someone i know

Stephen Campbell © kjm

I'm excited to have work in Someone I Know, a collection of portraits assembled by Stuart Pilkington. Thanks so Stephen Campbell for being a great subject.

collaboration

Extending Origins © Andrea Bartley/kjm

For the past month, I've been working on a collaborative project with Andrea Bartley, a talented and driven first-year photography student at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Andrea is fortunate to be in a class of select freshmen taught by Jason Yi and Lynn Tomaszewski. As part of the class, students were paired with local artists to create a collaborative piece, which was displayed Friday night during a one-night event at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

We were asked to address the idea, "Does the person define the space, or does the space define the person?" At our first meeting, Andrea talked about the dramatic change from her mostly rural hometown to living in downtown Milwaukee. So we chose to address those two places, and the people from her past and present. It was exciting to tread on new ground - neither of us had worked collaboratively, or worked on video. The 4:18 minute video contains photos that were shot both in Zionsville, Indiana and Milwaukee - Andrea made the portraits and I shot the skies.

american

© greg ruffing, left; kjm, right, from American Youth

A while back I mentioned a portrait series I was working on, photographing young Native Americans on the Oneida Nation reservation in northern Wisconsin. The photos were created for American Youth, a book produced by Redux Pictures, which will be available in May. The book numbers 240 pages, has work by 25 of the agency's photographers, and was edited by a group of accomplished magazine photo editors.

I don't talk too much about my editorial work here, but I couldn't do what I do without Redux - they're great people, and do a wonderful job of promoting my magazine work. And the truth is, I'm really a fan of many of the agency photographers, so to have work in a collective project makes me really proud.

For more info, check out the website and blog for the book.

good, bad, ugly

© Amy Eckert, from the series, Manufacturing Home

Good: Andy Adams posted a photo of mine today on Flak Photo, from my Critical Mass submission.

Bad: I was thrilled to make the Critical Mass first round cuts, but alas, didn't make it to the final 50. It's a fantastic group of photographers, and I'm just happy to have been a part of it. I'm still combing through the disc of all the entrants (only up to the F names), which is really enjoyable. Lots of photographers whose work I hadn't seen before, including Amy Eckert's, above.

Good: I'm headed to Kauai today for an assignment, and for a brief visit on the Big Island prior to see family.

Ugly: It's a lousy day here in Milwaukee, with rainy, sleety, snowy and icy conditions. Keeping all the fingers crossed that I'll get out this morning.

100 up

The show is up at MIAD and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Sonja helped me pin up the prints, and while they're a tad curled today, I think it all looks great. I gave a gallery talk today for students in the photography department, which I really enjoyed. After I explained that these pictures weren't part of my larger projects, but were created with the intention of posted them on the blog, one student asked if I considered the small c-prints more valuable or important than their online versions. What a great question, and one that I hadn't considered. My conclusion: the online versions, in all their 2d, non-handleable, 72 dpi glory. Go figure.

*Note: you might want to mute the sound on the video...

upcoming

© kjm

I'm really excited about a small show of my photographs which will be installed in a week at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. I was invited to exhibit by Sonja Thomsen, who teaches at MIAD, and since the gallery is located in the photography department, I wanted to show work that might have some relevance to the photography students there. So I'll be showing pictures that have been created since starting this blog, and will talk about how it has become a home for personal work - pictures that are created outside the boundaries of my editorial or personal project work. More often than not, they were created with the intention of posting them on the blog, so as a result, it's a source of motivation and a reason to make more pictures. Blogs mean different things to those who write them, but for me, it has been a very real element in my growth as an artist thus far.

There will be 100 small (4x5") prints, and to bring the idea full circle, I'll be giving them all away on the blog in January. Stay tuned!

new portraits

© kjm

I've started a new portrait series for a book project that Redux is organizing. The subjects are young adult members of the Oneida Nation, one of 11 Native American tribes with reservations in Wisconsin (the most of any state east of the Mississippi). On Tuesday, I met and photographed Sunshine, left, and Jerrel, right.

project next?

mt. shasta from county road 104 © kjm

I have an interesting idea for a project involving Mt. Shasta, which I had hoped to begin this week. But in the end, I couldn't pull myself away from making pictures for Camp Home, and never made the drive over to get started. It'll have to wait until my next trip.

self-resident

(both untitled) from the series Camp Home © kjm

I'm preparing for another trip to make pictures for the Camp Home series. The grant money I received has been waiting patiently, all my ducks are in a row, and I'm extremely excited to start shooting there again.

It's a very small town, Tulelake (the town name is different from that of the internment camp), and there's little, if anything, going on. That's fine, of course - I'm there to work. But there's also no internet access where I stay, and only spotty cellphone coverage. My last trip was only for a few nights, but this will likely be eight nights in all, and I'm a little worried about getting stir crazy.

So I've decided to treat my time there like a mini-residency. Only without other artists around. Just me. No big tables of communal food with painters pouring wine for poets. A self-residency. A quiet time to work and to hopefully reflect and read.

I'm bringing along some books which I think will help shape my thoughts on the project: Geography of Home by Akiko Busch, The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton, and lastly, my brother Kurt's dissertation, Vision, Space and the Politics of Homesickness. (Did I mention that I have the smallest brain in the family?)

Slightly complicating things, in a good way, is a plum editorial job which just popped up, to be shot in Seattle. I'll carve out a little time from Tulelake, but will likely now stay longer, so as not to cheat the project.

success

Jones Blvd. Location, #1 © kjm

Taking up the challenge to find me a restaurant for the Fast Food series, my friend Don emailed me about this McDonald's in Las Vegas. Marilu and I jumped at the chance and made a spontaneous trip north to visit he and Mindy. Don had already ordered a booklet and print, but I'll be sending something photo-related his way. The system works! Anyone else?

a book(let)

© kjm

For your consideration, a booklet and print.

This is something new for me, inspired by similar projects by online galleries and other photographers and unique to the wide reach and accessibility of blogs. I think the diminutive term "booklet" fits my offering well - both in the size of the piece and the spirit in which the pictures were created - these are small observations. (Besides, I feel kind of old when I hear myself say "zine.")

The thirty-eight color and b/w pictures are mostly singular images that I made and posted here on the blog, and not work from my larger projects (Camp Home, Early Places, or Fast Food).

Edition: 150 pairs available (54 remaining). Title: 38. Saddle stitched, 6x6". Print title: Cemetery Flowers, Fish Creek, Wisconsin. Digital c-print on Fuji crystal archive matte paper, 7x5.5".

Price: $27.00 (plus shipping)

classified

North Milwaukee Avenue Location, #1 © kjm

Wanted: Help in finding locations of abandoned fast food restaurants.
What: Only the big chains. No Brat Barns, Sub Shanties or Tofu Huts, please.
Where: Anywhere in the U.S. considered! I'm willing to travel if the location can be combined with an assignment or a visit with nearby friends (I'm likely heading to Washington state for a ripe Taco Bell and a recently shuttered Burger King).
Who: Midwestern photographer who should spend a bit more time taking pictures and a bit less time writing his blo
Why: If you tip me off to a location that I end up photographing, I'll send you a copy of my soon-to-be-released booklet of personal photos (although your time is surely worth more).

[The Burger King, above, (graffiti on the windows and yet still one light on inside!) was spotted in Chicago by photographer Michelle Nolan.]

heading south

© kjm

I'm thrilled to have some work later this week at Aqua, an art fair that's part of the larger Art Basel Miami, the four-day contemporary art epicenter for galleries, collectors and art makers. Mike Brenner, a heavy hitter and heavy lifter on the Milwaukee art scene, will bring his Hotcakes Gallery to warmer climes and the Aqua Hotel. Each gallery at the fair commandeers a single room in the boutique hotel, with art stuffed under beds and a hipster crowd factor of 11.

The work I'll be showing is from the Fast Food series, and this is the first time I've printed or framed any of the work. Each image will be part of an edition of 15, and I chose to make c-prints for the first time, as opposed to inkjet. There are certainly pros and cons each way, but I think c-prints are still more uniform and broadly understood in the art world. Terrance Reimer, a longtime acquaintance and great photographer, who works as a master printer at West Coast Imaging, made the mighty fine prints. I'll speak more about the thought pattern behind the size and presentation of the pictures soon.

emerging and grateful

Shade Pull In Abandoned Apartment, from the series Camp Home
© kjm

I was thrilled to find out recently that I was a recipient of a Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship, a grant for individual artists living in the Milwaukee area. It's a generous amount of money, which is intended for new or ongoing projects. Some of the funds will be used to travel back to Tule Lake, likely in February, for more work on the Camp Home series. And I'm also planning to do more research and travel for the Fast Food series.

A friend asked why I received a fellowship in the "emerging" artist category (there is also an "established" category), since I had been making pictures for quite a long time. In truth, I've only fairly recently become serious about my personal photography - what I consider my artwork, as opposed to my editorial magazine work. So this news is incredibly encouraging, and comes in a year when I feel like I'm really making some creative progress.

up north

© kjm

I just returned from a few days in Northern Wisconsin at my friend Andy's family cottage. I've been going there since we were both in high school, and the place has always been special to me. In the past few years, the look of the cottage has changed a bit - toddler games and toys appear where there previously were none - evidence of Andy's extended family becoming larger. A new generation, including his daughter Eli, is learning to love the place as well.

On Saturday, while Andy scouted out his hunting land, I spent the day with his dog Nali and a copy of The Nature Of Photographs, sipping Alterra coffee and making some pictures (birch tree and pinecone, above) in crisp, refreshing quiet.

nearly forever

The Fridge Door © kjm

We have a saying in our family: "Dad always thought things should last forever."

And he was mostly correct, I think, in the days when you wouldn't just toss in the garbage any distressed small appliance that didn't have an Extended Guaranteed Extra Special Warranty.

Dad would've been proud to know that the family refrigerator lasted from about 1970 until yesterday afternoon. In the end, it probably deserved a nickname to itself ("Old Frosty?") and was likely sucking enough energy to run a small village.

elusive fleas

© kjm

I was hoping to find a good Sunday flea market while in Lisbon, but it turns out the best one, referred to as "The Thieves' Market" (watch for bargains + watch your wallet) is held on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I'm not sure why it's not held on Sundays, as that seems to be the universal day of choice.

I just wrapped up a long and fun week of shooting here, and after changing hotels yesterday, wandered around the neighborhood in search of a late day coffee. Luckily, I stumbled onto a tiny park with a small, stealth flea market under a shady row of trees.

between

Water, Cascais, Portugal © kjm

I was thinking recently about distance. Particularly about how much distance, physically, lies between us and others at any given time. This came to mind while standing in the woods in Oregon, not hearing any cars, not hearing any people, not hearing any planes. My friend Steve was up ahead somewhere on the trail, but I felt wonderfully isolated with the big trees and the wind.

Wouldn't it be interesting to determine the exact time in your life when you were physically the farthest away from another human being? For example, Neil Armstrong's taking a step on the moon wouldn't count, since Buzz Aldrin was just inside Apollo 11. A bit extreme, but you get what I mean... I've been to some fairly remote places, but always in the company of others. How often are we really, truly isolated?

One day, when Google gains complete World Dominance, maybe we'll be able to do a search on our own life's history...

subjects and subject matter

BB Guns In the Bunkhouse (top); Jar in Abandoned Hunting Lodge (bottom) © kjm

Two more pictures from this past week, and I promise I'll stop for a while. A reader posted a comment on the photo below, mentioning the bullets on the windowsill. So thought I should talk about my motivation in the picture making. Originally, I had the idea to photograph exteriors of the buildings - the iconic shape of the barracks is recognizable, and the changes and modifications over the years were fascinating. Then, just a week before I was to be at Tule Lake, I found out that another photographer, Andrew Freeman, had produced a book of similar work. The pictures were from the Manaznar Internment Camp, not Tule Lake, and there are some differences in how I was going to approach the pictures. Nonetheless, I was deflated.

But I realized after arriving, that I want the pictures to show human engagement with the buildings - evidence of lives lived and a space reused, after it's initial, unfortunate purpose. My choice of subject matter isn't intended to have an edge or commentary, but to try to show that human element. Cameras weren't allowed in the internment camps, so there's a void in the Japanese American family album. And though none of these things - baseball caps, jars on shelves - were things that belonged to my family, they still represent the lives once lived there.

working title: camp home series

© kjm

I've been in California the past few days, beginning a new project. In May, I came to the site of the Tule Lake internment camp, where my dad's family lived for part of WWII. On that visit, I assumed I'd find a memorial, and hoped to at least visit where the camp once stood. But I learned that many buildings from the camp still stand - some, former military quarters, form a small subdivision on the camp grounds. And the barracks, used to house families like mine, were dispersed to returning veterans, as part of a homesteading program in the newly irrigated surrounding land.

I was only passing through that day, but decided to return to photograph the buildings in their current state. There were a few creative roadblocks in the past weeks (more on that soon), but I've been on the ground and making pictures for the past three days. I'm not completely sure of how to talk about the work in a concise manner, but it feels completely right to be here - driving small county roads, meeting nice people, and sharing stories about the past.

The buildings dot the landscape here - some have been remodeled and lived in as houses since the 40's, while others were used for storage or outbuildings. And while there are hundreds in the area, I can't escape the idea that one of them might have been my dad's home, if only for a short time.