn Design MFA program I met with on Friday. Your work is truly impressive and your commitment is inspiring.

Horses Think, Me Not So Much

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Ofer Wolberger is one of the smartest people I know. He also happens to be a very talented photographer. Naturally, his blog, Horses Think, is a great read and should be a healthy part of your daily feast of content. I have been an avid reader for a long time, but just realized I never added Horses Think to my big list of blogs on the right. Problem rectified.

Queens International 4

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© Justine Reyes

Tonight I will be attending the opening of the Queens Museum of Art's biennial exhibition of Queens based artists. The exhibition, Queens International 4, explores issues of internationalism and multiculturalism through a large variety of mediums. I couldn't be more excited for good friend and fellow Jackson Heights resident, Justine Reyes, whose Guayabera series will be showing in the biennial. Also, I am pretty damn excited that the opening will feature food from Vendy award-winning street vendors.

Here are the details:

Queens International 4
Queens Museum of Art
January 24 – April 26
Flushing Meadows, Corona Park
Queens, NY
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 24, 6pm-12am

If you are in the Bay Area and looking for something to do, this is the last weekend to catch Road Trip at the San Jose Museum of Art. The show features prints from my Stranded series as well as work by many great artists like Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank, Ed Ruscha, Catherine Opie, and Dorothea Lange.

Shut 'Em Down

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© Brennan Linsley-Pool/Getty Images

Obama Issues Directive to Shut Guantánamo

President Obama signed executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.

The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted.

Artists Lecture Thursday at UPenn

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Disturbance © Amy Stein

Thursday morning I am taking a quick train to Philadelphia to participate in the University of Pennsylvania's Visiting Artists program. Later that day I am giving a public lecture and on Friday I will be doing studio visits with the MFA students. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Print Center and is free and open to the public. I encourage everyone in the Philly metro area to come out and say hi.

Here are the details:

Amy Stein
University of Pennsylvania
B3 Meyerson Hall
Thursday, January 22, 5:30 pm
210 S. 34th Street
Philadelphia, PA

If you miss my lecture, do not fret. UPenn has some heavy hitters lined up for future lectures including Barkley L. Hendricks, Patti Smith, and Alec Soth.

John McCain, Also Ran

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A glum and winded eagle holds court over the They Also Ran Gallery

Like many of you I am still basking in the glow from yesterday's historic inauguration. In our joy let us not forget that every indelible victor requires a broken vessel loser consigned to oblivion.

Yesterday, John McCain got his proper recognition when his photograph was hung in the hallowed halls of flopitude known as the They Also Ran Gallery. McCain's photo now hangs its head on the mezzanine level of the First State Bank in Norton, Kansas alongside such notable nobodies as Horatio Seymour, Rufus King, and Alf Landon.

Good Stuff In Any Language

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If you speak French, check our Pierre Ménard's essay about Domesticated on Myopies. If you speak English you should read Rosecrans Baldwin's interview with me in The Morning News. If you speak Philadelphian youse better grab a hoagie and some wooder and come out this Thursday to my Visiting Artist lecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

UPDATE: Humble Arts Foundation has just announced that their publication, The Collector's Guide To Emerging Art Photography, is now available for pre-order. If you are a photography collector or curator looking for smart guidance on where to invest your art dollars, then this guide is just what the doctor ordered.

Stripper Polaroids

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I just came across this amazing Flickr pool of found stripper Polaroids from the late 60s and 70s. My apologies if any of these photos force you to confront your mother's previously unknown career path.

UPDATE: Turns out some (all?) of these women are not strippers. One contacted me and asked me to remove her likeness, which I was more than happy to do. Hope the owner of the Flickr pool will do the same.

Review Santa Fe Deadline Approaching Quickly

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Kim Song Mi & Kim Yun Kyong, Pyongyang Schoolchildren's Palace © Hiroshi Watanabe

In 2006 I was accepted to Review Santa Fe and had one of the best experiences of my photography life. The connections I made during my three days in Santa Fe have helped push my career forward in innumerable ways. More importantly, I met a bunch of really great and talented people that I will count as friends for the rest of my life.

The deadline for entry is Friday, January 23. Learn more about Review Santa Fe and then apply now.

Evolution in Real Time

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Struggle © Amy Stein

A story in yesterday's New York Times points to a study that concludes, "human actions are increasing the rate of evolutionary change in plants and animals in ways that may hurt their long-term prospects for survival." Basically, many of our attempts at conservation have run counter to the natural order of habitat. We have focused hunting and fishing regulations to allow for the "harvesting" of larger animals, but in the wild it is the small and weak that would be culled by predators. The result is that plants and animals are experiencing rapid evolutionary trait change that may ultimately doom species.

I have been fascinated with real time evolution ever since I read The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner. This idea that evolution is happening now by natural cataclysms great and small and with each human intervention--deliberate or otherwise--is at the heart of my Domesticated series.

While I Was Away

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I have been on the road for the better part of a week finishing my Stranded project. I will post about my trip in a day or so when I get my bearings and wrap my head around the experience. In the meantime, here some housekeeping updates on things that happened while I was away.

Domesticated was named to the photo-eye Best of 2008 books lists of Chris Pichler of Nazraeli Press and Heather Prichard of photo-eye, Nymphoto and Two Way Lens posted interviews with me, and Domesticated got a nice write-up by Eliza Honey on the The New Yorker's Book Bench.