Sir. Jimi Hendrix. Painting in a hotel lobby.
Having picked up a guitar in December of last year, for the first time in my life, I can say with certainty what Jimi Hendrix did with the guitar was truly remarkable. The Pacific Northwest has a vibe to it, and this vibe is partly responsible for the sound he created. If I get a second today I will visit his grave, pay a little respect.
Was on a conference call when I heard something outside my hotel window. Ya, this guy. Luckily I had pants on. Imagine what this poor kid has seen. Now, I did not tilt this as a reference to my advanced knowledge of geometry(I got a D in Geometry). I tilted it because I was sitting at the miniature hotel desk when I heard the commotion. I simply turned and shot. I was too lazy to move.
More Blurb on tap for today, but a slimmed down, trimmed down version of a typical Blurb day. A meetup. A gathering of like minded book souls. At a bar no less. But so far the day has been in this order. Coffee. Email. Yoga. Email. Shoot one photo of window washer. Phone calls. Email. Food. And now email and website. I’m saving my voice for tonight when I will be the social version of myself. More images later.
The water here is a blue/black I just can’t get over. It’s so beautiful, but also a bit foreboding. Cold. Damn cold. Filled with things that are higher on the food chain that you or I. If I lived here I’d need to be on it. I’d need to be able to see it when I woke and see it seconds before I slept. Now, based on prices, which can’t be cheap, that might mean I have to live seventy-five miles out from the city at the base of a massive pile of tailings from an abandoned mine, but SO BE IT. Is it me or does this image look like an oil painting?
We had the event. Lots of people. A LOT of book talk. Good to see faces I knew and others I did not. Bar lighting is a challenge to say the least. I just try to document rather than strive for rainbow inspiring imagery. But that’s just me.
Onward and upward.
Comments 4
I moved to Bellingham, WA, an hour and a half north of Seattle, about a year ago. This isn’t a big place. 80,000 people or so, I dunno if that includes the university kids.
There are multiple used bookstores here. Say what? That’s not viable, is it? It is here! But that’s not my story. My story is this:
I was walking around downtown doing errands and happened to walk by one of the used bookstores and, lo, in a storefront just down the street there’s a sign saying “coming in October, Book Bindery and Letterpress” and there are eager book nerds inside there moving stuff around, setting up.
The next errand was at the art supply shop, to buy PVA glue, natch. I mentioned to the young woman who sold me the glue that there was a bookbindery going in over by Henderson’s and her response, I swear to god I am not making this up, was “Oh! Another one?” which made me so happy.
Author
Andrew,
I know of at least three letterpress outfits in Seattle. It’s awesome. Nothing better than a used bookstore.
I think I’m starting to get a handle on this new model. It’s actually the oldest model of all.
Instead of becoming one of the Blessed Gods of Art, where I accept money in vast sums for my Art, I want to be part of a community, an ecosystem and an economy, of Art. A community in which each of us buys and sells Art, or directly trades it.
I don’t care what Gagosian is up to. I don’t care what the MOMA is up to. They’re doing something else, something that is irrelevant to me. They’re picking out the privileged few who shall receive, without actually doing much giving. There’s this whole other world out there, which is a real economy and a real community, and it’s social, and it’s built on friendship and friends of friends, and acquaintances sharing, trading, buying, selling, donating.
It’s Van Halen versus the bar bands. There’s only one Van Halen. There’s tons of bar bands, and they carry one another’s drum kits, and they’re not responsible for a staff of thousands, all of whom get paid before the band does.
Author
Andrew,
That is fantastic. I am all for the new way of doing things, and I’m dismayed by the old model of “being selected” as the primary means of someone furthering their career. I was at an event this past week and one of the speakers said “The fortress is being shattered.” I totally agree. Not that those mega locales or people are going away, they aren’t, but they represent, more and more, a major disconnect between the real and imagined world. But, to their credit, the imagined world is good to have. It’s the only thing holding up much of the creative world.