Anodyne

Friday, March 17, 2023

"A kiln is a provisory space where objects and their makers are temporarily held, communing, until the firing is over and the heat disperses, and along with it the artifacts of that transitory time, marked forever by their meeting. The makers in this exhibition met and worked together in a perishable place, one that is gone now, and are appreciative of the opportunity to reunite these sibling objects alongside Christopher Brayshaw’s photographs documenting the dispersal.

With love and gratitude to Don Hutchinson."
- posted by cjb @ 10:52 AM

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Five of my recent photographs (2022) are included in a group exhibition opening by month's end in Vancouver. Details soon.
- posted by cjb @ 11:33 PM

Saturday, March 11, 2023

Someone asks about a "statement of aesthetic intent" & I think it's all here, if you really know me.
- posted by cjb @ 9:48 PM

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

- posted by cjb @ 8:24 PM

Thursday, December 01, 2022

Two new pictures made last week in California, slightly larger than any I've made to date, and dependent on that scale to articulate the fine detail(s) that hopefully contributes to their all-overness, to a sense of every part of their surfaces contributing to a cumulative pictorial effect.
- posted by cjb @ 6:32 PM

Wilshire Seep, 2022
- posted by cjb @ 6:24 PM

Sanctuary Seep, 2022
- posted by cjb @ 6:22 PM

Monday, June 27, 2022

"His is the classic story of the driven, autodidactic collector who becomes an expert and a scholar in his own right. He has contributed a long essay to the book that accompanies the exhibition, which he also published himself. In addition, he photographed all the works reproduced in it...."
- posted by cjb @ 10:08 AM

“Physical objects, even just papers, have to live somewhere and that means they have to be somebody’s dedicated project, usually at great cost of time and money. The only reason to take on such thankless work is love.”
- posted by cjb @ 10:04 AM

Sunday, May 01, 2022

- posted by cjb @ 10:20 AM

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

"In an interview with author Alice Schroeder for his biography, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Buffett told a story about Munger’s early days as a lawyer. At the time, 'He was probably getting about $20 an hour. He thought to himself, "Who’s my most valuable client?" And he decided it was himself. So he decided to sell himself an hour each day.'

Munger made this a daily routine, Buffett explains. 'He did it early in the morning, working on these construction projects and real estate deals. Everybody should do this — be the client, then work for other people, too, and sell yourself an hour a day.'"
- posted by cjb @ 8:40 AM

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

You Masculine You
(Kurt Wagner)

The shape of the sun
Ah, pretty ways
Pretty ways and things to come
When this day is done
You will collapse
Collapse into (the funnel of) my arms
And as always
They're not that strong
And as always
You do believe
And as always
I'm very wrong
About the cut
Above the bleed
April she finds the sugar time
And so slow, syrupy yeah
She'd be inside
You shed away a shadow as we go
And you know
It's not that bad
And I'm so
Into the blue
And it's so, like goofy sad
I just fly above the few
The last thing we do
Turn our heads around
Closer to the ground
You're falling
You and your masculine you
Forever benched
Sitting by the dirty window
And you know
It's not that bad
And I'm so
Into the blue
And it's so, like goofy sad
I just fly above the few
Though this seems to be a drag
You skirt around the things that's comfortable
Purple peppers, dirty rags
Make your life albeit more portable
To turn around to follow me
Don't follow me
Don't follow me
Don't follow me
- posted by cjb @ 8:54 AM

Thursday, January 20, 2022

JW, Trap set, 2021. For me, the best of the new pictures currently on display in Los Angeles, which I look forward to seeing in another few weeks and then maybe on site some time in the semi-indefinite future, once I parse its grammar (the water's color & the riffles' direction; the way the light falls, ever so slightly, on the surfaces' eastern faces). A "Vancouver picture" that will be fun to look for, one that will take me places I've never been before.

In California? The Gagosian show & then right back to work. Usually late winter or early spring means the Huntington Desert Garden, but my last few visits there haven't produced much in the way of finished pictures, or maybe more accurately have just produced the same pictures over and over again. After 12+ years, it feels like it's time to work somewhere else for a while. So: Carpinteria; McKittrick; Santa Barbara; Sulphur Mountain's eastern slopes. & in Ojai there are some modernist American pots I'd love to see! Once again, one of the great pleasures of being alive and in relatively good health & having an art practice distinct from work: the chance to visit places most people don't go or even perceive as aesthetically interesting, which is a great sustaining joy.
- posted by cjb @ 2:26 PM