Thomas Locke Hobbs
| Currently near San Francisco |
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| An oak tree on Mt. Tam that's half in the fog, half in the sun.
Thomas Kinkade & MySpace The LA Times published a negative piece on 'Painter of Light', Thomas Kinkade highlighting his boozing, boorishness, and rapacity towards his gallery owners. With gleeful schadenfreude this artice has been flung around the blogosphere. Felix Salmon in particular dissects the economic greed hangover at the heart of the franchisee's gripes. At the same time and completely unrelated, a number of old-school bloggers have been expressing their bewilderment at the rise of MySpace, pointing to it's crushing ubiquity inspite of it's horrible, geocities-era, anything-goes design. It's probably only coincidence but I can't helping thinking these two memes are connected somehow. In the spirit of the moment, I've customized my own MySpace profile with a Kinkade background. Update:I could never be a professional blogger because I can't write snarky paragraphs like this: Thomas Kinkaide, the painter of mega-kitschy religiously themed and militantly bourgeois schlock, tchotchkes and knickknacks bearing his imprimatur, may be a freakin’ dirty bastard.from Consumerist. |
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| Mom, Will & Karen at Picchetti Ranch in the hills above Cupertino. Richard Renaldi is a photographer who takes portraits of strangers with an 8x10 camera. They are direct and formal in a style reminiscent of August Sander. His website has lots of photos; Bus Travelers, a pre-rennovation Pier 45, and Fresno & Newark, a series that was part of an exhibit a couple of years ago where I first saw his work (and blogged it). I'm not sure why I'm re-posting this now. Some memory was triggered and I just spent a long time browsing his website. Stephen Johnson is a photographer of the 'rocks & trees' variety who, nevertheless, has a fascinating book about California's Central Valley. The pictures, done in color with a large format camera during the 70s and 80s, remind me of Joel Sternfeld or Stephen Shore. |
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 | For more about me, please go visit my old geocities page. |