I got the chance to go to Cassandra Barney’s studio yesterday with some friends. She made us cookies and talked about art.

She knows how to treat art students.

I try to be unobtrusive when I shoot, but a camera can still intimidate. Since her husband is a photographer, she wasn’t phased by my camera at all.

Anyway, she’s hella rad. Check her stuff out here and her blog here.

A few weeks ago I got the chance to shoot and interview Andrew Smith for Square. It was a good experience not only because Andrew is a super nice guy, but because I really liked talking to him about his work.

Andrew works with found objects (usually junk) to create new works. Some of his most famous pieces are rolling ball sculptures (which are kind of like Rube Goldberg machines).

One of my favorite quotes from the interview is this:

“A lot of artist have a deep emotional, metaphorical or poetic meaning behind their work. My pieces don’t typically have that. I’ve told the people who ask that if anything I’d say the purpose behind my artwork is that it doesn’t have a purpose. It’s just the raw creativity and fun.”

I like the idea of making something just to make it. Art for arts sake.

Learn more about Andrew’s art by checking out his interview in Square Magazine or going to his website.

So I’m getting ready to roll out the the new and improved trevorchristensen.com, but because of my pending glory, you dear Love City residents have been neglected.

I’m totally sorry guys.

So as penance here’s some thoughts on local photography:

I really like finding good photographers in my city. It’s sort of wakes me up to my environment. It’s easy to look at a photo taken in California or New York and say “Well of course that is a stunning image, they live in an environment that lends itself to it”. But seeing an interesting photo taken 300 feet from my house shakes me out of that mode of thought.

Although seeing lame local photography really bums me out.

I live in Provo, Utah which is a pretty nice place all things considered, but sometimes it seems like we’ve got a glut of bad photographers out there. Check craigslist.com, you’ll see what I mean.

Why is there so much sub-par photography?

I blame the Mormons.

Well not the Mormons themselves, but the culture behind it. Observe.

Mormons are taught from a young age to get married and have a family. It’s one of the most important thing a young man or woman can do.

So that gives us three potential reasons to get photos taken. One, engagement. Two, wedding. Three, family pictures.

The first two of those category’s only come once and are relatively quick & painless, but the third is the killer. Pictures of babys, lead to pictures of toddlers, lead to pictures of kids, lead to pictures of teens, lead to senior portraits.

And look at that. It’s time to get engaged.

So my point is, if everyone is getting engaged, married and having kids there is going to be a large demand for photography. Not all of it good.

So here’s some good stuff.

Puppy photo at Kiwanis Park. Who can’t like that. It’s also right by my house, bonus points.

Photos of Motels on University Ave by Justin Hackworth.

Shadows and light are great. (second large one down) by Scott M. Jarvie.

So that’s what what.

What local photographers are you digging?

So I’ve been working on this post about Fantastic Floor for a while. I’m sick of cleaning it up, and I don’t really feel like writing about it any longer.

So here’s a rough draft. It’s all non-unified in it’s reasoning.

Fantastic Floor Sucks (but is it art?)

Disclaimer: This post is about Bruce’s BAND, not Bruce. Don’t think that because I’m writing a rather harsh critique that this reflects on my opinion of Bruce. Criticizing someones creation is not the same thing as criticizing the creator, keep that in mind. Bruce is a nice guy.

There were many Problems with the now defunct Fantastic Floor. Time constraints, not having like-minded band mates, little or no leadership, an incredibly hard subject to work from. But the greatest problems, the ones that would eventually take F.F. down was the lack of a clear vision and no well defined goals or any tangible ideas from which to draw reference and inspiration.

What Bruce knew about his vision for the band was:

1.He wanted it to be conceptual.

Conceptual like singing chants in the park to the God[s] of other religions, like giving speeches without the letters a, e, i o and u, like bleeding just to see how conceptual you can get before you pass out. Conceptual like doing everything that you would do normally, except just because you are doing everything normally, it’s not normal, but it still is.

2.He wanted it to be different.

You know different. Plums in perfume. Getting an ear implanted in your arm. All sorts of inverted philosophys and ideals. Different like not having to be another excessive, eccentric indie band.

What Bruce did not know is:

1.Everything else. Everything.

What to do, what he wants, what he doesn’t want, what the vision is, where to get inspiration from, what influences it, how to convey his ideas, who to include in the band, what ideas are to far out there and what will still be accessible to the audience.

See the problem? He’s got the initiative, but not the vision. The drive, but no inspiration.

Here’s a story that describes the process that Bruce seems to go through when creating art.

We were assigned to read Spoon River for English class. Sitting in the back, naturally I was handed the book that was most worn. This same book also had at least forty hand written sticky notes scattered throughout the pages. Gingerly, I flipped through, taking out each note and placing in a scattered pile on my desk. After I had taken all of them out Bruce turned around to me face me and took them. As he turned back I heard him mutter, quite pleased with himself it’s conceptual.

A year passes and I ask him what he ever did with those notes. Nothing he said “I didn’t have anything to do with them, so I finally threw them away.

He had seem those sticky notes sitting on my desk in English, thought that he could make some [conceptual] art out of them, and never having any ideas or clear vision for what he could do with them eventually threw them away.

That story illustrates what happened to Fantastic Floor, and in broader sense what happens to many of his artistic projects.

1.Spark.

He wants to create art. Something conceptual perhaps?

2.Opportunity.

Battle of the bands! I’ll start a conceptual band!

3.Lack of vision.

Practices are weird, music gets played, but no really conceptual stuff happens. Other band members don’t know what conceptual even is (intangible phrases don’t a band make).

4.Lack of leadership.

Bruce is a member of the band, not the leader. Failure to express ideas leaves band in the dark and Bruce frustrated that that practices aren’t going well.

5.Weird ending.

If it does get to this step, the show just turns out weird and disorganized. No form during practice results in: no form during performance. If there was anything conceptual Yoko Ono or Phillip Glass already did it. Nothing original. Creativity is the hardest part (shouldn’t be).

Eventually I’m going to patch this article up and put it in the next issue of It’s Murder!

When I went to San Francisco there was this guy doing art on the sidewalk. He had a boombox with techno playing and two other guys, just chillin’ and talking on cell’s. He’d put a sheet of heavy-ish paper on a crate and start painting it with spray paint. It was really amazing to watch. He had about 40 – 50 finished pieces laying around facing the audience and kept saying “One for five or three for ten! Ladies and Gentlemen this is how I feed my family, please donate! One for five or three for Ten!”

He had a hollowed out, different sized cans laying around him as well as tools for making lines and shading. He could complete a piece in about eight or nine minutes and they looked like they had taken hours.

The process was amazing to watch, he’d deftly drop little flecks of white paint to create stars, create very realistic planets and moons with speed and ease, the best part was when he would dry out the canvas with a home-made torch (lighter and spray). But the reason why people only observed and didn’t buy was the art itself. It just wasn’t good. It was unbelievable to watch him carve out the detail that he did with dollar spray paint and a spatula. But the art was lame.

He would put Simpsons characters in movie poster poses. Or make Bart, Millhouse, Auto and Nelson look like the Beatles. He had collages filled with different rappers and Disney scenes. He didn’t have anything that people would want to own, to put on there wall. All he had was a captivated audience interested in the process, not the product. (Not to mentions the obvious copyright infringements he was committing right and left).

The subject he painted the most of was Sci-Fi scapes. With bridges, and planets, and starts, and cities, and monuments to society, and multiple moons, and only the colors blue-black, red-black and yellow-black. Paintings you’d see on an ill-conceived Sci Fi novel. Not high art, not low art. Not art.

If your going to try to sell something on the street, you need to make sure people want it. Instead he was selling a show, with shit-art as a byproduct. His art wasn’t something that the general public would want to hang on their walls. It wasn’t something the general public would want to place in there bird cages. There just was not any depth to his pictures. They were the stuff of DeviantArt teenagers and manga addicted whores. Bart and Lisa dressed as Micky and Mini.

People here and there would take a close look at one of the pictures, examine it, become amazed at how he could do that with just spray paint and techno. Sometimes they’d stay and watch him perform a piece or two.

Then they would leave.

5.

Fit 4/5
Style 4/5
Just makes me feel good to wear it 5/5

Long story short: I’ve been into the Morton Salt girl for a while and finally decided to make a shirt with her on the front. Halfway through I decided it wasn’t worth it, and just ironed it right on the spot. I like how it turned out though, sort of a moody take on a popular logo.

4.

Fit 5/5
Style 3/5
Just makes me feel good to wear it 5/5

Shortys. Nothing great, really worn, but really comfortable. And it fits killer.

3.

Fit 4/5
Style 4/5
Just makes me feel good to wear it 4/5

The most I ever spend on a shirt is $3 at Gen-X, $4 at the C.T.R. and $5 for a really good soccer jersey at D.I. so when I seen a shirt new that’s say $10-15 I rarely do more then think longingly about how great it would be to own that shirt. This Enjoi shirt is different though, it spoke to my soul in a way that only a multicolored panda that proclaims Enjoi can. Night and day this shirt was somewhere in the back of my mind, always telling me “You’d Enjoi life more if you owned me, this red, yellow and greed panda on black just shouts I am the pinnacle of style and chill. You need me Trevor.” And it was true. I did need it.
Flash forward to some time killing at D.I. when right before I leave I decide to check out the t-shirts. After almost completing a full rack, I spot it. There right in front of me.
The Enjoi Rasta Panda t-shirt.
I snach it off the rack and turn to Bruce in excitement. “Hu-hah!” is the only thing I can say with happiness pouring out my eyes. “Look-hah!”
Of course Bruce in his cold Icelandic ways doesn’t understand it. But that is no deterrent. I get in line and buy it as soon as possible.
After wearing it for I while I come to see why it was there, as the cotton is not good quality hair sticks to it, but it takes more then that to stop me from sporting this kind of chill, I simply sport masking tape as well.

2. 

Fit 5/5
Style 4/5
Just makes me feel good to wear it 5/5

My Skateboarder Magazine shirt. Just a plain white shirt that says Skateboarder on the front. Nothing fancy, doesn’t need to be. It’s comfortable, soft and (after I took it in) fits just right. Nothing more, nothing less.

1.

Fit 5/5
Style 5/5
Just makes me feel good to wear it 5/5

I bought this shirt at D.I. while sluffing photo class. After ½ hour of fruitless results I was almost ready to leave when I started looking at shirts. Bam! There it was, the most amazing graphic I had ever seen: a crudely drawn balding man with an elephant gun and a monkey in its sights. On one sleeve was a rat with a suitcase and the other a banana with a meat cleaver. The lower right back had a pile of fruit cut if half with another meat cleaver.
Never before had I seen such genius artistry with a shirt involved. Only one problem, it was way too big. But I bought it anyway just because it was such a fantastic shirt and I knew that I had to have it.
The next school year I took sewing and was able to fit the shirt.
And now I have the greatest shirt that’s ever been produced.
The tag only states that it was assembled in Mexico and that it’s a medium. No logo or brand or any signifying marks. The fact that I know nothing about this shirt makes it all the more intriguing.

Honorable mention: Fit 5/5
Style 5/5
Just makes me feel good to wear it 4/5Really good fitting polo. Softest thing you will ever touch, it’s like the people at St. Johns Bay took a thousand babys and spun their bottoms into a cotton-like substance. Also I’ve got some shoes that match the color.Fit 3/5
Style 4/5
Just makes me feel good to wear it 5/5