"I believe one should create from what one knows and speak about one's tribe . . .You can only speak with true understanding and empathy about what you've experienced."

~Nan Goldin

"I was one of the first people, at least in the Western world, to photograph my entourage and say that it was as valid as photographing any exotic tribe you don't know. We were the world to each other. We were not marginalized people as everyone writes of us: outsiders, drug addicts, prostitutes, transvestites, blah, blah. It was our world."

~Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin Quote 1

"A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. That's not what it's about for me. It's really about relationships and feelings...it's really hard for me to do commercial work because people kind of want me to do a Nan Goldin. They don't understand that it's not about a style or a look or a setup. It's about emotional obsession and empathy."

Nan Goldin Report

The first time I encountered Nan Goldin was at the San Jose Museum of Modern Art. Every Sunday i would spend the day alternating between the independent movie house and the museum which was free at the time. It was there in the gift shop that I saw The Devils Playground. I stood in place for a good forty five minutes looking through the book. The colors, the candidness, the rawness of the pictures all rooted me. I felt as though I were looking through Nan’s eyes at friends and family not a camera lens.
Nan started taking pictures in 1968 after a teacher introduced her to the camera. Her sister had committed suicide in 1965 and she had turned to her friends to create a new “family”. It was when the memory of her sister began to become fuzzy that she really started to take pictures. She wanted to commit the present to a picture so as to not forget the moment or the people.  Two of the most important people to her were David Armstrong and Suzanna Flectcher. David was a transgender man Suzanna bisexual [though I could not get a clear answer I believe she and Goldin had a relationship of sorts] through them and the family Nan Goldin gained access to the drag and gay underground.
Her first solo show was held in Boston in 1973. Her first book was The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Was made up of the photo’s taken from 1979 to 1986. In it it depicted drug use, sex, violent dysfunctional couples. They had a snap shot feel. Capturing autobiographical moments with out censorship. Her main focus in early work could be said to be the culture of obsession and dependency.  There is was a strong exploration of sex and sexuality.  The pictures of the book were originally held as slide shows set to music and held, at first, in punk clubs. The slide shows lasted about forty five minutes. It helped get exposure for some of her friends who where up and coming in the world of drag.
Nan did not only photograph this underground world she lived it. Having taken part in her fair share of drugs, sexual partners, and abuse. The self portrait of her post beating by the hand of her ex-boyfriend Brian is a testament to that. She did not simply record others lives but her own also. There is a series of her and Brian having sex and he and she appear on the cover of Ballad.
As far as drugs she saw herself and friends as people who used and did not abuse. In one interview she spoke of having Thanksgivings with her “family” and them enjoying “some turkey and coke”.
By 1988 things began to catch up with Nan as she went from user to abuser, as so many of her friends had. By this time many of her friends and make shift family were gone, past away from AIDS and drugs in most cases. Even Suzanna was near death at this time. Feeling herself sinking Nan checked herself into rehab. While she had done self portraits before it was in the hospital that she really began to photograph herself. The photo Self-portrait with milagro is amazing. In it she is sitting on the hostpial bed with a small cross above it. There is a lack of color except for her lips which are ruby red, her face out of focus. You can feel her sense f lack of space when you look at it.
In 1995 she published a book with her life long friend David Armstrong called A Double Life. I think it is a retrospective. Both having a conversation via photographs about their intertwined lives. The love and lovers they have witnessed. The friends lost to AIDS. The hopes and aspirations and the let downs. All of these are set in a juxtaposition as Nan Photographs in color and David in black and white.
By the mid nineties Nan’s style changed or at least expanded. She began to take pictures of mothers, babies and parenthood. She also takes amazing photos of people floating in water.  Landscapes, New York sky line, and her lover, Siobhan. Which Brings us to the Devils Playground.
I went back to the SJ MoMA many a time and months later finally bought Playground. I find myself more connected to her later work as I can not truly relate to her early stuff as much. What Nan has given this generation is rather big. As someone who is apart of the “blogosphere” Nan Goldin gave the go ahead for focusing on your own world of friends. She made it so even though you are not famous and neither are your friends it is okay to explore and show their lives. It is beyond trendy, it is almost necessary as a young adult, to have the have snapshots documenting your night of partying, or of your day to day relationships and connections.

This is a report I turned in today for my b/w Photography.

M.W.K.W.W.M.

The NEED
is doubted & scorned by
The EGO
which is stomped upon by
The PAIN
which is funneled through
The FORM
which can only
ATTEMPT, FEEBLY
to approximate something like
The TRUTH
which is only valuable when
GROTESQUE
&
LEPROUS
&
DESPERATE
&
DRUNK,
BELLIGERENT EVEN.
But to say things out loud 

HOWEVER TEMPTING
is is is is is is is is is is is
STUPID AND SELFISH
and invites
PUNISHMENT
(albeit mostly self-inflicted)
PUNISHMENT
for thinking you want
SOMETHING
but then being not sure;
    PUNISHMENT
for later, more wavering, then
WANTING
to
GO BACK
or at least
RETHINK!

Then the big questions become:

WHO TO 

FIGHT?
&
WHO TO
LOVE?
&, most importantly,
WHEN TO LEAVE?

OH, BROTHER,

WHEN TO LEAVE!

Taken form the back cover of a paper back edtion of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius with the appendix Mistakes We Knew We Were Making.

I AM AN AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE SH*THEEL

**This is not my work, but god damn does it not reflect what I think sometimes when I hear extremist talk shit about this awesome land. Enjoy!**
this morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.
At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to ny house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.
*______________________________________________________________*
We are a great land, present and past tense, no one man or administration can destroy it. Now people take a deep breath.

BAMBOO FUN

It might be nerdy but the small Bamboo Fun has got to be one the best gifts I've ever received. What makes it so great? It's like a unlimited gift card to the art store. As long as I have memory I have the ability to create something. Doesn't matter that for the first couple of months the things I draw or paint will look like baby vomit. I don't always have the time to set up my easel, paints and canvases but I sure as hell have time to plug in this little gizmo. Yay for sexy sleek possibility's.