UFO of a special kind

From September 2010 to September 2011 Kathleen Loomis and I did a joint art project, „Daily Mail“, which we have both written about on other occasions (my reports, included you will find a link to Kathy's blog). Both of us agree that it was one of the best (collaborative) art projects we have ever been involved in. Despite the fact that we both knew it was good to stop after a year, when it ended, I went through a period of severe mourning – which might well have been increased by the fact that the end of the project coincided with my son’s entering school, yet another significant end of a period, but a great part of the feeling down was certainly affiliated with the end of Daily Mail. In any case, I decided to put together a documentation so that both of us would have something to hold in our hands and look at.

I started a file in InDesign, divided the pages up for six spaces that would show the pictures, calculated the size of table and spacing for text passages, and set to work, copying the pictures, the little texts. One day started with Kathy’s pictures, followed by mine, and the next day started with my pictures, so that would minimize the number of times I had to change back and forth between the different folders that I had saved our messages in. 

One page of the documentation, November

I planned to do about half an hour to an hour every day. By the beginning of November I realized that it would take forever, and that I certainly would not be finished by Christmas as I had originally planned. So as a kind of ‘place holder’ I chose one picture by each of us for every week of the year and ordered a memory game in two printed copies, which I gave to Kathy for Christmas.

A look into the memory game box

I played it with my family a few times, and it has been a dear keepsake since. By the beginning of June 2012 (or was it Christmas 2012 already? I can’t remember) I had finally finished the first half of the ‘big documentation’, up until March 15. That had been the ‘final date’ in our original agreement, when we did not yet know how well we were going to like it. Small catastrophes such as that I couldn’t find the texts of my messages from weeks xy to xz were overcome through Kathy’s reliable help, she would resend message texts from me, sometimes pictures of hers. By then the file had grown to over 120 pages, and would not fit into a single pdf-file. At least my computer did not want to do it, so I decided to save every page as a separate pdf-file, which I then took to the printer, as I don’t own a color printer myself.

The printout was shipped, the other half still remained to be done - and the good intention to keep going right away seemed to have been put into that package that went across the Atlantic. After all, we had continued the project for another six months (minus a few weeks when we met in the States and/or were traveling without internet access), so there was almost just as much to do still. I did get started on the second half pretty soon, but pretty soon after that it sort of got stuck.

So when early in the year (this year – 2014! three years after the conclusion of the project!) Kathy asked whether she could come and visit us for a few days in July, I resolved that I would definitely finish this documentation in time for that visit. Again I set to work, bravely faced more of the minor catastrophes – why on earth had I not saved my messages all through August? Over and over again I had to retrieve pictures of Kathy’s from my e-mail archives. During the time of computer change on my part I had lost three days’ worth of pictures from my side. Again, in all these instances, Kathy proved a reliable partner and supplied whatever it was I needed.

The whole process took much longer than I had possibly imagined. Had I known, how much time I would spend on it, I probably would have refrained from starting on it in the first place. But here Kathy was scheduled to arrive on July 1, and I would be gone to Berlin the few days immediately before that – I just needed to get it out of my system.

And I did. I came up with a title page, 

took the CD to the printer two days before I left for Berlin, picked it up on the morning of July 1, 

and could finally declare this project finished and hand over the missing part to Kathy as her birthday present.

Kathy arrives at Munich airport -
after I had picked up the finished documentation!

However, I will now have to look for a place where I can get it bound professionally. Because this stack of printouts needs a really good binding job done. And then this UFO will finally be FO.

After all that, Kathy and I had a wonderful four days.

Kathy, already taking pictures before jet lag set in

"Liebster Blog" Award

We've been having terrible server problems lately and I have hardly been able to get into the net to check e-mails, not to even think or speak  about posting on my blogs. So it came as a surprise when yesterday I found a mail by Kathleen Loomis from several days ago that she would make me the recipient of her second round of passing on the "Liebster Blog" award, which she had already received last year and has now received again. Thank you for this honor, Kathy! I know Kathy from a Nancy Crow workshop, and we had a wonderful Daily Art Project in 2010/11 with our "Daily Mail" project, which we have posted about here and here.
Now this award already has succeeded in getting me two additional registered readers, and it has bumped up my viewer number on Kathy's publication date considerably, so thank you all for following Kathy's lead and checking out my blog.
As this award comes with conditions, I would like to fulfill at least two of these right now:
first condition calls for posting the picture on the blog. Which I do here:

Second condition calls for thanking the awarder - which I have already done, see above - and setting a link to that person's blog, which I have done repeatedly before but am happy to do again here.

Third condition calls for passing on the award to five other blogs. Now as I couldn't find an originator of the award in a quick net-search, nor could find out who altered the rules and set the number of blogs for the award to be passed on to up to five in the last year - it used to be three when Kathy first received it - I have decided to stick to the semantics of the German word 'Liebster' - "most favorite" and pass the award on to only one other blog. Now Kathy, as the person who gave me the award and has it received twice already is out of bounds, though hers is really my most favorite blog. The second-favorite blog I read has over 800 registered readers - so I will take a few days to think this over before deciding...

Daily Mail - conclusion of a project

The third week in September brought the final end of Kathy Loomis’ and my Daily Mail project which we both have reported about on our respective blogs in May: Kathy’s prior reports can be looked at here, and mine here. 

The original agreement had envisioned a daily exchange for half a year, but when that time rolled around we agreed that we would continue until Septmber 15 to complete a full year’s cycle. Except that three weeks in April were missing, when my son and I visited the States, spent a week with Kathy and her husband, and Kathy went on another trip right after that. We resumed mailing on May 1^st.

The second half of our exchange saw a deepening of some of the themes we had introduced in the first part. I received a number of mails with color dyptichs, which Kathy finds at various places.

Kathy: Color dyptich

I sent reflections, light art and various instances of found art.

Uta: reflections

Uta: light art

Uta: found art (calligraphy?)

Uta: found sculpture

Uta: found art

Kathy treated me to many pictures from her cruise of the Panama Canal, whereas I sent her quite a number of impressions from my summer vacation on the North Sea Coast.

But we also introduced new themes – Kathy was delighted with shots I have been taking of German traffic mirrors.

Uta: traffic mirror in our street

I was thrilled with her initiative on lions, because these can also be found numerously where I live.

Uta: Bavarian lion

Kathy: lion

And we got into doors much more deeply than we had before.

Kathy: door in Chios

Uta: front door

And many others...

I had originally started the project with a picture-pun on Kathy’s blog-title “Art with a needle”, turning it into “art with a noodle”, and I had even managed to come up with a second picture that I had sent her on the official date of closure of the first period. Kathy got back at me by finishing with a pun on the title of my German blog, “justcolours”, turning it into “just collars”. 

Kathy: Just collars

Gave me a very good laugh, and made me shed a tear.

Now that the project is over it is no real fun anymore turning on the computer to check my e-mail because there are hardly any interesting messages waiting. I noticed that I take slightly fewer pictures than I did throughout the last year, because I won’t be considering sending them as Daily Mail anymore (which will be a relief to my son, he thought I was taking too many pictures anyway, it was definitely getting on his nerves). Though I still 'see' the shots and think “this would be a great opportunity for Daily Mail”. 
But through the project I have found a new way of focussing on the kind of pictures I take, of looking at things and their prospective value as art.

I am still a little sad about the fact that the project is over, although it feels as if it was the right time to stop. It hadn’t felt like that in March, which is why we agreed to  continue until the anniversary of the beginning. All I can say is that this year was a wonderful and enriching time for me, the exchange certainly contributed a great deal to my well-being throughout the time, and I am curious to see how it will have an overall effect on my art-making.

Thanks, Kathy, for the collaboration!

Daily Art Project as Dialogue: Daily Mail, part IV - art or not art?

Kathy Loomis and I spent almost seven months from September to April in a joint daily art project which we have reported about here and here.

In December, at approximately half-term, the whole project went through a crisis because due to some problems of their provider, Kathy was unable to send e-mails for several days, although new postings were still appearing on her blog. Before (and after) that crisis we had always made sure to announce to each other when we would be out of town, and we had either posted ahead, to be opened on the date indicated, or we would make up afterwards.

So as it is with crises, they usually offer you a chance to change or reconsider something in your life.  

This sudden and unannounced silence on Kathy’s part while new posts appeared on her blog left me slightly at a loss. I felt abandoned – and understood how important the whole project had become for me. And for my artistic development. Not only was I having fun preparing our daily mails. I was taking pictures at a higher frequency rate than ever before, and I was also taking different kinds of pictures. Some of these have meanwhile been published in our local newspaper after I sent them in on chance. (And I am even getting paid a token for each picture published, I just found out!)

During those days of not receiving anything from Kathy I spent a considerable amount of hours contemplating on the art value of our project. I realized that it was much more than sheer fun for the two of us. The concept behind the whole thing was the setup as a dialogue between two different people from two different cultures, though with at least a certain amount of shared interest. Kathy has already mentioned the cultural exchange aspect in her last post on the project  as we exchanged pictures of national or local peculiarities. But the dialogue also went beyond the immediated reaction to each other’s themes as they were developing, in that each of us started seeing new constellations or aspects which we hadn’t noticed before.

At one point, Kathy had started sending pictures of ‚men at work’:

Kathy's picture of 'men at work' on Tenerife

Now that was definitely a theme I had not been paying any attention to in my picture taking. (And I admit I haven’t taken her up on that theme, although I do ‚see’ them now - but I feel slightly shy about taking pictures of – to me – strangers when they might notice. These must therefore be considered my „untaken pictures“.)

In turn, I have been taking pictures of trees and markings in their bark which I call ‚tree faces’.

These Kathy hadn’t noticed before – but she said she would be looking out for them now, and she has since posted one on her blog.

The ‚found art’ parts in the exchange showed me a lot of parallels between art and linguistics, which had been an important part in my former life. The success of (verbal) communication is always very much dependant on the hearer of a message, which could also be formulated as „meaning lies in the eyes (or ears) of the beholder“. That’s true for art, too. Art is in the eye of the beholder - and with fount art it is most likely going to be the artist, first.

Fount light-art by Uta

Found art in Antarctica by Kathy

Part of the value of the entire project must have been the fact that we didn’t know in which direction the exchange would develop, neither in the beginning nor throughout the project. Sometimes, a theme would not be taken up – or only at a much later date. Part of the value was the fact that we did include rather brief notes of explanation with our mails, but both of us made sure that these were not too personal. It was a visual conversation with very few extra words put in. Part of the value, too, was the fact that we were doing it every single day. Which kept the project (almost) constantly at the forefront of our minds as we were always looking at things with that thought in mind: would this be worth sending as the next Daily Mail? Permanent repetition with the slightest possible variations gives one a more thorough feeling for what one is doing. Thinking about it, and then doing it again, either with or without alteration, does make quite a difference.

In conceptual art, the idea „behind it“ was sometimes considered as or even more important than the actual execution. In this case, however, I think that the execution was just as important as the initial idea, because none of us knew ahead of time how it would develop, and the final result and feeling of satisfaction at having fulfilled the commitment contribute to my personal positive evaluation of the project.

When we talked it over in April, and we kept returning to the point of „what about it is art?“ Kathy gave me her personal definition of art as „art is anything that makes you think differently about the world“. ‚You’ in this case was meant to refer to the recipient. It’s true for the artist, though, too.

Daily Art Project as Dialogue: Daily Mail, part III

So far I have given two reports (to view them, click here and here) on the daily art project ‚Daily Mail’ which Kathy Loomis and I performed for slightly more than six months, starting September 15, 2010. (You can view Kathy’s reports on her side of the project here and here and here.)

After Christmas the project was more than half over, as the final date had originally been set for March 15. Throughout the remaining 2 ½ months I sent pictures to Kathy on the following themes: winter, sink art, my own daily art project Daily Oak, shadows, lots of „found art“, dyeing results, from a bike trip through Sweden of 28 years ago, a small series on the Bavarian custom of putting up a „Wegkreuz“ (German link here) at crossroads of which I could find more than a dozen during a short bike trip in the immediate environment of the town where I live, my observations on the art of deconstruction , the spring flooding in our town, pictures from a trip to the Canarian Island of Fuerteventura I took with my son four years ago, an article on the improved recognition of Native American Art in American museums which I had found in the NY-Times excerpt regularly included in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, buttons, my newest quilts, the spring floods in my town, roof-decorations on older houses in my town, impressions from my family’s week-long trip to the Bavarian Forest (included lots of granite and cobblestones!), first hints of spring, tree faces and marking, bricks bricks bricks, and a series „inside/outside“ where I had taken pictures of church windows by artist Marlene Reidel  in a nearby church both from the inside and the outside.

The Museum of Granite in the Bavarian Forest

Winter Art

Regular status of creek in winter...

... turns this status in flooding.

Kathy shared many wonderful pictures from her January trip to Antarctica, some from a former trip to Greece, sunsets, shadows, found art, compositions of decay, chairs, first hints of spring, started a new series „men at work“ (which I really loved but could not match at all because I had never taken any pictures that would fit that theme and felt too shy taking pictures of men at work if they could see me doing it), something she calls ‚crop circles’ (which I now find here, too, though not so frequently), more pictures from Japan (after the earthquake and tsunami), the spring floods in her town, bricks bricks bricks, and lawn animals!

penguins marching up the hill

men at work...

found art

lawn animal

crop circle

And so - is this art? What do you think, before I report on how Kathy and I discussed this topic when we met in April...

Daily Art Project as Dialogue: Daily Mail, part II

Kathy Loomis and I participated in a joint daily art project from September 15, 2010 to April 8, 2011; you can read her first report about the project here, and I have first posted about it here.

Kathy started off her Daily Mails with several days of pictures from her recent trip to Japan, to which she then would repeatedly return throughout the project. My favorite picture of those first ones was this one: 

Kathy's picture of boats on the moat 

Later in the month I sent her a few pictures of reflections on water, which she took up eagerly, and which continued until the very end of our exchange, soon expanding to other media in which reflections are possible:

Reflected/upside-down city hall

Kathy's reflection from Nürnberg

Reflecting glass

Reflecting glass by Kathy

Me, reflected in mirror of artwork at Stuttgart Staatsgalerie

In quick succession we than came up with new themes that would be returned to every now and then, and sometimes would 'meet' each other:

• sunsets (always good for a colorful picture, though in the end we didn't have too many of those)

Sunset by Kathy

Sunset by Uta

• bricks
• shadows

Combination of shadows and bricks by Uta

• artwork by other artists
• some of our own artwork in progress or finished

and, a recurring topic for which we needed some time and discussion as to how it should be referred to: 
I wanted to call it ‚art or not art?’ because I liked the game of guessing that would be included under that title, Kathy preferred the title ‚found art’ as she claimed that most of the pictures would be taken somewhere else than in a gallery anyway. We had lots of those, and I willingly confess that that has meanwhile become my favorite object when taking pictures: finding beauty/art in unexpected places, and documenting them by photo.

Found art by Kathy: dumpster markings

art-or-not-art by Uta (solution: art in the making!)

Found art  by Uta

And then, for more than two weeks, Kathy treated me to an extensive stretch of Halloween-documentation, that most American custom which, although it has been exported to other parts of the world by now, still is most virile in the US.

Halloween decoration by Kathy

The taste of Halloween by Kathy

In reply, I gave her a deep insight into my family’s Christmas customs all through Advent and December, which you can read about on Kathy’s post today here.

Further report on the project coming up in a few days.

Daily Art Project as a Dialogue: Daily Mail

I started reading Kathleen Loomis' blog just about a year ago. I'd met Kathy for the first time at a Masters Composition Class at Nancy Crow's barn in Ohio in 2008. At that time I had been filled awe and respect about her work - after all, she was the first person ever to machine quilt one of Nancy Crow's quilts! At the barn, I got to work on the table next to Kathy, and although we were both caught up in our own work, we had enough time to look at what the other was doing, and I was really impressed with the pieces Kathy was working on, and also with the way Kathy was talking about her art.
After that, we had a few contacts by e-mail, and finally found out that we were both going to be part of Color Improvisations, soon opening at Karlsruhe, Germany.
A few weeks before the first opening of Color Improvisations in Stuttgart on July 12, 2011, I then found out about Kathy's blog via a hunt from Bonnie Bucknam and, not having had any real experience with blogs before, started reading it backwards. Slowly I made my way back to January when she had started writing it, reading a few entries every time I had a chance. About two weeks before the opening in Stuttgart I had finally found out how Kathy got started on her Art-a-Day project, which she regularly posted about, and which had had a most inspiring effect on me. Knowing that I would meet Kathy in Stuttgart a thought occurred to me which then slowly evolved over the next two weeks: what would it be like for two people to join in such a daily art project in an exchange? What kind of dialogue would it turn into?
It took me a lot of courage to tell Kathy about this idea at all because I was a little bit afraid she would think I would be trying to steal her idea. But it turned out she was very open to my initial suggestions, and within less than a complete half hour we had come up with a handwritten "contract" about our joint project which would be called "Daily Mail":

'Contract' for joint "Daily Mail Project",
signed July 10, 2011

Starting on September 15, 2011, we would commit for a period of six months, each of us sending the other one an e-mail every day, with either a picture, or a piece of text, or a little explanation. Themes were allowed to develop.
During the two months between our signing of the agreement and the actual beginning I started taking many more pictures than I ever had before, trying to stock up on pictures because I was slightly afraid that at some point I might actually run out of current pictures to send. Little did I know about the dynamics that this project would get caught up in!
I was lucky early on, too, to find two instances of a motif  that made it possible to open and end the project with a pun on Kathy's blog title "Art with a Needle", as I could name them "Art with a Noodle":

Daily Mail, September 15: Art with a Noodle

 Living in Europe means that I was six hours ahead of Kathy, and I got to start first.
Early on I sent a picture of our local cemetery - which got Kathy started on a long though intermittent row of cemeteries from all over the world:

Daily Mail September 16: Cemetery

 And that was only the beginning of it all.

See future posts for further reports on the project, and read about Kathy's side of the story here!