howcouldiknow

(perpetuallyunderconstruction)

The Book! It’s done! Hurrah!

August 11th, 2011 · Uncategorized

Working Title: Walk with Difficulty has at long last been formatted into a book available through MagCloud.  I received my proof a week ago and was pleased except for some nit-picky color issues.  I went back and re-edited ALL of my images, reset the PDF and uploaded it to MagCloud.

The book is 52 pages perfect bound on 80# Matte text stock with an #80 glossy cover.  I am really happy with how it turned out, the full page bleeds are pretty exciting.  Anyone interested in ordering head over to MagCloud!

Here are some images of the proof I have.  This is the copy I have been carting around in my bag all week and thumbing through over and over so don’t mind the wear and tear.  I promise your copy will be brand new!

 

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New Mexico June 2011

August 5th, 2011 · Uncategorized


Scanning and editing the film from my New Mexico trip.  This is the first 8 consecutive frames I shot on my RZ in over a year.  I knew right away I was back on the horse…or the wagon?  Whatever.

This is Ian and his dog Nudie in Albuquerque, NM.



More soon!

 

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More than one thing

July 16th, 2011 · Uncategorized

Ok this is kind of a catch-all update post.  I am a bit behind and have been waiting to get some things done before doing another blog post.

So at the end of June I went to New Mexico for my Dad’s wedding.  I had a week off of work, spent two days in Albuquerque, two days in Santa Fe where the wedding took place, and three days of adventuring.  I took the photographs for my Dad’s wedding which was way more intense than I expected.  They seem pleased with the images despite my many self-criticisms (never again).  These are the flower girls from the bride’s side of the family.  

Afterwards we got a rental car and drove to Tent Rocks.

Then a couple hours south to Truth or Consequences, NM .  We had a shitty motel room and spent a day at Elephant Butte Lake.  I loved it here, it seemed like there should have been dinosaurs roaming around.

I brought my RZ with me and took some non-phone photographs as well.  I am excited about the results but I’ve only scanned a few frames so far.  More of that will come soon.  I have been putting off scanning so I can focus on finishing up my Working Title: Walk with Diffiiculty sequence.  I have just finished a website edit including the addition of this new series.

 

I decided to add a web only sequence of seventeen images out of the total thirty six.  The complete sequence will be made into a book.  This is in mega early stages but it will happen.  I swear.

 

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Yes!

June 15th, 2011 · Uncategorized

Yes this is another blog post about me putting photographs in frames and hanging them on walls.  This month I have work up in three places at once, so I reiterate, I have been busy.  This show is at Handlebar in Chicago.  I am most excited about this show because I LOVE handlebar.  Great food, great beer, cool people, and I have seen great artwork on the walls many times.  So I am very pleased to be featured here (and maybe I will get a free bloody mary out of the deal, please?).  They will be up from June 15th to July 30th, so swing by and get a drink sometime.

This show is seven images from Ordering Systems.  I used the four 16×20 flush framed prints from my senior show at RIT.

And then I made three more prints to match.  I went to Black Point Editions and had the prints made which was super easy, fast and they look great!  I recommend.  

Printed up a statement and wall tags for each piece.  Which was a total pain because I am so OCD.

And then… success the final install!  Nailing into brick is not cool.  My arm is a bit sore.  Thanks Brett, Thanks Handlebar!

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Star Lounge

June 9th, 2011 · Uncategorized

I have been busy!  I have been chosen to take part in a group show at Star Lounge called  Informed: The Art of Information. The show will be up from June 10th through September 1st!  Featuring work by Jeff Geesa, Ahmed Ozsever, Jessica Pierotti, Jay Schroeder and Shira Ballon.  So my budget for frames this month is through the roof.  I’m broke, buy some prints.

There are 3 images from Ordering Systems going in the show.

 

The vertical image is a later one in the series that I have never seen framed, looks pretty awesome.

These are 14×18 prints in 16×20 mats for $120

All wrapped up and ready to go to the show.  I’m so pro.  I’m so tired.

N.B.  My flash is acting real funky (replacement in progress) and these pictures are color balanced weird and tonally inconsistent.  I do not wish to misrepresent myself by posting shitty looking photographs but it’s late and I have a 6 am call time so just deal.  Please.  Thanks!

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DONE

June 2nd, 2011 · Uncategorized

I got my frames about a month ago.  I sat around finicking with my final print selections, moving things around, thinking…doing nothing.  Then about two weeks ago I realized ‘these mats have 8×10  windows.  This was shot on 35mm.  FUCK!’  So I had to get custom mats made quick.  (Sorry, I don’t cut my own.  I just hate it.  A lot.)   I found this place  Media Specialties randomly online because they had the best prices.  I will plug them because they were the nicest most attentive web business I have ever experienced.  They are in Idaho so maybe that is why, but they were super nice, super cheap and everything came to my door perfectly.  So I think I have my little crisis averted, mats are on their way and then I will just throw it all together.  I make a preemptive trip to Helix to pick up extra paper and extra ink.  Just in case.  Awesome.

Now it is a week before and I realize AGAIN that these are not 8×10 prints and that I can’t use the 8.5×11 paper I have.  Idiot.  So Panic time, I start calling around town trying to find the paper I need, but no luck.  So I get on amazon and rush ship it from there.  Crisis averted.  But I miss the damned UPS guy and then memorial day weekend hits.  SO screwed.  They won’t deliver again until Wednesday.  By the time I have time free the only place I can attempt to get last minute emergency supplies is Blick.  I buy a pack of Canson 13×19 $90 paper, get it home and find out there is no profile for my printer (she’s getting on in years and there are no profiles for newer papers).  I try printing on it anyway because I am desperate, this is sunday night and I am supposed to hang Monday.  I tweak and tweak and make test print after test print and they all look like shit.

I give up.  Call the shop and tell them it has to be late and there is nothing I can do about it.  I hate being late, I hate losing, and I hate being unprofessional.  My paper shows up Wednesday night after I spent a grueling day photo assisting up at Northwestern (which was great!).  Got up today finished my prints in no time, they looked beautiful, put on my white gloves, and framed them up.  I booked a zip car headed up to Beans and Bagels and got to hanging.  Of course hanging was a total pain in the ass also, the wall is covered in a sheets of fabric so my wall marks kept wiggling around and the floor is horrifyingly uneven but WHO CARES I’M DONE!

Yay!  What a silly mess.  So this is some of my new work I have up at a cafe in Chicago, they are for sale too!  Wish me luck.

My framing station (I repackaged them in the cardboard after I was done for safety)

My floor gallery

My wall gallery!

More news soon for sure.

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Progress

May 25th, 2011 · Uncategorized

Wednesday is my day off of work.  So is Thursday.  I am putting up eight framed prints at a local cafe next Tuesday.  I am taking it seriously, even if that seems silly to everyone else.  It’s not the Whitney, it’s not even a gallery, and the best I can hope for is they don’t get knocked off of the wall; but it has ben really good for me.  Having a deadline has really pushed me to get productive,  I’ve been editing and test printing and making sequencing decisions.

 

It feels great.

 

Knowing I have this one little wall in this one little room, that gets to be mine for a month, has whet my appetite for showing my work.  I should have been doing this a year ago when I first moved here.  I should have hit the ground running, but I didn’t.  I have consistently been proactive about job-hunting ever since graduation, really I have.  (I am determined to get out of food service and it will happen.)  I haven’t been determined (or confident) about sharing my work and  pursuing exhibition opportunities.  It’s scary.  My skin is thin when it comes to my work, but finally doing nothing was feeling worse than rejection.  And tentatively I already have another show booked.  I have a lot of plans and a lot of ideas.  I just need to stay focused.

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Working Title: Walk with Difficulty?

May 14th, 2011 · Uncategorized

 

 

I am getting ready to make this final.  I am displaying some of these images starting June 1st in a local cafe so that is a bit of a deadline.  There will only be room for a portion of the final series so I don’t need to make my final selections and all prints by then, but I do need to get a good idea of what the final product will be.  I CAN NOT edit and sequence on the computer (Who can?) so I have made mini-prints and installed a strip of cork board panels in my office.  I thought having them in my living space would help me to thin out the herd of 49 images but so far I have not had any grand realizations.  Instead the line of images is beginning to seem like a single piece and distracting me from any sequencing.  It was nice in concept anyway.  It is always nice to finally see physical prints after staring at the computer screen for so long.  In no time I will have some of these printed full size and framed which I am very excited about.  Next step: Website addition.  Next Next step: hunting for more places to show this work.  Next Next Next step: Make small book.

 

 

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Finally…sort of…the end in sight?

May 4th, 2011 · Uncategorized

This is the last of all the backed up film I have from last summer.  It took too long and I have tons of excuses but fuck it.  I really like this small sequence.  It feels very emblematic of my time in Columbus, or at least of one of the moods or phases of my time there.  I am ready to make mini prints and begin editing and sequencing all of this work and trying to make sense of it.  I hope to make a series that can speak (somewhat indirectly) of a time in my life, communicate the intensity and emotion that I feel about these images.  I am afraid that my attachment to the moments behind the camera may be blinding, but careful sequencing and editing could save me.  More soon.

 

 

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30 seconds

March 3rd, 2011 · Uncategorized

Maybe I haven’t been photographing copious amounts but I have been thinking about photography and documentation, expression and art continuously.  I spend a lot of time walking, usually resulting in an internal debate about photography and it’s role in my life.  I see things everyday that stimulate my compulsion to photograph, to document, to show others my life and my surroundings.  Before I even raise a camera to my eye I take the photograph in my head and all too often I see that the beauty becomes commonplace, banal or repetitive.  I have been thinking about video lately in order to bridge some of the issues I have with still photography.  Often the things that impress upon me throughout my day are based upon motion, transformation and sound.  Video is a medium that can express these things while still narrowing down the field of view, the experience, into something smaller and digestible.  I have chosen to do a collection of 30 second video clips.  These are shot on my Canon Powershot, so the quality is not astounding but these are just fun exercises.  Luckily I purchased a Nikon D7000 with HD video capabilities, so if I wish to continue with some video work I have a much better tool to use.  I’ve been playing with it ALL DAY. Though now I want Final Cut because iMovie is a sad sad piece of work.

(I like viewing two at once, I may edit a couple together into one frame and overlap the audio once I have some editing software.)

 

30 second 1 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 2 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 3 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 4 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 5 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 6 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 7 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 8 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

 

30 second 9 from Jessica Pierotti on Vimeo.

N.B.   I just finished reading Ways of Seeing by John Berger which I really enjoyed.  It’s jam packed with ideas of advertising, portraiture, the role of photography, the depiction of  woman throughout art and media; and delivered with such a personable tone that it makes a quick and fun read.

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