Roadside assemblage, S. Brown Street, Little Rock
Detail.
Theaster Gates: 2018 Nasher Prize Laureate
Theaster Gates was recently named the 2018 Nasher Prize Laureate. As part of the Nasher Prize Dialogues: Performance as Sculpture, Gates will hold a conversation with Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson about the role of performance within their respective sculptural practices, which will be livestreamed August 23, 2–4 pm ET at facebook.com/nashersculpturecenter.
Kirk Mangus / Son Thomas
Kirk Mangus
"The use of collected objects, fiber, paint, print clay, and plants adds to the primordial sense of wonder and satisfaction."
"I deal with the ego and the id. Why do I draw what I draw? If I rationalized it, I wouldn't have to do it."
from Things Love
James "Son Ford" Thomas
"My uncle used to play in clay; used to try to make something look like a mule because, at that time, black folks didn’t have nothing but mules. Like you see tractors in the fields, now—they didn’t have nothing but mules in the field. And that’s all he’d try to make was a mule. So I tried to make a mule, and just kept on trying to make the mule. Finally, I could make the mule. Then, after that, I started making different things, you know, like birds and rabbits squirrels … stuff like that. And from that what caused me to start making a skull, I made a skull to scare my grandfather with."
"That’s the most important part: feel it. Feel what you do. Some folks go … 'I got to see what I’m doing' … You ain’t got to see. If you know what you doing, that’s all you got to know."
W. 65th Street, Little Rock
Fuelman Billboard
An Interview with Addam Yekutieli, AKA Know Hope
"Creating work in public spaces started out just by understanding that it was possible, and then allowing my creative process to be influenced as a result."
From an interview at Juxtapoz.com
Also, this video ...
Kensuke Yamada
I was lucky enough to attend to a workshop with Kensuke Yamada a few weeks ago at the Arkansas Arts Center and found out he'll be teaching at UA-Little Rock beginning in the fall.
Two 'Pilgrim' Churches
Two Baptist churches between Helena and Elaine, Ark. – Pilgrim Guide, above, and Pilgrims Rest, below.
Hand-Painted Signs from Ghana
I stumbled across a slew of photos in my archive that I made of hand-painted signs in and around Accra (2008?) and decided to post a few. I wish I had been more intentional when photographing them, taken better shots rather than just these snaps. Of course, I also wish I had apprenticed myself to one of these sign painters.
Interstate 630 Walk Protocol
Beginning at one end
Walk the entire length of I-630
Using immediately adjacent streets and walkways
Crossing over or under the interstate at every opportunity.
First completed 29 June 2018, walking east to west.
The Red Suitcase
I found a red suitcase while walking through my neighborhood earlier this week, sitting half-opened at the curb beside a trashcan. An old Amtrak tag for Texarkana, Ark., still hung from the handle and a few photos were sticking out, so I re-latched the suitcase and carried it home. Inside I found hundreds of old photos, apparently from a single family and spanning several decades.
In addition to the Polaroids above (and a few cigarette butts and some broken glass), there were many, many more photographs, most of which had gotten wet and stuck together. The emulsion was still soft, and as I pulled them apart, faces and scenes blurred and shifted in color and disappeared, until they resembled tiny Gerhard Richter's. More to come ...