art from the garden

I started this blog because I was feel­ing that I was enter­ing a bit of an imposed artis­tic hia­tus. Kodak had stopped pro­duc­ing the spe­cial­ized film I used for most of my pho­tog­ra­phy, and I’d bought the last of the old stock of it that peo­ple had to sell on eBay.

I enjoy gar­den­ing at least as much as art-making. Also, the idea of a gar­den plays with the same kinds of ideas that I was inter­ested in when I did my art, stuff like the edges between human cul­ture and nature, and the envi­ron­men­tal costs of human habi­ta­tion. The idea of a gar­den blog seemed like it could keep me think­ing about some ideas that inter­ested me. And it might push the some of the same cre­ative but­tons that pho­tog­ra­phy did.

calla-lily-dissection-no-2

(Left: James SOE NYUN. Calla Lily Dis­sec­tion II, 1997. Pig­ment print, ca. 13 x 19 inches.)

Maybe the blog has func­tioned too well to keep me out of the stu­dio. But I’ve been reprint­ing at some of the garden-based pho­tog­ra­phy I did in the past and see­ing how it might point in new directions.

Recently I was invited to show of my older work at a small gallery in Escon­dido, in north­ern San Diego County. The show is Eye­sight is Insight / Art + Sci­ence, and is curated by Ruth West and Sarach Attwood. The show opened yes­ter­day, and remains up through July 3 at the Escon­dido Arts Part­ner­ship Munic­i­pal Gallery. These are a cou­ple of the works in the show, images from my Destruc­tive Test­ing Series, a small group of works where I use plant mate­ri­als from the gar­den in lit­tle sci­ence experiments.

fig-leaf-flammability-test-6b

(Left: James SOE NYUN. Fig Leaf Flam­ma­bil­ity Test 6b, 2000. Pig­ment print, ca. 19 x 15 3/4 inches.)

In addi­tion to reprint­ing some fo the older work, I’ve actu­ally been doing a lit­tle bit of work look­ing at gar­den­ing. I’ll share some of it here once I get to some­thing I’m will­ing to show the world.

In the mean­time, I’m happy to share some of this older work. Stop by the show if you’re in the headed for Escondido!

June 12 2009 10:06 am | Categories: art • gardening • my garden • photography |

4 Responses to “art from the garden”

  1. tina on 12 Jun 2009 at 12:47 pm #

    Well what an inter­est­ing idea to start a blog. From artistry to blog­ging and gar­den­ing ties it all together. And a shown artist too! I hope your show goes well and do show us more of your gar­den­ing work!

  2. James Golden on 12 Jun 2009 at 7:13 pm #

    I like this but won’t be near Escon­dido for sev­eral years. Hope you’ll show us more.

  3. Steve on 13 Jun 2009 at 9:21 am #

    James, I for one sure hope you con­tinue your lit­tle gar­den­ing blog pas­sion. There is never a bad post here and many of your insights mir­ror real and lit­er­ally top­i­cal con­cerns of land­scape design and water wor­ries in gen­eral — a sub­ject which is grow­ing in importance.

    Plus you have the unmis­tak­able eye of the artist which in itself is rare enough and keen enough to make us all think. Keep it up!

  4. ryan on 16 Jun 2009 at 7:42 pm #

    I like the pho­tos. I’m prob­a­bly an easy audi­ence for destruc­tive art work, though. Too bad about the film. I hate when things I like get discontinued.

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