photography – Page 3 – Sidewalk Face

The More You Make, The More You Make. So Make More.

September 30, 2020October 4, 2020by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl8 Comments

I’ve noticed that if I leave the house without my good camera I probably won’t make any faces. Maybe one will scream at me until I snap a portrait but a reluctant one-off face rarely leads to another. Like a leaky water hose, some creativity dribbles out but it’s not intentional.

If I do take my camera then almost for sure I will make a face. I’ve intentionally turned the hose on so of course I am going to water a plant. And if I’ve made one face, I am very likely going to make another. And if I make two I will probably make four and the fourth one will really jazz up my day. At that point I am loose and playful. I am on the hunt, I am hooked up to a sprinkler dousing the whole yard in creativity.

**Were you by chance looking for someone like me?**

At the beginning of the pandemic, touching anything felt dangerous so sidewalk face making slowed down dramatically. At that point I was washing plastic wrapped bags of bread in the sink like dirty dishes to disinfect them from the amazon delivery. Boy was that tedious! With the feeling of an invisible threat everywhere all the time, it felt wrong to make faces so I did some with my feet, I only used plants and I went back to the archives.

Now I feel okay touching things again. I’m always wearing a mask. I have hand sanitizer and everything has been baking in the sun for hours. But all those months of reticence meant I wasn’t bothering to lug my camera around and hunt, hunt, hunt. So yeah, one would pop up here and there but was I making an effort? No. Did I feel enthusiasm? No. Was my practice thriving? No. It felt kind of far away and faded. It felt dry and dehyrated.

Recently I’ve brought my camera along and you know what, I’ve been regularly making four faces on every dog walk. The first is sort of should I or shouldn’t I? What the heck. Let’s do it. Then maybe the camera stays out, around my neck. The 2nd one is just happening. No need to question if it’s a good idea. The third is like oh hell yes. And the fourth is me wondering if I could arrange to do this all day.

I can’t color correct them as fast as I make them. The last one I made is a new all time favorite. Creativity is a conduit, a pipe, a portal, a channel. You have to do things to keep the channel clear and open. Just like exercise keeps the cardiovascular system healthy, making more leads to making more. So if you want more, make something and make it soon.

Art, Instagram, Sidewalk Faces

Happy Anniversary Sidewalk Faces!

October 10, 2016October 10, 2016by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl3 Comments

Today is the one year anniversary of my first Sidewalk Face post on Instagram. I posted 317 faces in my first year. More actually as I posted a bunch from Joshua Tree, CA and Hawaii but I didn’t label them as Sidewalk Faces because they were not near my sidewalk.

When I started I did not have rules. But over the year these are the rules that emerged.

Sidewalk Face Rules

#1 – They must be good.

#2 – They must be made from materials in the immediate proximity.

#3 – They must be made quickly.

GOOD

I would like them to be good. That doesn’t mean they are all good. I only post 1 out of every 3 or 4 that I make. I consider them good if they show personality and emotion, and if they are different or better than what I have already made. If I see something in the environment that I haven’t see before (such as a cracked egg ) I feel like I really must try and make a face out of it. This often supersedes rule #3. The more desperately I need to get back, the more interesting the item I will find on my way home.

Sidewalk Face_Egg.jpg

MATERIALS

I only use stuff I find around me. I do sometimes see something like a piece of dirty styrofoam or anything that could be an eye, pick it up and carry it with me looking for a good way to use it. If it is shot within walking distance of my Los Angeles home (90%+ are) then the materials came from my neighborhood. I consider it particularly great if everything comes from within a few feet but the first rule is more important than the proximity rule. Everything I shot in Hawaii was from Hawaii. Same for the desert. If I make some in another city I will only use materials from there.

TIME

I usually spend 5 to 10 minutes making each one. I’m not totally sure about that as I don’t wear a watch or keep track. But I only have so much time and the dogs only have so much patience. Occasionally I’ve made one, walked on to find an object that would make the face better and doubled back for a re-do, usually to the intense annoyance of both myself and the dogs but rule #1 is the most important rule.

Here is how it starts, I spot something of interest; a shape, a stain, an abandoned object, a butterfly. I ask myself what I could do with it, could it be a nose, a mustache, a head, a critter? Then I look for what else is needed, additional parts or a background. I usually go with my first instinct, my first choice. If I place the butterfly in the middle of that cracked pavement, I don’t place it anywhere else. I don’t want to over think my decisions because for me personally, thinking and originality are often inversely correlated. My thoughts aren’t that interesting but somehow my actions are. That’s why I do it, to surprise myself.

sidewalk-face_butterfly-mustache

I am looking forward to another year of this project. Many people have sent me faces they have made and that inspires me to keep going. Hunting for new faces makes every outing an adventure. It’s never a dull day.

You can see all of my Sidewalk Faces on Instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/eaglecrowowl/

Art, Instagram, Sidewalk Faces

Andrew Goldsworthy, Instagram and Me

April 10, 2016May 4, 2016by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl2 Comments

I wrote this blog post last October. Why haven’t I published it? I too would like to know! Call the Art Police Procrastination Division and get someone on the case.

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On October 8th, 2015 Terry Gross interviewed Andrew Goldsworthy on NPR’s fresh air. I’ve been a fan of Goldsworthy since the early 1990s, saw the documentary about him called Rivers and Tides. He is an inspirational character. He goes into nature and uses what he finds there to make ephemeral sculptures. If you don’t know his work, here are a few examples:

andy-goldsworthy-1

I was listening to the interview while dog walking, my main interaction with nature such as it is in my hollywood neighborhood and pondering how Goldsworthy’s pursuits are highly unusual. Most people can not hang about in nature all day crafting whatever comes into their heads. How many people are doing that on planet earth right now? It’s got to be a pretty small number right? Just economically he is the only person I know of to get paid for this kind of labor. So I was thinking about his activities and how pleasant it would be to do that for a bit. I don’t mean to make light of his effort or imply his experience is not strenuous and painstaking. I wasn’t imagining fully being him, just that I would enjoy a small taste of his process. In my current station in life it is rare that I am fully connected to space and time, reacting only to what is around me. Mostly I am interacting with the virtual world and juggling twenty things at once and suddenly it’s 2 months later. Very different. Anyway, dog walk over, didn’t hear the whole podcast, back to the grind.

The next day I was dog walking and saw this:

And for some reason that I think had to do with Andrew Goldsworthy, I thought I should try and turn it into a face.

Before I got home I had made four of them. I made another one on the 11th. I made eight on the 12th. Knowing I could and would put them on Instagram sealed the deal. Boom! It exploded into a full blown obsession. I’ve made forty in 2 weeks.

So the process is this: I see something that I can use or seems like part of a face and then I start assembling. I look for needed material in the immediate vicinity. I have found and collected a few bottle caps that I stash in my purse and have used more than once but outside of that, all the objects are found on location, mostly within one to four feet of the face.

As an artist I have always liked reacting to something. I think that is why I am an editor. Editors react to footage. When I make art, I don’t visualize something first and then try to make it. I’ve tried but I don’t like the results and I don’t like the process. That’s a lose lose so why bother? I have to quickly make something I can react to. As soon as there is something, a line, a shape, a color, I can start to do more. The impulse just clicks in like a wheel on a rail. All art making is a reaction to something at some point in the process. This essay is a reaction to thinking about what I have been doing lately. When I film something, it’s a reaction to light, or composition or something interesting happening. For some people I imagine the reaction is in their imagination, an image comes to mind. The moment of reaction is the muse.

Making these ephemeral faces is so pleasurable just as I imagined when listening to the Goldsworthy interview. Being super focused and having the whole process constrained to that single drawn out moment is a relief, an escape from multitasking and endless computer interaction. I like having some of my creativity happen in the outside world. The only problem is obsession. Can’t seem to stop.

Here are a few of my favorites:

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As you may know if you follow me on Instagram I have not stopped and just posted Sidewalk Face 159, today April 10th, 2016. Glad I wrote this when I did as so much has happened in the meantime. Perhaps I will write about what is happening now and post it next August!

You can see more by following me on Instagram at:

https://instagram.com/eaglecrowowl/