Heartful Spirit

nine year old banjo whiz kid playing bluegrass

This video shows why nine year old banjo player Jonny Mizzone is creating such a buzz.   And his brothers Robbie (age 12, on fiddle) and Tommy (age 14, on guitar) show that extreme musical talent seems to be a Mizzone family thing.

imogen cunningham in her own witty quotable words

The clips below are from the video Portrait of Imogen.  I had it on vhs years ago, but it got away from me.   So I was happy to find these clips to view and share.  This award-winning film was created by filmmaker Meg Partridge, who is also Imogen Cunningham's granddaughter.   Working from audio recordings of her grandmother done years before by Cunningham's son Rondal Partridge (Meg's father), Meg Partridge added the missing visual element by combining the audio with engaging shots of Imogen Cunningham's photos.   I loved this video as much for Cunningham's witty observations as for the images.   The segment with my favorite quote was not included in these clips.   In it, Cunningham is explaining that the supposedly requisite early morning photographs were not to be seen in her work, because "crack of dawn, I'm not there."  I stole that one as my own.

In this first clip,  Cunningham talks about her determination to become a photograper and getting her first camera in 1901 through a $15 correspondence course:

  

Here she tells about being condemned as "an immoral woman" for photographing her husband nude in 1915, supposedly the first woman to do a male nude.  She says with irony that "now people seem to pay for them."

 

This clip shows platinum prints from 1910 when Cunningham was under the influence of writer William Morris and creating highly staged tableau type works based on his stories and titles.

 

This clip tells how she came to meet her photographer husband Roi Partridge, solidified their relationship through letters while he was in Paris, married, and had three children that became the primary focus of her photography in their childhood because "I didn't have any choice.  I couldn't get out of the garden . . ."

Here we see some of her plant and flower photographs, including her famous magnolia bud, photographed in 1925.   She seems piqued that what she calls her "most common" subject, the magnolia flower, is still so popular years later with "conservative buyers."

Here we see photographs of Edward Weston and Margrethe Mather (1922), who Cunningham says was "a beautiful woman and a very good photographer who didn't really have a chance . . .  she wasn't enough women's lib I guess."  I wonder if she was being facetious, because Mather was very bohemian and liberated from all social conventions.  But anyway, Mather "kept getting fatter and fatter and fatter and she died."

I love these photos of Martha Graham taken in 1931.   This was a shoot for Vanity Fair and it kicked off Cunningham's work in Hollywood, where she says she mostly photographed "ugly men."

This clip has some great period-evoking photos Cunningham shot of her aging parents in the 20s and 30s.  And a great story on how she got the wonderful photos of Alfred Stieglitz in 1934 using his camera, that had a "shutter so corroded you couldn't read the openings."

 

This clip has a few Dorothea Lange photographs and Cunningham explaining how her style could not be confused with Lange's "agony in the streets" style .  It also includes that wonderful Imogen Cunningham photograph of her unmade bed, and a lovely portrait of a white haired Dorothea Lange shot by Cunningham.

 

You can view the published work of Imogen Cunningham all in one place.   It spans her 60+ years of output and includes her famous nudes, plants (which look very much like the nudes), portraits, self-portraits, and images of people both famous and obscure.   You might also want to order the complete 28 minute dvd Portrait of Imogen from Meg Partridge. 

georgia o'keeffe in her own words and works

This video came through my Facebook news feed today and I was so taken with it I had to share.  It's grainy, and it doesn't show her work well, but it's worth the watch because it's Georgia O'Keeffe in person (at age 92), talking about how New Mexico inspired her.  And it's good background for the second video below.

I selected this video because, by showing some of O'Keeffe's sensuous New Mexico landscapes, it brings to life thoughts and observations she expressed in the one above.  It also includes some of the wonderful Alfred Stieglitz photographs of O'Keeffe.  I think the two videos work well together.

birtherism to birth certificate to otherism: politics in america

Rachel Maddow took the opportunity of the president's birthday yesterday to report that birtherism has finally been put to rest.   A gaggle of believers (including members of congress and several state legislatures) have come to their senses and now realize that the massive conspiracy supposedly undertaken by Obama's parents back in '61 to lay the groundwork for his future presidency probably didn't happen.   But, she points out with her usual humor, putting the birther issue to rest still doesn't make him an American.   Watch.  It's fun.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

8/6/11 correction to above story by Maddow (and apology to Rush Limbaugh).  Which is funny because I thought Limbaugh was probably just joking when he made the comment she quoted above.  Just because it seemed like a joke in light of whole birth certificate thing.  Tuirns out it wasn't a joke.  He'd actually said it a year ago.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ok go channels ed sullivan show

I had never heard of OK Go, one of the groups that performed for Obama's 50th birthday celebration,  but this fun video has made me a fan.   Feels kinda like the Ed Sullivan Show with a Prince vibe.