Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Scott Beatty

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We come to the end of the series of portraits of artists and their work I shot recently at Soulard Art Market. This might be the best photograph of the set, considerations of the artists and art work aside. I was making a comical effort to light most of these portraits with off-camera remote-controlled flashes, something I'm just learning. This one, however, worked well.

Beatty is an interesting guy. He spent twenty years in the navy as a submarine crewman, mostly in reconnaissance. He told me just briefly (security, you know) about picking up Navy Seals in the open ocean, with no knowledge of where they came from or the nature of their mission. His artistic project is called Vision For Vets (web site in production). This particular work is called Voyage of Faith. The craftsmanship is amazing, as you can see in the lower picture. Each of those tiny screw eyes had to be set in precisely made pilot holes made with a micro-drill. The local supplier ran out of the part and Beatty had to make the rest himself from brass wire.

WHAT PLEASED ME YESTERDAY: I had a disability hearing for a man with a complex combination of insulin-dependent diabetes with diabetic neuropathy and kidney disease, circulatory disorder in his legs, heart disease and sleep apnea. Yet he continued to work as a systems analyst until a layoff. The number of doctors he has seen is enormous. We pulled it all together and worked it out with the judge on the spot. He really needs the help. Job well done. WHAT I FORGOT YESTERDAY: on St. Patrick's Day 36 years ago, I met a young woman in a raucous bar. She remembered it when we woke up this morning.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series, plus a new Arch photo on Gateway.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Christy Jones

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A tree woman holding, oh, I don't know: birds? flowers? bath scrubs with blue ribbons? I was so busy fiddling with lighting a subject in a large, bright window (a part of photography in which I have very modest skills) that I forgot to ask about it, forgot, even, to ask the name of the work. (Dope slap.) Jones just told me that the title is Empty Nest. It's an awfully creative idea. You can't fool mother nature but you can fool me.

HOW MANY PICTURES I TOOK ON SUNDAY: 0. I spent most of the day catching up on day-job work and editing recent photos. HOW MANY PICTURES I TOOK SATURDAY AT THE ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE: 1,178. I swear, my right index finger is gonna fall off.

TOMORROW: we interrupt this series of portraits for St. Patrick's Day with some Irish words of wisdom.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Thomas Shepherd

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Thomas Shepherd, a photographer, has the unique position of having been featured on this blog twice. I first met him last summer, during St. Louis' annual artists open studio weekend. He has his own space at Soulard Art Market and that's where I photographed him both times. Click here for the post about him on July 27, 2008.

Shepherd always seems to have a puckish quality when I meet him and his work is full of appropriate wonder. Check out a selection of his work here. Doesn't he look cool in the tuxedo?

WHEN IS THE NEXT FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME? Now. Soulard Art Market did a little feature about me and this series on the gallery blog. Click here.

TOMORROW: St. Louis artists' portraits continues as Christy Jones mixes her media.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Danielle Spradley

She looked up at me as I took this picture with an expression that seemed to say, "Excuse me? I'm trying to get some work done here, okay?" However, Spradley, master printer and shop manager at Evil Prints (see the first post in this series about Tom Huck, the proprietor), could not have been nicer about letting me photograph her at work. In this picture, she is using tools and techniques similar to Huck but she has a very individual style. Her images remind me of the original pictures of the aliens in War of the Worlds as revised by R. Crumb (one of my cultural heros) and remixed by Marcel Duchamp. Check out her work here and here.

That's all for St. Louis artists portraits for now. Let me know if you liked the series. I've got a couple of leads and it may return on an irregular basis in the future.

WHAT WAS GOOD AND BAD IN MY DAY TUESDAY: Good - I got my precious Canon 5D back from the factory service center after the third repair for the same problem. It $%#^@ well better keep working this time. Bad - I had to talk to more crazy, annoying people at work than anyone should (and I never even looked in the mirror.) I guess I signed up for it.
TOMORROW: The Thursday Arch Series Returns.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Amy Thompson

This is as much an action shot as a portrait. Amy Thompson is a printmaker with an intense vision. She is also a craftswoman. In this picture she works at a manual press, full of wheels and levers and gears. The machine reminds me of the complex, non-electronic gizmos in Terry Gilliam's movie, Brazil. Thompson knows what to do with all this steel. She is developing a web site for her prints but take a look at her stunning photography on Flickr. Her pictures of China and Vietnam are fabulous. Note particularly the portrait Danny and the untitled photo here in the Vietnam set. I'd be proud to have takes pictures so good.

WHAT I MADE FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT: stir fry with yellow squash, eggplant (aubergine), chicken, carrot, portobello mushrooms, garlic, almonds and whatever herbs were lying around. I'm not much of a cook (and don't have to be in this family) but, hey, it was my night. Throw it in a wok and see what happens.

TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Danielle Spradley, printmaker.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Gary Passanise

When I was looking for Gary Passanise's combination home and studio, people up the hill around the spaces of Craig Downs, Sarah Paulsen and Stan Chisholm told me to follow the lane down the hill and look for the hobbit hole. Around a bend, in the lowest of the old commercial buildings built into the hillside over the Mississippi, was a door leading still further downward.

That's where I found him in an office/sitting room. The living quarters and studio were down yet more steep steps. Loft-style living and working space blended into one another. Passanise is a painter in the tradition of abstract expressionism. The work hanging there, perhaps still in progress, reminded me a bit of Anselm Kiefer and Clyfford Still. Visit his sophisticated web site to see a variety of his work. His biography is worth a look. Besides his own art, Passanise is director of painting at the Leigh Gerdine School of Fine Art at Webster University in St. Louis.

I'm still inviting St. Louis artists to contact me if they would like to be part of this series.

WHAT I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT TODAY: How to use the Vanishing Point filter in Photoshop to paste text shaped in perspective into an image. Come back on Friday for Theme Day and grade my work.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Amy Thompson, printmaker.

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE - I just realized that last Saturday was my 500th post! Are we there yet?

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Thomas Shepherd

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Thomas Shepherd is a photographer who works with traditional prints, collage, silver gelatin prints and even prints on canvas. You can see some of his images here. We had a long talk about his work. I was loaded with digital gizmos and he shoots film. He had some small prints for sale that he shot with a cheap imported film camera with light leaks camera, not a Holga but apparently something similar. I bought a terrific image of a broad, curly-haired man's head, nothing below the chin, that seemed to be launched upward by the triangular peak of a house's roof. It felt good to talk shop with a professional photographer, take his portrait and not feel like a total poser.

WHAT I SAW TODAY: Up The Yangtze, a documentary about the human cost of the Three Gorges Dam. If you've been to China or just are interested in its explosive changes, go see it.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Gary Passanise, painter.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Stan Chisholm

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Stan Chisholm's St. Louis studio is tiny, maybe 4 by 12 feet. Makes it a little tough to get enough space to set up a portrait but, hey, you play the hand of cards you are dealt. He spends most of the year at the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is hard to characterize. He paints on canvas, wood panel or no parking signs, creates collages, designs clothing, makes prints and even decorates paper plates (amaze your dinner guests!). He's won a lot of awards and exhibited in many shows here and in Chicago (look at an example). You can check out many of his images (and his impressive resume) on his web site, 18andcounting.com.

When I look at Chisholm's work, I see elements of cartoons, graffiti wall painting, dada and surrealism. Some stuff looks like the bizarre offspring of a Georgia O'Keefe cow skull and an ewok.

Once again, I am inviting St. Louis artists who would like to appear in this series to contact me. Click my profile to the left for an email link.

WHAT I'M GLANCING AT WHILE I WRITE THIS: Jon Stewart making fun of John McCain again on The Daily Show. Too easy.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Thomas Shepherd, photographer

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Sarah Paulsen

Sarah Paulsen's studio is in same group of old commercial buildings as Craig Woods'. Some of the spaces are dug into the hillside leading down to the Mississippi and feel like bunkers. Paulsen's area, which she shares with Lisa Payne (whom I photographed at last year's open house), is on the top level and feels closer to the sun. It contains lovely watercolor sketches and photos of her grand tour of South America. I told her the painting on the wall behind her in this image reminded me of Max Beckman, who once taught at Washington University in St. Louis and has a room to himself at the St. Louis Art Museum. She told me that she had spent many hours in that room and that Beckman had been a great influence on her work.

You can see Paulsen's painting for the STL artists open house catalog here. She has also begun to create clever animations. Take a look at Midwest Hair and Begin. You'll enjoy them.

BY THE WAY, for my St. Louis readers: if you are an artist or know an artist who would like to be featured in this series and get some publicity, plus a free portrait to use, please click the link to my profile and email me.

WHAT I'M PISSED OFF ABOUT: The Canon factory service center has had my good camera, my 5D, for the better part of the last month and a half, now back for the third time for the same problem. Whah, whah, whah.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Stan Chisholm, who is a bit hard to characterize, but that's because he's so original.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Craig Downs

The place was hard to find. I had the address on Broadway, a big street, from the list of open artists' studios last weekend but there didn't seem to be any such number. There was a small lane behind a ramp onto the Interstate from Broadway so I followed it. Around a bend I saw a dreary brick building with the Open House sign. There was a series of three old commercial buildings built into a slope down to the Mississippi, now all occupied by artists.

In the middle one I met Craig Downs, pictured here. Downs is a painter and a singer with a band called Box of Nerves. Listen to some of their tunes here. His painting style may seem simple at first but click the image below and look carefully. The one on the right is particularly complex. Note the woman holding a tree whose wild red hair ends with snakes, like Medusa, placing her right hand on the head of a woman with a halo but no face, while an angel floats across the upper right carrying an Eastern Orthodox cross. Care to offer an interpretation?

WHAT I HAD TO DO: Listen to The Ride of the Valkeries from Richard Wagner's Die Walküre on my iPod, loud, along with other music of similar temperature and pressure, to stick it out on the treadmill. I think exercise is a boring, unpleasant chore but, damn, you have to.
TOMORROW: St. Louis artists portraits continue with Sarah Paulsen, painter

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Tom Huck

I did not know about Evil Prints until last weekend's studio open house (must be getting old and out of touch). The place is full of young artists covered to one degree or another in tattoos and flesh-eating steel hardware. Tom Huck here is one of the mainstays. He's the kind of person the phrase "fevered imagination" refers to. Tom makes outrageous wood and linoleum cut prints. Check out examples of his work here. While I watched him work, Tom used only tiny hand tools. I cannot imagine my own hands working with such precision.

WHAT I LEARNED TODAY: Frank Zappa's perky composition Peaches En Regalia was inspired by his love of the sculpture of Alexander Calder. Thank you, National Public Radio.

TOMORROW: The Thursday Arch Series takes a week off as St. Louis artists portraits continue with Craig Downs, painter and singer