Home.

Take care.

This entry is an update of sorts.

Well, the next time I post on this thing will be when I’m in Ireland again.

Next Tuesday, my brother and I are heading West for a week before I run off to Ireland for the next 3 and half months and he runs off to the Burning Man festival for 7 days in the Black Rock desert in Nevada.

We plan to drive to Fort Collins to meet with my dear friend Drew and spend a few days in the mountains.

Then Jeff and I need to drive to Reno by the 25 so I can take a plane to Chicago and he can take the car to Burning Man. When I get home, I’ll then have just under 20 hours to get everything set to head to Ireland to make it to Orientation on the 27th.

I’m pretty excited for how ridiculous this will end up being.

Also, right after I leave, the Weisman Exhibition will be going up at Columbia in the front rooms of the 623 S. Wabash building from Sept 2 - Oct 18.

The stuff I’m putting in is mostly work no one has seen yet, so please go check it out and let me know what you think (and e-mail me, since I won’t be available any other way).

Then in October is the 2008 Chicago Art Open at the Merchandise Mart where my portrait of Justin will be,

along with tons of other great work that you can actually see here.

Also, you should check out some other shows that unfortunately I’ll be missing.

I know it’s a drive but try to make it out to the CoPA Milwaukee exhibition at the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts. Go to the website and check out all the artists who are showing. It was a ton of fun last year and there’s a lot of great work in the show this year. It really makes for a great weekend.

Another show in September is Anni Holm’s ArtXposium that looks like it’s going to be awesome after checking out the list of artists here.

I hope everyone had a great summer, keep in touch while I’m gone.

Take care.

I

Updated some more of my website. Updated some portraits in the Art Student section, and uploaded a new project I’ve been working on, however, carelessly mis-linked it from the Work section. If you can’t wait til tomorrow, here’s the correct link. I’m going to work on posting some new pictures on the site from what I’ve been devoting most of my time to lately. I’m excited for your response.

Take care

Jack Radcliffe

I thought this was pretty cool:

Jack Radcliffe’s project on his daughter,

Thank you Suzan!

Bummer.

My dell computer has lived 5 years now, with revival after crashing twice. It still turns on, however, will no longer open any file in photoshop. I would post what pictures have been made for the past couple weeks of finals, but that can’t happen now. So hopefully I’ll manage to make something happen in the free time on the school computers until I find the money to get a new computer. Hope all is well with everyone.

Oh and congratulations to all the recent graduates, it was great working with some of you in the last year.

Take care.

Website

I updated my website. Simplified the set up because it was stupid. And all new work is up now. Check it out,

mattaustinphoto.com

Who’s going to Art Chicago? I’m psyched.

Back and Forth.

Me, Mike, and Asher went on a trip to Nashville,

then Daytona Beach,

then Hobe Sound,

then Miami,

then Jacksonville,

then Savannah,

then D.C.,

then Baltimore,

where we went to Daniel Shea’s solo show at MICA and hung out with him for the night.

It was good to meet him, Joe, and Ramsey finally.

Here’s some 4×5 shots from the trip. There’ll be more once school slows down a bit this week compared to last week.

Somewhere in PA.

Hobe Sound, FL.

Washington, D.C.

More soon, I hope.

Stories.

So I guess it took longer than I said it would to resume where I left off.

This is Andy, the guy Suzy and I stayed with when we went to Bloomington. He was very hospitable and on this trip we learned that Bloomington is a pretty cool place.

I’d like to someday hang out there for more than 15 hours.

 

Anyways, school resumed after that weekend and then continued business as usual.

 

 

 

 

That weekend, a few things happened:

 

I wanted to make a weird photograph of my friends Mike and Anne,

and a weird picture of inside Mike’s house (his Mom is working on a very large painting of Jesus for their local church, these are the sketches)

This is their dog, Forrest. He’s a gentleman,

Grams came into town, we got lunch,

(Mom left, Grams right) ,

Valentine’s Day happened sometime around here,

We went to the Grand Lux Cafe,

Suzy and I had leftovers for like 4 days after this (<–justifying spending money on expensive food) . It was worth it though.

 

 

More random pictures from throughout the week:

 

 

 

(^ stranger danger.)

 

Speaking of strangers, I’ve been working on some new photographs lately,

Avi, 26

 

Ranita, 35

 

I won’t go into detail now, it’s too early in the project. But later sometime, probably.

So me and Suzy went to Colorado like a week and a half ago or something like that. Which ended up being mostly car troubles and then treacherous weather on our way back.

 

But fun, nonetheless.

We decided to head out after class on Friday around 5, and stop in Omaha to stay at my friend Karl’s house, an old buddy from my days at St. Ambrose.

Since we got there at 3 a.m. and got back on the road at 7 a.m., subtracting catching up with Karl, we probably got about 2 and a half hours of sleep…ish.

Then we drove for awhile, got Burger King (mistake #1).

Realized our back left tire was low on air, went to an oil change place to get it filled.

The guy told us there was probably a nail in it or something (mistake #2).

We listened (mistake #3).

He told us to go to Walmart to get it patched for cheap and quick (mistake #4).

We listened (mistake #5).

Guy at Walmart snapped one of the lugnuts off the wheel (mistake #6).

Told us to go look around town and get lugnuts and studs, then to bring them back and he would reimburse us.

We listened (mistake #7).

Couldn’t find any of these in the town, a guy at “Nebraska Tire” told us that there would definitely be some in the next town (mistake #8).

We listened (mistake #9).

No lugnuts or studs in the next two towns (at this point we’d driven 150 miles on the 3 lugnut tire).

Decided to say fuck it and drive the rest of the way to Colorado (good decision #1).

We made it though, stressfully, but made it.

So we got coffee at the “Alley Cat” with Drew, which was cool.

 

I think we probably went to bed at like 11 that night or something really early.

The next day we met up with Suzy’s friend Kate for the day.

Suzy photographed around Colorado State University a bit,

 

Haha can you tell I haven’t worked with color in awhile? Man…

Well I’ll live with it because of the far passed expiration date on the film.

So, right… then Suzy kept photographing around there while I drove out to a suburb to make this photograph.

and this one on my way back,

Colorado is beautiful.

We went to a coffee shop that night and relaxed some more, then we got back to Kate’s dorm and me and Suzy pissed off a bunch of kids by playing (very unskilled) ping pong while they were trying to study in the same room (mistake #10).

Then we woke up,

got the car fixed,

went to Waffle House,

and attempted at driving back.

I would say about 5 minutes outside of Fort Collins the 55 degree sunny weather turned into a freezing 40mph wind blizzard that lasted the entirety of the rest of the drive.

Around 9 p.m. we made the decision to stop at a hotel before we died, since we saw so many people flying off the roads because of the ice (good decision #2).

We found out in the morning that we were apparently in Walnut, Iowa. Never heard of it? Me either.

So as a fun game, we thought we’d count the number of cars that drove off the side of the road the night before between Walnut, Iowa and home.

 

We counted 102 cars.

(good decision #2 was actually a good idea)

 

So yeah then we drove back and I made it on time for Layout to Finish that Tuesday night.

And back into the swing of things,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then last weekend my brother threw a “gore” party.

which happened to also be Lauren’s birthday.

(Don’t let the makeup fool you, she had a great time.)

My brother’s new band, You, played. They’ll also be playing on April 1st, at the Clearwater Theatre in West Dundee. I know that sounds far but they’re getting a charter bus of people to drive you out there. Anyways, here’s pictures from that.

 

 

 

 

It was really dark in there.

 

And then the party went on from there,

 

 

 

(Jeff decorating rob in fake blood.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mainly random things.

Ever since school has been back in session, things have pretty much been a fast paced roller coaster of thinking and analyzing and criticizing and then doing, to then restart that cycle.

I’ve been trying to decide on pushing my project in another direction or hanging it up for now and starting a new (but kind of the same) interest. Either or, I’m excited about it. We’ll see what happens.

Here are the two portraits that are finished, I took them the weekend before this past one.

Jeff

and

Rob

I think I’m moving into a much different direction with the project: involving only strangers in their homes with less guidelines in terms of age and much more of an interactive situation between photographer and subjects. I’ll post some as soon as I have some finished, I’d like to hear what anyone thinks.

So I guess I’ll run through what’s been going on lately.

Well a few weeks ago when we got back from Florida, Suzy and her roommates found a large heating bill, so they decided to throw a party and sell booze at it.

Unfortunately, we profited maybe $30.00 from the party.

Aside from that, other random things include:

-Got a physical at the doctor.

-My car (Blue ‘92 Honda Accord) basically having too many things wrong with it to drive.

-Someone buying my car for $800.00.

-Another person wanting my car that was already sold.

-That person buying my brother’s car (Green ‘91 Honda Accord) that has not started for about 6 months for $700.00.

-The 190,000 mile relationship with a car coming to a beautiful ending.

Now I drive a Ford Focus, which I would compare to driving a golf cart on a 4 lane highway. However, the miniature quality of the Focus does make me feel like a giant.

Anyways, other things that have not been talked about,

Brian moved out, to New York City.

I’d link you to his work, but I don’t think it’s up just yet.

So then Rob moved in,

And we have made a full darkroom in our kitchen with 3 enlargers and separate room for chemistry. We’re working on making it more efficient. But it’s difficult with school being immediately intense this semester.

Here’s a picture of Asher and Rob on our way to Mike’s on the way to the last critique.

what the hell happened to those?

(^ here is Rob, Petya, Hannah, Sydney, and Elise)

(And ^ Chiara) At our last critique. Most of the others who came regularly are linked on the right.

But really, I’d be interested in starting those up again. David Robert Elliott and I were talking about it at Brad’s Satin Satan show the other night (which was an awesome pick of work, by the way.)

Rob and I can host some nights. Whoever’s still down to continue it, please let me know and we’ll get something started again.

 

In other news, the weather has been ridiculous in Chicago.

I’ve been doing my best to photograph in between going places on the street,

which sometimes the 40 degree temperature changes help out with.

But mainly I just photograph while not being able to feel my hands.

I guess I’ve been photographing a lot of the el lately,

 

I found this el scene to be pretty strange.

 

Me and Rob have inevitably been hanging out a lot since he has moved in,

and consequently Petya has been hanging out also,

Quinn took some pretty awesome pictures of us with her fisheye when we stopped in one day.

Here’s some more random pictures.

As far as school goes, I couldn’t be happier with my classes.

I don’t know if I’ve been able to say that with an entire class schedule at Columbia before.

I mainly say that because of my classmates in these classes, it’s been fantastic company.

We got out of Advanced View Camera one day and went to Yolk.

(Mike talking about creamer and making ‘that’s what she said’ jokes, inappropriately.)

(Rob on break from something.)

(Yatzik.)

(Ryan Bakerink took a picture of me with my camera.)

((Which I think actually ups the resale value of my camera.))

(((Because he photographs famous people for a living.)))

More random photos?

Okay.

Me and this lovely lady wandered one day before she had to work.

Got “Got Pizza” at some point,

stayed at Hilary’s at some point,

went to see “Juno” at some point,

how “just alright” was that movie? Seriously.

I thought it was supposed to be hilarious.

George Michael completely let me down.

Me and Suzy went to Bloomington, Indiana this past weekend to visit one of her friends at IU. I’ll post the pictures from then and this week probably next week sometime.

We’re going to Fort Collins, Colorado this weekend to photograph some strangers I talked to through craigslist and to visit my friend Drew.

I guess that’s it for now.

Bundle up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trying to catch up.

Hey everyone,

me and Suzy got back from Florida a couple weeks ago but it’s been very difficult to get all the work I did on our trip edited and finished. I think my computer is on its last leg, so I’ve been using the school’s computers to get done in the little time I have to do it.

Anyways, I’ll give a hopefully brief rundown of the trip.

We left Jan 4 and drove straight through to Nashville. It was a dead night there, so no interesting pictures came from the drive really. We had a lovely dinner at the Waffle House though.

I miss those places already.

We stayed at a Best Western for 60 bucks, which was sweet. Then ordered some Papa John’s and passed out.

We headed out around 10 a.m. and drove through the Chattanooga Mountains in the morning which ended in another stop at the Waffle House, haha.

(Not a particulary sanitary one, but still good food.)

We then made the rest of the trek to Naples, and got there probably around 3 a.m., were handed beers and fed cheese and crackers, and went to bed a little drunk at about 5 after talking to Cathy and Don (Suzy’s dad’s cousins) for awhile.

I think we probably got up around 1 and then went to Marco Island to photograph.

The grass (?) was pretty nasty there. It made my feet brown.

Then we went back to the house and passed out again.

Cathy and Don were kind enough to give us a gift certificate to a place called Brio, which was awesome.

We headed over there around 9, had a long dinner with wine,

Then we walked around for a bit and then headed back to the house.

The next day was our first day at Naples beach,

These birds posed for the view camera, it was great. And scary…balancing the tripod on those things.

Then we just kind of hung out for the rest of the day.

Once the sun starting setting, the light became amazing and then we started photographing…

as did most of the other people on the beach.

We then watched the sunset until we were the last people on the beach and headed back to Cathy and Don’s.

The next day we were supposed to go to Key West but it was too expensive to get there so we just went to the beach again.

I think we passed out for awhile and then woke up when the light got equally awesome as the night before,

We checked out the dock for a little bit,

I’m pretty sure that it’s a standard Naples hot spot for family pictures and fishing.

These were the people that sat behind us all day.

So anyways, the next day we decided to drive to Miami.

We left I think around 10am and got there around 1pm, if I remember right.

We checked out the beach first,

I have to remember tight shorts or speedos for the next time I go. My attire was not acceptable.

So yadda yadda, babes, beaches, jaeguhbombs…then we headed into town.

As we got closer, this woman seemed to turn around and pose as soon as I brought my camera up to my eye, it was pretty weird.

I think I have come to the conclusion that Miami is a real-life videogame.

I found this from the last time I was in Miami,

Okay, sorry, so then the sun started going down and we were thinking about making the trek to Daytona Beach, but the people and environment seemed to get way too interesting to just leave right then.

So we stayed for a little longer to photograph until rush hour was over.

I don’t remember taking this…but I like it.

I took this picture while Suzy loaded more film,

Then I stole her camera and took this,

Hasselblads are nice!

So then…more pictures …

Then we left.

We drove out of South Beach and got to Daytona Beach around midnight.

We decided to stay at the Desert Inn, which may have been the best decision of the entire trip. I would say the Desert Inn is the best hotel on the A1A.

So our plan was to get some sleep, wake up early, photograph around Daytona Beach and then head for Atlanta. But when we got there we couldn’t resist photographing this place.

(The ping pong area.)

(The parking lot.)

I’ve never been so scared to put a darkcloth over my head.

Me and Suzy were the only people in the hotel other than the staff at that point, all while upbeat show tunes echoed through every room.

Yikes.

Right, so then we woke up early as planned and photographed around a little bit.

Birdies.

Found some socks and fireworks,

Went back to the hotel to check out,

peaced out of the Desert Inn,

and headed onto Atlanta.

We made it there around 6, I think for the 7pm Cleveland Cavaliers/Atlanta Hawks game, which was awesome.

Thanks to two $20 Christmas Ticketmaster gift cards, the game was free.

And thanks to signing a piece of paper saying we wouldn’t drive drunk after the game, our Coca-Colas were free too. Nice!

We decided that night before that we had no reason to head home after this.

So we decided to go to North Carolina.

We left around 10, after the game and got to Asheville around 2:30am.

We stayed with Michael, an awesome friend of Suzy’s that had moved there just a week before we came.

We passed out pretty much immediately when we got there and then woke up at a decent hour the next day.

We didn’t know anything about Asheville and Michael wanted to explore, so we decided that was the plan for the day.

-After some coffee and cigarettes on the porch,

^That’s Michael’s sister Colleen, she cooked us an awesome breakfast.

So then we explored a little bit,

^parked in that parking lot.

And then walked up some mountains.

And found a bunch of places where graffiti artists do/did hang out in Asheville.

Then we had dinner at a place called Scully’s, which was pretty good.

Then we hung out at Michael’s and watched The Rules of Attraction and some David Lynch stuff.

The woke up the next day and drove through the Appalacians and 12 hours back to Chicago.

Thanks for letting us borrow the car, Dad.

I’ll post stuff that’s been going on since school started within a couple weeks. I promise I won’t go that long without posting for hopefully some time.

See ya,

-Matt