Botanica Photographicus » Blog

The Next Big Thing.

Mike Cullen — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:25:50 +0000

I’m going to begin the process of de-commissioning this site.

From now on, my new pictures will be posted at http://cullenpix.photoshelter.com/ . There will even be an easy way to purchase my art there. As soon as I can, I will change that clunky address to just plain CullenPix.com, but first things first.

The blog site is now http://cullenpix.tumblr.com/ . I should have done this years ago! Tumblr is so much easier than WordPress.

“Simple Gifts”

Mike Cullen — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:22:17 +0000

A Shaker song, written in 1848.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,

‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Things I Won’t Tell You.

Mike Cullen — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:20:34 +0000

I keep reading helpful advise pieces about how to build a following on the web. All those good intentions serve only to fuel my anxiety and make we sweat.

Open yourself up, they say. Bare your soul. Be like this other artist that’s doing boffo biz; there’s nothing she won’t blog about.

No.

There are things I won’t tell you. Lots of things.

Like my sad bourgeois dream of owning a top of the line Hyundai. Or that my wife is jealous of my relationship with our cat. Or how I curse myself for not having written three or four novels by now. And I should be making more art right now, not writing this.

No. I will not tell you things. And you can’t make me.

Inspired by this poem by Brad Leithauser.

Philip Glass and Blurry Photos

Mike Cullen — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:53:10 +0000

For reasons unknown, the music of Philip Glass resonates with me, especially when I’m working on a new piece. Wish I could put my finger on it…something about how his themes repeat and fold back over themselves to produce something new, like a kaleidoscope.

Here’s a short piano piece played by Branca Parlic.

Hanging

Mike Cullen — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:52:03 +0000

I got an email the other day from the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. Looks like they had some space for their next show and in return for working one shift at the show, would you like to hang some art? To sweeten the deal, they’d waive the yearly membership dues. Sure, I said, when can I come down?

So I spent a few hours on Sunday in Red Hook hanging a few photos of mine in their gigantic Civil War-era warehouse.

I’ve never done that before. The closest I’ve come to this is sticking a few pictures on the walls for a photo class critique, and that was many moons ago. Two thoughts: like just before a class critique, I wonder, am I going to get crucified; and the odd thrill of knowing my pictures are hanging in a show with hundreds of eyeballs gazing at them.

So: do your bit. Give me a vicarious thrill by going to see my (and about 200 other peoples’) art at the BWAC show. It opens this weekend and it’s up for a month. Go here for details.

Here’s the thing…

Mike Cullen — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:31:05 +0000

For whatever reason, this former English major totally chokes when it comes to writing blog posts. The internal editor goes haywire. We’ll see if I can finish this paragraph without having to back up and…nope, had to do a little revision up there.

So I’m going to try this: a little forced march. I’m going to see if I can beat the editor out of me simply by drowning him with words, on schedule. (Am I going to Beat or Drown the editor? See, I’m going to leave that horrid mistake intact. Eat it, Mr. Ed.)

And off we go…

The Same Thing, Only Different

Mike Cullen — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:32:02 +0000

I was walking through the South Ferry/Whitehall Street station and realized that this artwork:

http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/starn-south-ferry-2.jpg

looks a lot like this:

http://botanicaphotographic.us/?p=775

Small world. According to this article: (and my apologies for handing you all these links)

http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20090115/see-it-split-see-it-change-and-see-it-all-for-the-price-of-a-subway-ticket

It’s by Doug and Mike Starn, photographer/artists from way back. They were commissioned to spruce up the walls when the South Ferry station in NYC was renovated a few years ago. Not for nothing, they were paid 1 million for their efforts.

From the above article: “A tree is a hierarchical form,” Doug Starn says, “but when silhouetted it becomes interconnected, the same as the transit system itself. That’s how we think of the city – interconnected, jumping from one place to the next.”

That’s some dern pretty talkin there, Dougie. I wish I could do that. Seriously.

Well, I’ll Be!

Mike Cullen — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:38:42 +0000

Finally managed to nail down this theme, with the moving pictures and stuff. Took more than a few hours to get everything (almost) set, but I can live with the way it’s behaving for now. It does a few odd things (like I have a category for Watercolor Series that I can’t seem to coax onto the main page). I look at this site the way I’ve had bosses look to me: do your job, have fun, whatever–just don’t embarrass me.

Thus I now have a site that doesn’t embarrass me. Which is an improvement over how it looked a week ago.

And now, a conniption fit.

Mike Cullen — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:03:31 +0000

Trying to make this new theme work. And not having such a swell time of it.

I know, it’s a learning curve. I never did this before, it’s to be expected.

But still: Conniption.

This will hurt.

Mike Cullen — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:30:03 +0000

Installing a new picture gallery gizmo on the site. Looks like the only way to get rid of the Uncategorized button is to delete all of the posts that are in it. That’s no problem; all of the photos will be repliated in the new gallery.

But I’ll have to delete all the nice comments I’ve gotten too! All those nice and encouraging words! Gone!

And the new gallery isn’t so hot, either. Sure, it shows my pictures in a nice slideshow format. And it’s nice to actually see the pictures. (The thumbnails only came up intermittently before the new gallery’s installation.) It’s just that the new gallery’s thumbnails are small and set close together, making a batch of lovely pictures look like a footnote.

But losing the comments…ouch. Really. Ouch.