ciurej & lochman on collect.give

The photographic team of Barb Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman have offered a print today on collect.give, with all proceeds pledged to The Voices and Faces Project.

Repercussions: Tides & Time

I'm proud to have work from Camp Home included in a group show at SOIL in Seattle, through the end of October. Repercussions: Tides & Time was curated by Alex Emmons and features work by Rebecca Cummins, Amze Emmons, Mark Klett, John Mann, Leslie Mutchler, M. Alexis Pike, Shawn Records, Margaret Stratton, Filippo Tagliati, Jason Urban, Ian van Coller, Angela Franks Wells, and Byron Wolfe. The show, in several variations, will travel to Central Washington University next and then closer to home at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan.

fast belfry

S. Broadway Avenue Location, #5 © kjm

I photographed this Kentucky Fried Chicken about 6 months ago, but found some interesting changes upon a recent visit.

within reach: juice

extension cord on the kitchen floor © kjm

[within reach is a series of photographs examining the environment of home in detail]

as seen: impersonator

fake Tina © kjm

water way

bwca © kjm

Just back from a solid week of vacation, paddling the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a wilderness area of over 1 million acres between Minnesota and Canada. There are more lakes than you could count and 1,000 miles of canoe routes, but our group (which has been camping together in different configurations for years), only tackled 5 days worth. Which is a lot these days, considering the increasing time demands of work, family and life. It's been a busy summer, so the time away was important, and helped slow the spinning of my internal hard drive. I can't let myself forget how important these things are: paddles in the water, Fall colors, drinks around the campfire, stargazing, bad jokes with buddies, and an email-less week.

collect.give: mark brautigam

Alvin, WI © Mark Brautigam

Mark Brautigam, a fellow Milwaukeean, has released a print today on collect.give. The picture comes from his terrific project On Wisconsin and Mark is pledging all proceeds to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.

within reach: shrivel

strawberry from a bowl in the fridge © kjm

[within reach is a series of photographs examining the environment of home in detail]

the bell rings

© Laura Hughes, left, Zachary Seib, center, Alec Schuppel, right

We've started up the MIAD-FA382 blog once again, with a new group of photography majors from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. The first blog assignment was to post their favorite picture from the summer, and a few examples are above. Please stop by and take a look at the students' work, and know that there's much more ahead in the next few months.

Also, we're also approaching 600 photographer interview and informational links on the site, so visit us for lots of additional photography content, too.

jane fulton alt on collect.give

The Wedding Portrait, 2005 © Jane Fulton Alt

Chicago photographer Jane Fulton Alt made a timely offering this week on collect.give. The photo was shot in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and all proceeds will benefit the group Lower 9th Ward Village.

within reach: stems

contents of the small glass vase © kjm

[within reach is a series of photographs examining the environment of home in detail]

as seen: 68

fallen headstone, beaver island, mi © kjm

phone home

room 409 (which ironically was not that clean) ludington, mi © kjm

I've been on the road a lot lately.

matt eich on collect.give

Elvis the Zebra © Matt Eich

Matt Eich offered this lovely image this week on collect.give. Matt is one of the founders of LUCEO, a collective of incredibly talented young shooters (I've written before here about the work of Kevin German here before). Matt pledges 100% of proceeds to the organization Critical Exposure, with specific hopes to buy a quality digital camera for a group of inspired young students. In many ways, Matt (who's 24) represents the future of photojournalism (yes, there is one) in hard times. And through his collect.give pledge, he's looking a little further down the path.

new rich

© kjm

A group of us headed north last week to The Poor Farm, an exhibition and learning space created by Chicago artists and educators Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam. The huge, old building is a work in progress, both physically and creatively. From the 1870's to the 1930's, it housed destitute individuals who worked on the adjacent farm. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writer Mary Louise Schumacher has, and will be writing about the unique art space. While we were there, she was compiling components for a future multimedia piece, so stay tuned.

(Re: these images: I may be the last photographer with a phone to get the CameraBag app. And I love it, especially since I haven't shot with a square format camera in about 20 years.)

stella kalaw on collect.give

After the Birthday Party © Stella Kalaw

Stella Kalaw has offered a print on collect.give - with very personal connections to her niece, who suffered a stroke at birth. Her photograph, above, was taken after one of her niece's birthday parties, and Stella has pledged 100% of the proceeds to The Guidance Center, which was central to her treatment following the stroke.

anniversary

at that Starbucks in Seattle after crossing the very busy road by our hotel, sort of near the space needle © kjm

Nine things intended to make Marilu smile on the anniversary of our first date:

American Woman.
You have two hands.
Gravitas.
Kablooey.
Sweetest of peas.
Don't do that.
Blah, blah, blah.
The ol' noggin.
Yalla!

bear bidding

Polar Bears, 2008 © Colleen Plumb

The Milwaukee Art Museum Photography Council held it's inaugural benefit last night, with curator Lisa Hostetler at the helm and lots of great items in the silent auction. The hardworking members of the Photography Council (note: Milwaukee is a great photography city!) included photographers Sonja Thomsen, Lindsay Lochman and Mel Trittin. And the crowd was full of interesting creatives: Photographers Jason Reblando, Shimon and Lindemann, Bob Smith, Sarah McEneany, Aron Gent and Tara Bogart, designers Patrick and Libby Castro, gallerist Deb Brehmer and Andy Adams of Flak Photo. Marilu and I were lucky to be the high bidders on the wonderful Colleen Plumb picture, above.

[see past my so called collection entries here]

within reach: fragile landscape

dried kale leaf © kjm

... and this, from the depths of the refrigerator - Marilu identified the near-petrified leaves as kale.

[within reach is a series of photographs examining the environment of home in detail]

within reach: killing field

spiderweb © kjm

I've been away for weeks, and returned to find this spiderweb constellation in my bedroom window. It's good to know someone was working so hard in my absence.

[within reach is a series of photographs examining the environment of home in detail]

100 cents: jonathan blaustein on collect.give

one dollar’s worth of tomatillos from Mexico © Jonathan Blaustein

I'd be willing to bet that many of us have a dollar's worth of change in our couch. Jonathan Blaustein's series The Value of a Dollar examines the value of what goes into our mouths, in a simple, straightforward and aesthetically lovely manner. Last week, Jonathan offered this print on collect.give, with all proceeds pledged to the UN World Food Programme.

irish gig

mom on the beach in Kona, around 1955

In our family, we tell stories about the hams on my mom's father's side of the family, and it's by no means a criticism. There's a respected entertaining chutzpah that runs throughout, and my mom is no exception. When she was in her 20's, she taught the hula to young girls in Hawaii. This week, she performed for an Irish American club in Milwaukee, which was having their annual party with a Hawaiian theme. By all accounts, she was a hit, performing a few single numbers and then teaching the group how to do the hukilau. When I arrived to pick her up, the club didn't seem to want to let her go.

reunion

Cannon Beach © kjm

I went from shooting Camp Home pictures, to the Tule Lake pilgrimage, and ended my travels this week at a family reunion on the Oregon Coast. Members of my mom's family came from Hawaii, Oregon, California, Missouri, Wisconsin, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey for the event. It was nice to catch up with everyone and to meet a few new additions to the group. For me, the highlight of the reunion came during a beach dinner and bonfire (that's us in the foreground), when my Uncle Stuart pulled out his ukulele and entertained the group.

amy eckert on collect.give

Shipwreck © Amy Eckert

Last week, photographer Amy Eckert offered up this lovely print from her series Manufacturing Home on collect.give. 100% of the proceeds will benefit the organization Feminist Eclectic Martial Arts. And buyers of any print during the month of July will be eligible for a free copy of Susana Raab's book, Rank Strangers, through our new book giveaways...

hinge

4525Z-19617 (hinge) © kjm

background

train tracks leading to Newell, CA © kjm

I didn't have an agenda for the Tule Lake Pilgrimage this weekend, but had hoped to ask Nisei (second generation, American-born Japanese Americans who were children or young adults during the camp) I met about their particular home within the barracks. I never really got around to that, though, because everyone's background and camp history was so interesting. The variety of stories was surprising, and I learned that each family, though interned in the same camp, had uniquely compelling histories.

Among the stories, I learned about: A woman whose most vivid memory was taking their dog to the pound before leaving for camp; A family who hastily moved to an inland California location in hopes of avoiding evacuation, only to move again when interned; A woman who caught pneumonia at age 4 in an assembly center (locations where families were sent prior to internment camps) and due to security issues, was treated in a local hospital for days without a parent or guardian; Stories about burning prized family possessions because they were Japanese; A woman who happened to have been born on December 6, 1941.

But the sadness associated with some of the stories didn't dictate the tone of the weekend. It was an incredibly friendly group and conversations were made easily, in an environment that felt comfortable, uplifting and therapeutic, all at once.

native americans

5058A-19617 (native americans) © kjm

shed light

5052A-19617 (shed light) © kjm

My titles for Camp Home are a combination of two numbers: the number that represents the location it was shot - so in the photo above, 5052 is the number that was assigned to the particular homestead farm property. That number is combined with 19617, which is the number the government gave my family during the internment.

In just my first hour at the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, I learned the number associated with the barrack and actual space my family resided in: 5903b. After so much time thinking about this specific place, it's somewhat amazing to put an "address" to a place that I've only imagined.

sun tea

5056A-19617 (sun tea) © kjm

After three days of shooting, I'll be joining the annual Tule Lake Pilgrimage today, a gathering of former camp internees, their offspring and others. Nearly 400 people arrive today on buses from cities along the West Coast, for weekend of remembering, visiting and education. I expect to learn a lot about the camp experience in the days to come, and look forward to meeting lots of people. In particular, I'm hoping to talk with former internees about what their physical living space was like in their assigned barracks.

stuck

5103A-19617 (horse hair) © kjm