OnTheCusp.org

Flounder Lee
Artist
Assistant Professor of Photography, Herron School of Art
Website: www.photoflounder.com


1- Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Where do you come from? How did you come to be named Flounder?
 I grew up on a farm in Alabama. I started out school in aerospace engineering but didn't like it so I moved to Florida and dropped into art somehow. I got my BFA from the University of Florida. I moved to LA and got my MFA from Cal State Long Beach. Well I can't say much about the name except it has to do with a bar in the swamp named the Secret Snail Society.

4- How would you like your audience to experience the work and how important is it that they comprehend the research and information offered up within the work? Is it important to for the audience to "read" your word? Deconstruct it?

7- Aside from what most of us consider an artists studio practice, what other activities do you find you have to keep up with in order to maintain your career as an artist? Do you send out packets? Apply to residencies? Keep contact with galleries, collectors, curators?

Ok, I have been looking forward to Friday for a couple months now. The IMA will be presenting a 35mm print of one of my top 5 films of all time, La Dolce Vita. If you have not seen this masterpiece by Federico Fellini, I suggest you take this opportunity to see it. Do not wait. Cancel all your other engagements and get over to the Toby and watch it on the big screen, in glorious black and white film rather than video. It is the purest and simply best way to catch this film. I have seen it numerous times in all formats and I will be there Friday. If you do not want to take my word for it, try reading this fabulous and telling review by Rober Ebert. Here is one of my favorite segments from his review.

Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw "La Dolce Vita'' in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom "the sweet life'' represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age.

When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal. There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself.

What really suprises me, is that it is damn hard to find a good trailer for the film online. For now, check out this site to see more on the film.

From the IMA's web site:

Tom Torluemke

I have been thinking a lot about the blog and what I would like it to be and where I think it needs to go in the coming year. I can honestly say, that I do feel that it has lost its way some in the past 6 months but it is a new year and I resolve to bring back a bit of that spark that made me want to start writing it in the first place. My original goal for the blog was to create a living, breathing, local arts blog, focused on contemporary "emergent art" (this is my new adjective to replace the ever controversial "cutting edge" that we have debated over time and again on the blog), a blog that allowed for an open critical dialog about the local art and art community. For the most part I think this still holds true but it depends on all of us to make it the sort of entity I believe we all desire. I wish you all a Happy New Year and I hope to see and hear from you all more in the coming months.


Scott's On the Cusp related New Years Resolutions

Resolution #1: I will write at least one exhibition review per month

Resolution #2: I will conduct and post at least one interview or artist studio visit per month

Resolution #3: I will attempt to inspire others to help contribute posts, reviews, etc. to On the Cusp on a regular basis (volunteers welcome, email me at scottgrowstudio@gmail.com)


What are your arts related resolutions for 2009?

This month, my plan was to try and do something a little different for the weekend preview. As you can imagine gathering a lot of this information and formating (or rather my attempt to format) it for posting can eat a lot of time, time I would rather use to write something of more substance. So in an attempt to be a bit more critical and to make things more streamlined for myself, I plan to post a curated listing. In other words, I am going to simply post full information for the five openings I find most interesting each month. I will continue to link to IDADA's First Friday map which typically has a more comprehensive listing of all the galleries and their openings and hours. How can you make the "five"? Simple, send me a press release (if you do not already do so), preferably with images and information about the show, and if your show grabs my attention over the others, you will make the "five". I welcome the other contributors and readers to add their own thoughts and options in the comment section. While this was my goal for this month, there was a serious lack of new openings tonight so I was left with two shows that I had information on.

[Note: When sending press releases, make sure that text can easily be cut and pasted and include at least one attached jpeg. Press releases with embedded text and images make my life difficult and do not always look good when posted on the blog as scale typically changes.]



First Friday Editors Two

Harrison Center for the Arts
SYMPHONIES & DIRGES
new work by Emma Overman
This exhibit will feature "a collection of works based on life's highs and lows, from simple pleasures and trivial inconveniences to great successes and hardships.

In Gallery No. 2: Cargo - new work by Toni Hook
An exhibit of over 20 paintings using shipping pallets as the canvas. The raw material paired with characterically American images reflect an unrefined America. Through bold colors and aggressive brushwork, people and ideas become the freight.

In Hank & Dolly's Gallery: Botanical Abstractions - new work by Todd Bracik

at Artbox Gallery: