#stuckinplastic: The Exhibition

Our very first picture we posted here on Stuck In Plastic.

 
One of our goals here at Stuck In Plastic (#stuckinplastic) is to create opportunities to show toy photography away from a computer or hand held device and place it squarely on the walls of fellow fans, board rooms, coffee shops and galleries alike.

To that end I am pleased to announce the very first Stuck In Plastic exhibition which we just branded for now #stuckinplastic: The Exhibition.

My friends +Me2, Avanaut and I will be showing our collective works - large, and we mean large- at the Bryan Ohno Gallery in Seattle, USA, Planet Earth for five weeks starting March 5th, 2015.

And yes we want YOU to come and celebrate our very first art exhibition in my hometown with us.

In fact if you are able to make the opening we will all three be in attendance (yes, these two Nordic dudes are coming over to this side of the pond).

Showing my work with these two gentleman is a sincere honor, and the additional opportunity to meet them...well lets just say 2015 is looking very bright indeed.

We will be talking about this exhibition periodically between now and March 5th as our plans take shape and offcourse we are interested in your views, so stay tuned !

I hope you will take time out of your busy schedule and meet up with us for the opening reception on the 5th (or at least help us spread the word). It would be wonderful to turn this into a mini meet up and show the world and beyond (or at least Seattle for now) that we are a force to be reckoned with.

My sincere hope is that this is a grand success so that we can travel #stuckinplastic: The Exhibition to a town near you, add a few more members, and continue to grow this movement.

~ xxsjc

If you would like more information about this, or future exhibitions, please let us know. 
Have you signed up for the Best of 2014 Photographic Challenge? If not, sign up here!

Work in progress

I have been very silent the last few weeks both here and on Instagram.

The reason for this was not that I preferred cooking or laundry above my duties as a Sunday photographer (guess what day it is today), nor was I caught up completely in long night meetings with Darth Inc (there were a few of those as well) hoping I could trade the corporate world for a more bohemian lifestyle .

No, the reason was from a very different and much more artistic nature.

We got an invitation to participate in an artistic challenge here in Scandinavia and the last few weeks have been full of designing, building, rebuilding, shooting and reshooting an epic adventure which took all our creative energy and focus.

And yes, the hard work and focus did pay off and we made it to the ten finalists (more on this tomorrow). 

If you are in Stockholm on Tuesday (24/06), do pass by the Central Station and say Hiya !

And now back to putting the last bricks in the shipping container and making sure we are all set for the exposition coming your way.

Stay tuned !
Me2 

A most interesting post ...

Today Jonathon Jones wrote an interesting piece in the guardian on being stuck in plastic and why he believes being stuck in plastic is women hating nonsense and at best a blip but far from art.

I could not disagree more with Mister Jones, and I believe the work of Jason Freeny is art.

Maybe not the posh art with a capital A that only a few intellectuals understand and can write long essays about, but for sure the art that captures our attention.

Art that creates an emotion and let us wonder on our inner child.

Mister Freeny, please continue your candy colored madness and delight us with your work™and rest assured your art did its magic.

It triggered an emotion with Mister Jones who fell the need to become creative and write an article about it.

Art should just do that.

Trigger emotions and engage in discussions.

Me2


PS. What do you think of Jason Freeny creations ?

In Flight

This month is one of those crazy ones where everything is awesome, yet running from one place to the other does mix up some routines ...

First, I failed to connect to the internet of things the last two days when on the road (using trains not planes) so when I finally hit The Studio™ last night to get some clean stuff for the next trip kicking in tomorrow I felt too tired to do a quick post. My respect goes to all those 365 days heroes that manage to produce a steady quality and grow in their personal journey day after day.
I managed to get my first glitch on day XVII instead of CCCLXV.

That said, it was a glitch and I will not give up and continue ...

Second, Shelly is doing a great job with asking all the right questions and pulling some legs.

What are we doing this weekend, why are we taking pictures of ourselves and our fellow plastic friends and foes, and happily touches upon the printing topic (the first prints have arrived with Wibeke and Lynn) which actually touches upon a lot of deep philosophical topics.

Right now I am just on a roller coaster of mash ups, hangouts and formal board room meetings with friends and foes alike around the Universe™  (and I got another special invite which I will come back later on) with my favorite body still in repair (so limited pictures) so I don't really have the time to sit back and reflect and just have to enjoy the ride.

Now, while traveling on intergalactic trains with limited internet connections, I am trying to pick up on a different topic me and Shelly have been discussing.

The one of mastering the art.

Stay tuned, and discover if it was Scott, Trey or Lynda who finally beamed me up ...

Me2

Footnotes to self:
Day XXI in my personal challenge (I skipped a threesome).
As always, stay tuned and leave your view in the comments below or on your social platform of choice ...    
  

The Typewriter

Shelly recently wrote a long and passionate post on why you should use your DSLR and if you missed it, I really suggest you read it.

I fully agree with Shelly on the advantages of a DSLR equipped with a great prime and set to capture RAW when shooting your adventures, yet it is not the camera that makes the shoot.

You will not tell better "stories" because you have a full frame (the FX stuff) body or you have the latest greatest prime.

I am not going to write a long well documented post like Ken did here (I do recommend you read the full post) but will just quote him: "If you can shoot well, all you need is a disposable toy camera or a camera phone to create great work ..."

So it does not matter if you only have your iPhone at hand to make great creative photography and turn what you see in a master piece.

Composition, light, focus, eye for detail, and finally the message you want to share, or like Ansell told us: "The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it..."

So, yes, a DSLR with a great prime on a tripod shot at ISO 100 will help you in getting better print quality and lower your chances for chromatic abberation (or fringe) in your pictures, but that is all secondary.


First and foremost it is about you, and how you see the world and what you want to tell.

This is what photography is about.

The art of telling your story with light.

Me2

Footnotes to self:
Day 2 in my personal challenge.
Picture above shot with an iPhone 5S
I will continue this story tomorrow as it links back directly to what we want to achieve with the dark room. 

Stay tuned and leave your view in the comments below ...

The Stockholm Syndrome

While Shelly is obviously struggling with the Imposter Syndrome and is rightfully exploring the inner workings of the meaning of live, art, photography, plastic and faking it all, I feel more close to home (ouch, one of my long sentences).

I like to sympathize with the Art™ crowd out there (they have soup after all) and just stick the label of Stockholm Syndrome on my back and move on.

I agree to be an arrogant Artist™in the 21st century.

Art™ in the 21st century is still very much the same as it was 25 centuries ago. The means have changed and the world has turned flat, and we moved on from binary art to (the next level) of binary art, yet we are still asking the same questions and researching the same inner workings of the big bang.

This does not mean we are imposters as we explore our boundaries and see where we are stuck in plastic together with you.

And this is what this post is all about.

Finding you.
Yes You™.

Regardless whether You™ are close to the Imposter or Stockholm Syndrome, if You™feel you can be that partner in crime here at Stuck In Plastic and join Shelly and me in our journey of conquering the world (phase one, Universe is following in a second stage) and join us in our Art™collective where we try to find our place, do speak up. It is about You™ as an Artist™, as a Photographer™, as a brick stuck in plastic ... and about Us™as a collective (pun intended to that other strange collective called Pink Floyd).

So You™wanna join Our™Journey ?

(ok there is no official solicitation form, but that is part of the journey and You™know how to contact
Us™)




 

The Journey has just begun ...

Just back from outer space where we enjoyed a fantastic 24 hour light show where environment and art were coming together. And so now it is time to wonder on great questions mankind and bricks alike have been asking for centuries, like where are we coming from, where are we going to and things like what is art ?

When I asked this question to Lady G. she told me I was lucky and that art is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as a painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

So when Meg explained in the comments section of Shelly quest for live after IG " ... that the value of images like this are simply to put a smile on someone's face. That's what it does for me ..." I do think that a smile is for sure an appreciation or sign of beauty or emotional power and we at least make one part of the definition.

An appreciation, a smile, a like ...

The discussion then continues with Mike throwing in the other side of the discussion that likes and being popular is not what it is all about.

And I agree.

I agree completely with Mike and Banksy quote about being famous and the eternal question why one goes to a restaurant (which is after all more as just getting the basic nutrition in and the waste out) .

Now, how does one measure success in triggering this appreciation or emotional power, the smile on Meg face ?

How does one measure his or her engagement with the audience ?

How do we know we are doing something more as just pasting time away or developing our own skillsets for our own pleasure ?

And this is where likes on IG do come in to play.

It is the recognition of other people (and bricks) that what we are doing is putting a smile on their face, or triggers an emotional power within strong enough to move that tumb so slightly up to hit the like and show some appreciation or engage in the discussion.

Other people.  Strangers to us and we share our work with these people, with the world.

Not to become famous, but to be able to engage.

And there are some numbers and rules out there that give a deeper insight in these engagement ratios and some people and services are taking these numbers into a mathematical game, but if you dont try to play the number game, 500 likes on a 2.5K follower base (the Shelly example) tells you that the picture did trigger a smile and an engagement with its audience on 620 by 620 canvas.

But is that enough ?

Is 5K likes on IG the end game ?

No, and here I am completely with Shelly, we have to storm the walls outside IG and make sure our art bring that smile also inside the real house, not just in a fantastic app.

The framed in print, signed and stuck against a brick wall, triggering that smile everytime someone walks by the image.
 

Stuck In Plastic is all about that.

Taking our work to the next level of the journey ...