Bunce of Camerons

soft light

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:17:00 +0000

some things I found lying around, thinking about the studio
--------------------------------

I really want to see this in the city, or at least buy the book
this is a nice piece on Gregory Crewdson, with a silly fight going on in the comments. Silly artists, work is for artists
ÓLAFUR ARNALDS has been popping up a lot recently, really interesting music

Going through a huge pile of scans, I'm noticing how much more I find I am able to communicate when using good film. There is a significant difference in predictability and pleasantness in the color and detail. oh well

Intricate reasonable mysterious

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:53:00 +0000

I want to tip my hand to you for a moment. It occurred to me recently that I have let a few rounds pass with my cards on the table - face down. I think I've missed a few chances to work things a lot further, so in the interest of stoking the fires a little more, I want to share with you an image from a while ago that has come back to mind seasonally.

And if you'll permit the extension of the metaphor - a few corners from my hand:

The interior life is often stupid. Its egoism blinds it and deafens it; its imagination spins out ignorant tales, fascinated. It fancies that the western wind blows on the Self, and leaves fall at the feet of the Self for a reason, and people are watching. A mind risks real ignorance for the sometimes paltry prize of an imagination enriched. The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world - if only from time to time.

From Annie Dillard's An American Childhood

"I lay there feeling as if I had awakened from a dream, and knew, now that I was awake, what I was to do."

John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery. The surface of mystery is not smooth, any more than the planet is smooth; not even a single hydrogen atom is smooth, let alone a pine. Nor does it fit together; not even the chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are a perfect match, for, even after the atom of iron replaces the magnesium, long streamers of disparate atoms trail disjointedly from the rims of the molecules' loops. Freedom cuts both ways. Mystery itself is as fringed and intricate as the shape of the air in time. Forays into mystery cut bays and fine fjords, but the forested mainland itself is implacable both in its bulk and in its most filigreed fringe of detail. "Every religion that does not affirm that God is hidden," said Pascal flatly, "is not true."

From Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

(and really the whole book, or at least the chapter here: Intricacy)

Have a wonderful evening.

St Marks

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:23:00 +0000

Bear with me, I'm still gearing up to go to New York this weekend. This is such a strange image to me, but strange in the same kind of ways that this neighborhood is. The IAM Encounter was at the Cooper Union in 2010, and I got to fill in a little bit more of my mental map of Manhattan. I happened upon the Jen Bekman Gallery while walking around trying to figure out why "Spring St." had a familiar ring to it - having been keeping up with the cool stuff 20x200 was doing for a little bit. I even returned to crash an opening and got to shake Jen's hand. I'm pretty sure I fumbled weak "You're awesome!" before running out.

There were some good times had back then. So we decided to hang out in the same cool neighborhood this time.

Back at the ranch though, I'm pretty beat. In a really grateful way.
I called in some air support on the darkroom relocation project and my dad and sister came up to give me a hand (my mom had her hands full with worthwhile business at the house).
I was blown away by how far we got, and how efficiently we did it - while making sure to cover our coffee bases too. I feel so much better about wrapping all of that up on time and finishing it well. I'll let you know when the dust settles.
As if that weren't enough, we also had the Gumbotron working at full tilt Sunday.

There was much merriment and 8 gallons of gumbo and a three-car-garage tent and a sparkly purple crowned gazebo and boudin and a mason jar and homemade King Cake with a baby in each of three and bread pudding to die for and crazy good fiddling and hymns to end the night.

so monday was just a good monday, on those heels
good night

Beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:00:00 +0000

Beneath the Surface

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Seeking an understanding of Beauty through her sisters Truth and Goodness

How do you know Beauty completely?

How do you seek beauty, make beauty, in a flood of mystery?

Isn't there a sense in which we cannot know fully, but must go anyway? We have to step out into the unknown, the reality of truth in mystery, benevolent mystery, and forge newness as we have been made to, to reclaim what has been already redeemed.

dora

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:00:00 +0000

I'm super excited about this one. There are a few places in NYC that I will go out of my way to get to.This is totally worth the back-tracking, yes, I plan trains for coffee stops.

And the moral of the story is

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

This little man had lunch with us during our forum on Beauty.

I can't wait

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

I'm getting ready for a number of things all at once. We are moving from our big studio space downtown and going in about 5 different directions.

I'm taking my darkroom home and setting up a super-dense command center of multi-use-ness.

Which requires a fantastically intricate dance of materials and space as I move new things each day from the studio to my room, extract yesterday's arrangement, configure to accommodate new thing (table, bookcase, enlarger...), play with arrangement, prepare room for sleeping/waking routines

There are deadlines of deadlines, and limitations of being here, and limitations of feasibility, and deadlines for functionality, and deadlines of sanity.

I hope to have everything moved this week, set up at home this weekend, and the space patched, painted and vacuumed next week - because next weekend I go to New York.

The intensity of this is actually really nice. I haven't had a personal deadline since college really, and I get fired up in good ways with a little eustress.

needles

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:33:00 +0000

“When I was lying on the table with this huge needle in my nose, I was like ‘God you are so awesome!’”

I found this on my computer in a file labeled 'notes' in a folder labeled 'go through this' which I hadn't for some time it seems.

I feel like there should be an award for coming up with the rest of the story.

winter colors

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:34:00 +0000

Last night I went walking because I couldn't sleep
I went to my garden and sat by the spinach
The rain was good on my face

Beneath the Surface: Forum on Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:35:00 +0000

This weekend at our studio we are hosting a conference that we hope is stirring up some thought on the nature of beauty in art. Many before us, including C. S. Lewis and Thomas Aquinas, have described Truth Goodness and Beauty to be transcendentally interwoven. Something about what these teachers have to tell us is mysteriously sensible, though it often evades description. We wanted to create an environment to work through this mystery to inspire deeper aesthetic considerations in our lives. This is part of what that looked like.

all the lights and sounds

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:11:00 +0000

A tiny little glimpse of a thing I'm working on for this coming weekend. This weekend it won't live in a window, but perhaps it will live in a stage arrangement.

Meet Elonzo

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:18:00 +0000

A little bit ago I got to see Elonzo play at the Evening Muse in Charlotte. This family affair is easily my favorite local band. I am _so_ glad (yea, there was just no other way to convey how glad I am) that I went to see them. They've been working with their newer songs for a while since I saw them last and I really like where they've been going. Soon they'll head back to the studio for some more recording, but before they do that, they're going to be playing a show in Rock Hill as part of the kickoff for a weekend that we are calling Beneath the Surface: Forum on Beauty.
Get excited

I woke up singing it

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:52:00 +0000

I was looking through my journal from this year and came across this from May. Transcribed with one note:

I dreamt that Mr. Fuller had rounded up the old band to play a concert or something and we sucked. apparently we hadn't practiced and the point of it seemed to be a performance piece for him. We were on the audience side with something happening on the stage with people up there. Mr. Fuller was talking them through that we were doing and we were fumbling badly. I took my first valve out [of my trumpet] and tried to get it back in while we were supposed to be playing. Mr Fuller led the trumpet section by playing with us, but I couldn't see his fingers to match him so I played a lot of bad notes. I fiddled with my slides and dropped them. The girls in the trombone section talked through the quiet part when Mr. Fuller was talking and I got mad at them. They were sassy and complaining.

He had told other people what to do it seemed or at lease prepped a few people and we started gathering at the edge of the stage while he climbed up on it. Some trombonist knew a melody or interlude to play and Mr. Fuller grabbed a trombone to lead that section. One of them had dropped a nut of some kind from fiddling with it as I had been. He didn't want to play without it. I found it and he began to fall in. After the trombones had their part Mr. Fuller began explaining to us and to the crowd on stage as he taught us the song:

"This song was lifeless until the author died"

we began to hum Amazing Grace

I woke up singing it

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:32:00 +0000

I've been digging through a number of super-geeky sites recently as research for some ideas I have for new work. Some of the things I've come across are really inspiring. I want to share a few of them with you.

One really nice work that I just found is at the National Gallery of Art. Multiverse by Leo Villareal uses a really well-developed pattern system to create moving light-painting sculptures. The videos available on itunes are really nice - search for the title of the work.

The Villareal piece reminds me of a piece in Detroit (which is hard to find solid documentation for, however youtube can offer a better sense of the experience. I think I prefer the clean execution of the Villareal work, but the complexity of each has a particular draw.

My biggest gripe is that these are both very interesting displays. Several comments on the videos also note that the Detroit piece does not interact at all with the changes in the environment. It is, in essence, playing a strange music video with a limited playlist. Villareal talks of his work as sculpture, which is fitting. I think another way of seeing it could be time-based painting. What it is not is responsive. It doesn't read it's environment, or participate in an exchange.

The systems are not designed for this, so in part, my gripe is that the car doesn't fly. More closely it could be that the fully-articulated GI-Joe figures are clumsy when you make them shake hands. They do so much already and they have so much capability that it would almost seem to solve the problem of finite material. Leo Villareal says that it is unlikely that a viewer would experience the same sequence in a visit. Unlikely, but the guy sweeping the floor is probably sick of "that sequence that does the... " or could list a few things that it "does." It has a limited vocabulary.

This is an interesting find.
So is this.
oh oh
hmm

What I'd like to see is a simple inclusion of awareness. I still think that a major gift of Art is that it tells. I think that the artist should instruct her works to be instructive, and generous, and full of things to say. Only, let them not be jabbering. If we are already doing so much thought of numbers and light, why not include a touch of wisdom? Let us be discerning and not throw our pearls before moving sidewalks.

Look At The Colors!

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:19:00 +0000

This post comes with a picture of a sweet bike.
The bike is a pacifier for those who just want to see pictures here.
The real cool thing is a tiny piece of code: here
If you have an Arduino, and a sweet piece of LED goodness, like that available here, you may have some fun with this. I promise it isn't fancy. I kinda want someone to show me up with something really cool for this. But until then here is a cool thing.
Have a great weekend.

a few things

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:42:00 +0000

one night, our friends came over for coffee and drinks
one night...
coffee and eating books and instagramming

Quality of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:41:00 +0000

A gem arrived in mail. I was honored to be able to get mine direct from across the pond, now you'll have to track them down. I promise it's worth it though. You can start here. Brian, welcome back to the states. Thanks for being a huge encouragement to photographers everywhere. -cb

hold out hope

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:40:00 +0000

Lift up your head and let me see your eyes

Backstory here

The coming

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:07:00 +0000

clockwise from computer ("of note filter"):
new mug, trying it out with some tea
solder
old workhorse computer, being used to light up LEDs
light-box for testing LEDs
stick-and-tissue P51 Mustang, in almost-all-sticks stage
soldering iron
old photograph of me found in darkroom things
2 7-segment-with-dot LED modules soldered onto a chunk of board
lamp for my 35mm frame cutter that I want to put a switch in
power supply for my arduino(!)
my arduino(!)
the box of all the crap to play with my arduino
sander case
film processing envelopes
light meter case
electronic / JOBO parts case
4x5 case
bin of crap from darkroom that has been slowly migrating to the garbage can
etc.

There has been so much going on that I really crave the time to sit in my chair and dive really deep into things I love. The more time I spend on the road, the more I want to be still. What's nice though, is that there is finally momentum in my stillness - good momentum. Sometimes I feel a bit like an egg, wobbling from being spun and stopped. Nights feel like summer vacations spent in the surf, with the persistent rolling feeling lingering through rest.
The last few days have been more like getting the truck up to speed and letting it roll. DirectionFull

I much prefer this.

figgin

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:07:00 +0000

This summer we really learned how to make the most of some things.
It turns our that plenty of people grow great fruit around here with no time to harvest or do anything about all of it.

There is sweet time to be had in reclaiming good things together.

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:58:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:57:00 +0000

Cure

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Bunce) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:56:00 +0000