Art Blog Influences Art. Cafe Selavy Photography and Dull Tool Dim Bulb Jim Linderman

I consider blogging a legitimate art form. I consider one who blogs an artist if they intend to create art using blog technology as a medium. I do, anyway. One of the most flattering events in an artists life has to be knowing you have influenced other artists. Last year I corresponded briefly with an accomplished, thoughtful, anonymous photographer who was dealing with artistic issues, motivations, and influence. We traded a few mails and went our own ways.

So googling myself up recently (yep...I proudly admit to seeing if I'm still alive once in a while) I came across a post I play a role in...by that very same artist who reached out 6 months ago, and dang if the work hasn't progressed with a small bit of my taste at the end of the fork!


Original Post from Cafe Selavy November 2009



"In researching old carnivals and circuses, I ran across several bizarre and useful sites. Way led to way and I found that many of them originated with one man, Jim Linderman. I immediately wrote to my friend:

I found this guy on the internet. I've written to him to ask if I can put up some of his collection. It is wrong, so wrong, and so much of what I want to do in my work.

http://cameraclubgirls.blogspot.com/

http://dulltooldimbulb.blogspot.com/

http://jimlinderman.blogspot.com/

http://frankwendt.blogspot.com/

My friend is. . . well, I don't want to give too much away, but he is a creative fellow and a scholar and has thought as much or more about this as/than you or I. He wrote back that art is a "vile and violent business," and that much of what artists do is "horribly horribly wrong." I guess he's right. Art, I mean, has always been an accepted way to talk about the taboos of a culture. It allows us to express the intersections of our world view where our grasp of things do not fit together neatly, where the language of our culture leaves us no other way to express this chiasma. Art is one way of talking about a culture's dirty little secrets.

Whatever that means. "Art" is now that thing in the chasm, a cultural embarrassment.

But Jim Linderman's collection is worth looking at, I think. You'll want to do it alone with the doors closed, maybe. If your mother walks in while you have one of his sites up, she will know immediately by your posture and the look on your face that you are doing something you don't want her to know about. You will protest, of course.

"What? Why are you looking at me that way? I wasn't doing anything!"

I'm having a bit of trouble with Blogger right now, and I'm not in the mood to fight it. I will post more about Linderman's collection tomorrow. Or look at the sites and send me your thoughts and I will make a post out of them. Ciao."
Cafe Selavy November 2009

I won't name the artist, as his work is anonymous...and i'll respect his privacy. If he contacts me, I will ask him if he wants his name shown, or if I should forward any comments. I will share his post on me though. There is good photography on both his sites, they follow.

Cafe Selavy HERE
A Few Days One Summer HERE
Original post on yours truly HERE