I’m headed to New York today to see my good friend from grad school, Eric Hancock. Eric has been roughing it in Manhattan for more months now than I ever would have given it. So I decided to spend some time catching up with him, and perhaps I’ll see some art as well. I mean, the Whitney Biennial is up, so it’s as good a time of year to visit as any.

But the real reason this trip is even possible is because the Society for Photographic Education National Conference is in Philadelphia this year. I’ll be taking a train down to Philly on Thursday for the conference to meet up with my colleague, Jen Litterer, and several students. We’ll be in town until Thursday.

Though I know this blog reaches a rather limited audience, if you happen to be in one of those two cities and you want to meet, count me in. I am still a dork like that.

Also, see Shudder Budder—my students’ new photo club at The Art Institute of Austin—for posts and videos about the conference afterwards.

This weekend is full of great art and photo events here in Austin. I’m taking a moment to post my plans for the weekend so both my students and any of you out there that may be interested, can join me.

On Friday 11/20 at 7pm, The Austin Center for Photography is sponsoring a lecture by Lauren Greenfield at the Blanton. I’ll be there early with my friend Polly Chandler and several others. My student, Teresa, has one extra ticket, as does my other student Joe, so they go for free to the folks who contact me first for them. You must be a student to use Joe’s ticket.

On Saturday night 11/21, I’ll be attending Slideluck Potshow Austin. The food begins at 7pm at Shangri-La on East 6th St. and the slideshows begin at 9pm. I can’t wait.

However, earlier in the day I will be grabbing a quick bite to eat at Cafe Mundi (1704 E. 5th St.) in East Austin at noon and then driving around the area for a few hours to see the East Austin Studio Tour. Again, everyone is invited to join me for food and art. I already have several students who have expressed interest in joining me. The more the merrier.

See ya there.

Joe Kelly Obenhaus, 2004, Austin, TX

I just found out that my friend Joe K. passed away two days ago. It upset me more than I anticipated. He developed Alzheimer’s Disease a few years back, and was already having memory problems when I worked with him at the Texas House of Representatives, so I can’t say I was completely surprised to hear of his passing. Still, I immediately felt guilty I didn’t seek him out over the last couple of years. It’s probably been 3 or 4 years since I last saw him. He was such a great little buddy. I’ll miss him a lot.

Andy Bloxham in Los Angeles

My friend Andy Bloxham (a great photographer in his own right) on our recent trip to Los Angeles for CAA. I think this is my favorite image from the whole trip.

I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago today—where my friend Katie Waugh is a grad student in the fibers program—and scanned 83 images from the past year in the highest resolution that the Imacons would allow. (That’s ~145 megs per RGB image from 6×6 negs, if you were wondering.) Maybe 83 Doesn’t sound like a lot to you digital shooters, but it took 8 hours, and I took essentially no breaks. Straight scanning. It was good to walk around after that. Expect some fresh images in the coming weeks (I hope).

Also, Stacy and I are leaving in a little over a week for Texas. Fortunately, we just got word that our lease will be terminated early (as we asked), and that means we will be able to look for a new place in May at the earliest. We’re really excited about that. Now, I just need some teaching jobs in Dallas. Anyone need a photography professor?

It’s been in the making for awhile, but recently we finally made the decision to move to the DFW area, back in our home state of Texas. There are a number of factors that contributed to our decision to leave Chicago. But unfortunately it can’t wait until our lease is up at the end of July. We’re hoping that our landlord will allow us the opportunity to get out early—at the very least, in just 60 days—but if not, we will be leaving most of our stuff here in storage until we have to move it out. At that point, a friend and I will fly back up and truck it down.

So that means Stacy and I will be driving down at the end of this month with Ginger (our golden retriever) and staying. It will be just in time for me to attend the annual Society for Photographic Education National Conference, which I’ve been looking to for quite awhile.

When we moved from Austin to Atlanta, I had Mo take a photo of me, which I’m reposting along with the one of Mo closing up the truck during a stop in Alabama.

I just got back from 4 days in Los Angeles for the annual College Art Association conference. For the uninitiated, College Art Association is the professional organization for those interested, specifically, in teaching art in higher education. However, CAA basically an art historian love fest.

I’ve now attended three CAA conferences in a row (NYC 2007, DFW 08, LA 09), and I can say without question that they are a monster waste of time for the vast majority of working artists. Sure, they have the career fair, which is essentially a big room full of tables and booths, where you either interview or simply drop off packets with the few schools who decide to send ambassadors. But without an interview lined up long before the conference, it just doesn’t seem to make much sense to make the trek to one of apparently only 4 major cities, UNLESS you are going to take in the sights of that town. This was definitely the case for me in NYC and LA. Dallas, being in my home state, was more of a chance to expose my friends from grad school to the great state of Texas. Austin turned out to be the highlight of our trip, however.

Anyway, back to why CAA is, well, less than impressive for artists (to be kind). I’ve TRIED to sit through lectures, which seriously amount to nothing more than series of truly boring art historians reading (DIRECTLY FROM) their paper on the most uninteresting of subjects. Even when the topics seem like they could be interesting, the presenters almost always fail to deliver.

This year, I didn’t even try to attend the lectures, with the exception of those geared towards those of us just starting out in our careers. It was fairly interesting, except like all CAA lectures, this round table went on too long by about 30 minutes. Well, I say that… we left after an hour.

As a photographer/photo educator, I’m fortunate enough to have a MUCH better organization in place to take care of my need for community. That’s SPE (Society for Photographic Education), and the annual conference happens at the end of this month in Dallas. Last year was Denver, and though I went alone, I actually made friends… something that seems next to impossible at CAA for a visual artist. Even though SPE is not necessarily an official professional organization (and therefore, far fewer jobs are posted on its web site), it appears to be a great way to network. I can’t wait for the conference.

Oh, and I shouldn’t close without mentioning a few quick points to those still considering attending CAA. If you go next year, DO NOT PAY FOR THE CONFERENCE. Only pay for your membership, as that is what gets you in to the job fair. The rest of it is a waste of money. I’m sorry to say I’ve paid for the conference, and when I realized that it was unnecessary, they refused to refund. So join me in never, EVER paying for the conference again. It’s just not worth your money. (Join SPE instead, photographers!)

=)

Did I ever tell you how I got started doing photography? (You are you, in this case, and I ask all of you this because I know the collective answer is no.)

The story goes, in high school I shot video (poorly) in band all the time. In 1996 or 97 my Aunt Nancy gave me an older SLR for some reason. I think she had let me borrow her new digital camera (we’re talking one of the first compact digicams) I really enjoyed taking tons of crappy 640×480 photos with it. So I think she figured I would have an interest in the film camera. I did not.

I went to college for music, and after a year I realized I couldn’t do it for a living. Burnout. So I switched to graphic design because I had been working with web sites since 1996. Turns out I was kind of a lousy designer… at least by good designer standards. But I remember always scouring the web for images for use in projects and never being able to find anything free that was any good. I didn’t know where else to look.

My mom had Sony Mavica that recorded straight to floppy disk at the time. Huge display, but the photos were 1.3 megapixels. I started shooting all the time. These photos were really lame and boring, but it was a start. I probably shot more in those days than I ever have.

One of the things that intrigued me was when I used the macro setting to shoot things up close, I would get this really shallow depth of field. That looked “professional” to my untrained eye. I had no idea how it worked.

Then, probably Fall of 2001 or so, I took a beginning photography class as part of the graphic design major. Black and White Darkroom, SLR camera required. I pulled out Aunt Nancy’s camera and shot with it until it fell apart a year later. Changed majors, and I haven’t looked back since.

Let’s see how long this lasts.

Blizzard’s a’comin. Wish the weather in Chicago looked more like this right now.

We saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that beautiful. I mean aesthetically, of course. But the film itself was really quite good as well. I felt fully immersed in it the whole way through. That is, until Stacy forced me to go get the Coke refilled (she did it at the last movie). I missed what I’m sure was a very crucial 45 seconds. (She contends it wasn’t.)

The movie is split in two, much like Titanic, where the old woman is essentially retelling this story. Well, kind of. Anyway, most of it takes place in New Orleans, and the present-day portion is happening as Hurricane Katrina is about to make landfall. The final scene (if I remember correctly) shows the flood waters entering a building. I just thought about this image… and even though it isn’t necessarily strongly tied to the movie’s theme, I’ve been thinking it would make a nice book cover. I really don’t have a body of work in mind or anything, but I mocked this up anyway:

We left Chicago for Texas a mere hour before the snow began to fall, at 2pm. The drive took 16 hours, and we arrived at Stacy’s parents’ house South of Dallas just after sunrise. Although the weather wasn’t great (freezing rain, copious amounts of fog) I can’t say it was an altogether awful drive; just uninteresting.

A few days in Dallas, a few in Houston, a few more in Orange. Then we decided to add another week to the trip and head to Austin. I’m so glad we did. The weather in Texas was fantastic pretty much the whole time we were there. We’re talking dry and in the 70s on most days. Awesome. And now I feel like I could live in Austin again and really appreciate it. I know that’s not likely to happen, but who knows.

We got back from Texas just in time for it to snow, and now it’s snowing again tonight. I thought I’d hate getting back to that, but it really hasn’t been that bad. Maybe it’s growing on me.

I shot around 8 or 9 rolls of 120 film on the trip, both color and B&W. I’ll be posting images from those soon.

I was never really happy with the most recent incarnation of my portfolio site, WalkerPickering.com, as the design was really just centered around the way I designed my business card . So over the past couple of days I’ve worked (and re-worked) a design into something I’m pretty sure I like… for now. I seem to redesign about once a year, so I’m sure it won’t be long until the design bug gets me again.

This can all be traced back to two things: my love of web design in the mid-90s and my short stint as a graphic design major in undergrad. Even though I don’t really enjoy designing for most things, I still like having creative control over how something like my own portfolio is laid out. I know that’s a good thing, but it means I spend too much time changing it to actually establish any kind of real long-term brand identity.

So please feel free to leave some feedback on the design. I’m happy to field any questions and resolve complaints—if I happen to think you’re right, of course.

Also, I’ve updated a few of the different portfolios on that site. If you liked the Joe K. work, there are a few new (never-before-seen) images there, as well as fresh stuff my New Work portfolio (along with a new title, etc.). (I love parentheses.)

Stacy and I are driving to Texas for a 2700+ mile roundtrip Christmas visit. Both dogs are leaving with us, only one will return. Crazy Homer the Basset Hound will spend the winter months with the in-laws, and I will get some sanity and sleep back. We’ll be gone for 11 days to such exotic locales as DALLAS, TEXAS, HOUSTON, TEXAS and ORANGE, TEXAS. We may even drive over Lake Charles, LA if we’re lucky! Ha.

It’s a repost, I know, but enjoy this now-dead bird:

Well I’m almost finished with my first semester of officially teaching, and I’ll say it’s been fun for the most part. I definitely had some preconceptions that were shattered throughout the course, but I expected that. I’ve come to realize that, as one of my students aptly noted, I’m a “hard grader”, which I think makes me a tough professor… ? I’m ok with that label. One of my most difficult professors as an undergrad seemed to have a lot in common with how I run my class now, and in looking back I realized that I actually did learn quite a bit in his class. I hated him at the time, but any enmity I have for him now is simply residual. It probably took becoming a professor myself to realize he wasn’t just being difficult for the heck of it.

It looks like I won’t be returning to MCC in the Spring, however, because they won’t be offering my section. I was given the possibility of another course, but scheduling/transportation became enough of an issue that I wasn’t able to make it work. It’s unfortunate that I live so incredibly far from the school, because I really enjoyed it out there. They’ve mentioned having me back in the Summer and Fall, and I think I’d like that.

There is an upside, though. There’s a decent chance that I’ll be teaching an art history course at one of the City Colleges of Chicago in the Spring. It could be a great opportunity to get into that system (which, let’s face it, is one of the reasons we moved to a city like Chicago), and teaching something so different would be a nice challenge. I’m also hoping at least one major school (if not more) that I’ve had my eye on will pick me up for at least a single class. That would rock my world.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and we don’t have a whole lot planned. Stacy’s friend Hope has flown in for a few days, so we’ll be showing her our admittedly shallow tour of the city. It’s gotten pretty bitterly cold, but I’m told it gets much worse by January, so I guess we’ll be counting our blessings for the “warmth” we’ll experience walking down Michigan Avenue.

What’s not apparent is how incredibly cold it was. We were using my coat as the dropcloth. Thanks to my student, Maggie, for the photo.

We shot out in the cold yesterday… here’s one of students right before we did individual portraits with sheet film for making cyanotypes later this week. It was overexposed, and bleached out quite a bit before I scanned it on an awful scanner in a PC lab at the school.

Ike was pretty brutal to our family’s beach house on the Bolivar Peninsula. So brutal, in fact, that it’s gone. Before (from Google Maps street view):

And after (via Mom and my brother Ryan yesterday):

Ryan erected the flag pole and flew a flag that they found.

The opening of an installation at the University of Chicago Renaissance Society.

Y’know, the more art I see, the more I realize how little of it interests me. There are only three types of work that tend to catch my attention these days (with rare exception): photography (naturally), video and installation art. Video has the ability to draw you in, often creating a package that makes you think what’s happening on screen is (or could be) real. But an installation can actually do it. Transforming a space, even into something normal but different, can often have such a jarring effect as to make the viewer question what’s real about the space and what isn’t.

I know this isn’t always the primary role of installation art, but many times it’s what I find most intriguing. Sometimes sculptures will embrace this transportational quality. I saw a show a few weeks back when my friend Eric Hancock was in town. The artist had created some type of treehouse in the clouds (although the whole thing looked eerily like a mushroom cloud), and even though I couldn’t climb in it, the scale made me feel like I could have. I instantly forgot that I was standing in a gallery, just looking at a piece of art. This doesn’t happen to me so much with paintings (or photography for that matter).

That’s probably not the best way to judge art, but it’s at least caused me to consider different ways of art-making.

I’m here in Milwaukee at the 2nd Annual Coalition for Photographic Arts Juried Exhibition. I didn’t even know about the show until today when Daniel Shea (a photographer I literally met for the first time this morning) told me about it, and offered me a ride. It’s been a great show, and I’ll be posting a video on photoawesome from it soon.

We attended our first openings of the fall gallery season tonight, which was a lot of fun. It wouldn’t have been so, had our friends Katie and Eric not been there. They both left Atlanta/SCAD the same time we did, only Katie is now attending SAIC for her MFA, and Eric is racking up residencies and stuff left and right. I’m jealous of both. But we’re all here in a pretty great city, and it was a lively art scene tonight. Tons of people everywhere.

I’ve been teaching for three weeks now, and the possibility of another class at another school is possibly on the horizon. Steve (Aishman) always said they’d contact you at the last minute, and that advice (along with much other) has held true. So far the teaching has been incredibly rewarding. It’s weird, at times, to be completely in charge of the direction of a course. Not just the planning and syllabus and all that, but the simple direction day to day. I’ve been writing extensive notes about every single class meeting on the train home that evening, and I think that’s really helped keep me on track.

As a matter of fact, a student from another class was in the lab the other day, and when I asked her, she said that they were doing the exact same thing in her class that we were. It felt good to know we were on track.

The weather in this part of the country right now is phenomenal. It’s actually been a bit chilly lately (68°F high), but prior to that, it was around 90°F rarely, and generally in the mid to low 80s. I look forward to the snow for now, but I think I’ll live to regret those words.