Bluejake

The big news this week is the addition of nine polaroid galleries to my Photos section. The first five (self-portraits, Friends, exteriors, signs, and stores) were taken during 2000, the year I was living on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side. It was a pretty strange time for me- I had decided not to go to med school (three weeks after I enrolled) the previous September, and I was struggling with finding a new direction for my life. The pictures reflect a lot of that introspection, as well as some of the strange people I hung out with during that time. The next four galleries (friends, objects, Karen, and September 11th) were taken in 2001, after I moved to Soho. I love the Polaroid camera- the blur and the odd colors and the strange cropping. It's satisfying to have the pictures instantly- and it's even more satisfying to know that each picture is one of a kind. I know better than to think that any of these Polaroids is a masterpiece, but I think some of them are visually interesting in their own way.

I think that it was the Gerhard Richter show at MoMa that inspired me to put up all these Polaroids. There is something about his work- maybe it is the blur that comes from scraping the paint off the canvas, or the odd abstract paintings from the 1980s, or the haunting stuff from his more recent work, but he really got me thinking about making some new art.

That's about it for this week. Check back here again soon.

Personal