The Detail of the Thing or also known as The Serial Killer Instinct

Oct 29, 2009,
Salento, Colombia
Elevation 1900m

It is always the little tiny miniscule details that get to me. Irrespective to how many markets I have been to, it is always that moment when I see a detail of a thing and that would be what sticks in my mind and that is what get to me...just a little. Sometimes it is that single drop of blood on the floor, the eyelash that is left on the eyeball, the mole that is on the peeled off face or the tiny whiskers that is on the muzzel. It is never the whole carcass, it is never death in its fullness. It is always these tiny moments.

It reminds me the show "Dexter" or of detective novels where it is always the little things. It is always these moments that the author focuse in on, it is always these little details the character, albeit the Serial Killer or the Detectives obsess over. Is it because it is not death that bothers us but the details that reminds us of the life that once was? Or is it because death is too vast to comprehend so our brain focus in on the miniscule so that we don´t freak out?

"One death is a tragedy, a million is statistics." Is our reaction and focus on the details another reflection of the same sentiment?

Market Day in Silvia

Oct 27, 2009
Silvia, Colombia
Elevation 2647m

Silvia is the center of the Guambiano region. The Guambianos are considered one of the most traditional indigenous group in Colombia and every Tuesday they come into the town of Silvia for market day to trade and socialize. This is the first indigenous markets I have seen and photographed in Colombia. Colombia does not have a high indigenous population but as I travel further south and close to Ecuador, indigenous cultures are starting to appear.

This market day was beautiful. The town square is filled with Guambianos in traditional grabs, the women walk around the town with a spindle in one hand spinning yarn as they mill about. The vendors in the market is a mixture of Guambianos and Colombians. There are Guambianos selling fruits and vegetables but all the butchers at the market appears to be Colombian. I suspect it would be harder for the Guambianos to come into Silvia and sell meat and such as there would be more complicated logistics involved, such as the transporation of the animials and a location for slaugher. Or it could also be possible that Guambianos regularly slaugher animals in their own village so when they come into Silvia, their need for meat is limited.

What stands out from market day here at Silvia are the little details:
- Guambianos couple wearing matching work boots with same color shoe laces.

- A guy walking around the market demonstrating a chain saw, turning on the motor and making the children cry while the crowd gathers and the price of the chain saw is excitedly whispered through the crowd.

- The unique features and faces of the Guambianos.

- How the town square is colored with the blue of the Guambiano garb and they sit about and have visits with each other and the Colombian town folks of Silvia. There is no seperation and distinction.

- How the Guambianos line up outside of post office or other buildings of official nature so that they can take care of whatever modern life logistics that needs to be taken care of. This contrast between the effort to hold on to the tradition but also giving in to the demands of the modern world.

The Level of Danger

Oct 23, 2009
Manizales, Colombia
Elevation 2094m

Alexandro offered to take me to the main market here in Manizales today. He thought that it is not safe for me to go by myself. The market was amazing. Today, for the first time I got to see an entire pig butchered and seperated into smaller parts. An entire pig disappeared into smaller geometeric shapes right in front of me in under 20 minutes. The speed and the skill of the butchery is amazing.

Nothing is wasted here. Everything is used for something. I watched butchers labouriously take off the skin on a cow´s head, pick off whatever bits of meat there is on the head along with cataledge and whatnot for what Alexandro describes as a meat jello like dish.

Here in Colombia, everytime I ask someone about the market, where it is or how I can get there, they look at me and tell me that its not really safe to go. I go anyways. I have never felt unsafe or sketchy when I am in the market, surrounded by butchers, carcass, vegetables and fruit sellers. The most profound and basic thing happens here in these markets and my danger alarm never has gone off. I am uncertain as to why the constant warnings. Perhaps I am not seeing the danger, perhaps I am being a little too naive, or perhaps these nice Colombians just don´t want anything to happen to me and end up with a negative impression of their beloved country.

Alexandro was really excited that he got to take me to the market today and show me around. Towards the end of the morning, he asked me what I thought of it and why do I like it so much. I told him that I like the market because it exists without my gringo dollars. The market happens irrespective to what the flow of tourism is or isn´t. It is authentic and it is real and it is life at its most basic, independent of backpackers or how wildly visted a country is.

*I had some amazing pictures for you but I lost my blackberry (where the pictures are stored on) on the bus ride out of Manizales...so I am afraid that you will have to wait until the end of December when the website gets overhauled with all the new images from Latin America.

An Honest Killing

Oct 20, 2009
Medellin, Colombia
Elevation 1494m

I photographed Plaza Minorista Jose Maria Villa this morning. It is a large covered market just west of the Center. The most interesting thing about this market is the meat section. There are refrigerated display cases up front with various cuts of meat, just behind the counter there are large sides of carcass dangling from hooks and then behind that is a large walk-in refrigerator, some with windows for you to look into and see the butchering in progress. It is almost the best of both worlds; the honesty of what meat is combined with the technology and modernity of the 21st Century.
Charlie Grosso
www.charliegrosso.com
310-592-0895

A Delicate Balance

Sept 9, 2009
Johnson, Vermont

It is day 10 here at the artist residency and I am still having trouble finding that perfect balance. I have so much work that I need to get through before I am back on the road again. Editing, scanning, cleaning and dealing with the images from the last trip is a month's worth of work and I am trying to get it completed in 2 weeks. I want to do a little bit more research on the next project and maybe get that started. I would like to get some writing done. There are lots and lots of ideas kicking around up there, the hamsters have been working over time and there is an avalanche that needs to come out. In short, there is a lot of work to do.

Yet, I am in Johnson Vermont, a small town, surrounded by some wonderful artists, writers, beautiful beautiful people who have a uniquely different perspective on life, art and what not. I would like to get to know them. I would like to know their stories and what they dream about. I am being offered a community of like minded people and I want to take advantage of that.

Its a struggle every day between locking myself away in the studio and work until I can't keep my eyes open anymore or go out and socialize with the other artists. A delicate balance of work and play that I seem to have trouble finding. I know I am not the only one. This very same conversation of balance comes up during meals (I know that its ridiculous that I think it takes too much time out of my day to share 3 meals a day with the other artists) and I am comforted to know that I am not the only workaholic present.

Is it weird to feel that life was a lot easier on the road? I shoot in the morning when its not a day spent in transit. I walk around the rest of the day and photograph whatever else that captures my imagination. The hours in between the nitty gritty of survival (food, laundry and lodging) is for me to read, to wonder, to sight see, to day dream, to write, to hunt down coffee and Oreos. The residency is supposed to take away all the distractions of daily life yet I find myself even more perplexed and stressed than I would be otherwise.

Life is a constant push and pull of opposites and you just hope that you can make it to the end without being torn apart by the force fields.

*Photograph courtsey of Frank Jackson, a dear dear friend and a fantastic photographer.

The Name Game

Sept 2, 2009
Johnson, VT

I have completed the first round of edit of on the new images from Latin America and now I am scanning/cataloging them. It is a boring task, a tedious task, but it needs to be done. When the images gets scanned, you have name it as you file it away on your hard drive. Each image are filed under country, month/year and the city the image was shot in. Then each individual image gets roughly named, along with the twin check number and frame number on the roll. So a sample name for an image would be "meat_7991_12."

I don't get very creative with these preliminary names, once the images have made it through another round of edit is when I start to think about what to title each image, but even then, I still struggle. After naming numerous files "meatlady" over the course of the day, of the years, of the life of "Wok the Dog," I am starting to wonder how many files do I have that are called "meatlady" and if you could have too many "meatlady"? When I hit that creative block on what to name each file, I began to think that maybe there might be something to calling your art "Untitled" after all.

What you title your art work tends to be some what important and can be very helpful in the reception and success of your work. For example, do you think Damien Hirst's tiger shark would be as successful if it was not titled "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" but simply called "Dead Shark" instead?

Logic vs Gut Instinct in hand to hand combat in an all White Room

Aug 31, 209
Johnson, Vermont
Elevation 157m

I am sitting in my all white studio space with a window looking out into the parking lot with a perfect view of the construction workers using the porter potty. I know that photography is on the low end of the totem pole in the art world, but did that need to be made so obvious with a view of the shit house? (I am certain that my studio assignment does not reflect anything other than what is practical and convenient).

I am editing through 63 rolls of film from Mexico and Central America. I shot markets in 13 different cities and 4 countries. I can usually look at the proof sheet and tell you which town that market is as no two markets are a like. I am looking at 3 proof sheets of meat isles and meat stalls and I cannot tell you which country it was in, much less what town. I remember being at that particular market, I remember shooting the images, I remember each of the isles, but I cannot remember anything else. By the process of elimination, logic tells me that this mystery market is not in El Salvador or Nicaragua, but my gut instinct tells me that I shot these images late in the trip which means that it is El Salvador or Nicaragua. OMG! I feel like I am going crazy. My gut is certain, but logic dictates otherwise.

Maybe its not good for me to be in an all white room. Maybe I should staples some pads to the walls....

Johnson Vermont and Artist Camp

Aug 31, 2009
Johnson, Vermont
Elevation 157m

I arrived this morning after a red eye flight to Burlington Vermont. I am here because I have been awarded a fellowship for a 4 week artist residency program. We are picked up by a shuttle service and we drive an hour out side of Burlington to a small town called Johnson.

It is beautiful here. Blue sky, puffy white clouds, green hills, trees everywhere and hillside dotted with cute wooden houses. It is so quaint and picture perfect that you think you are on a movie set. The kind of Americana that exists here is pretty, yet something in its quaintness that solicit some kind of violent reaction in me. I don't want to say that this reality here is not "real," but yet, there is a part of it that is not real. I don't know how to explain it. I am hoping that its one of those you get it or you don't kind of thing.

The Vermont Studio Center has about 30 buildings in the town of Johnson, and when I say town, I mean a street where you can see one end of it while standing at the opposite end. We get our room assignments, our studios, a tour of the Center and the town. During the tour, we are told that there is no liquor here in town, beer and wine only. For liquor, you would have to visit another town where there is a state licensed liquor store. I then imagined Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski (if they would ever attend a residency program) walking out at the mention of the inaccessibility of liquor, tossing their cigarettes behind saying, "What kind of artist do you think we are?!"

Clearly I will not be creating any new images for "Wok the Dog" while I am here in rural Vermont, but I have 63 rolls to edit and scan and a few other projects that I am trying to flush out. There is plenty to keep me busy. I think the idea of the residency isn't so much about what you CREATE as much as it is that you have this time, this space, slotted and set aside for you to work on your art, whatever that may be. But naturally the Asian overachiever in me is all about WHAT CAN I MAKE and HOW MUCH CAN I GET DONE? I swear, between being a type A and implented with the overachiever gene, I will either rule the world one day or end up in a straight jacket muttering, "must do more!"

At the welcome dinner, Jon, the founder, talks about the idea of VSC and the opportunity and sacrifice that we made to be here. One thing that he talks about that really touched me is the idea of the community. Not only are we afforded the time and space to work without having to worry about meals, we have been granted this community of national and international artists of various age, experience, career development and discipline to be a part of. A community that understand the isolation that is required as we work and practice but also a chance to not be in our heads and our minds only and be inspired and perhaps even take a part in someone else's work. I really like the idea. Now, I just have to find that balance between keeping my head down and get as much done as I can verus just hanging out with my friends. The overachiever thinks we can do it all, even if it means we sleep less and work late.

The Revolution Starts Here

Nov 23, 2008
Los Angeles, Ca

I am off to Japan in a few days - two weeks there for more images for "Wok the Dog" and then home to Taiwan to spend the last couple weeks of the year with my family. Which means that I will be back to chronicling adventures on the road here real soon.

But first things first. I did a photo shoot on Thursday for an update of my commerical portfolio (yes, I work as a commerical photographer as well) and one of the shots I executed was inspired by John Lennon and Yoko Ono's honeymoon protest where they were in their bed at their honeymoon suite for all the media to see. They effectively turned something that is supposed to private into something public, an event that is a celebration of their love and union into an event with greater global implications. Not to mention that is not a bad piece of performance art.

All of this got me to think about "where does the revolution start?"

In the minds and hearts? Then does that not really begin in the subconscious? In sleep - while you are dreaming?

This began simply as an exercise to update my commerical work and now I feel like maybe there is some truth in it. The revolution starts here - in our minds - in a fundamental place - bed - in this case.

I have always felt a bit like a rebel when it comes to my commercial photography. I can shoot pretty girls in clothes, standing there, all day long. But I reject it somehow. I want the images to have a message, to have a narrative, to have meaning. To be more than just a body, a pretty face and the product of the day. I strive for something more, a sense of humor, a bit of intrigue, irony and sarcasm, a message that does not distract from the ultimate goal of advertising and yet provides you with just a little bit more.

If President Elect Obama is really ushering is a Brave New World, then I hope that we will start seeing advertising to go beyond the traditional and communicate a better message.