Everything Is Always Alright

I’m at the end of a good week and the weekend looks like it will be just the right mixture of fun and relaxing, so I’m in high spirits this Friday morning. There’s a lot going on these days, and I wish I had a little more time to go into more detail about some of it. Soon, I’m sure. But for now I’m just going to take an opportunity to say some thank yous and throw a few compliments into the air. See where they fall.

First of all, The Word Ha Noi launch party at Softwater Restaurant was a rollicking success. Though it would be difficult to throw a bad party at such a beautiful location. Thanks to everyone that made it out and to all the wonderful people that I met there. It was good to see so many familiar faces and even better to meet so many new ones. Though I will only be playing a very minimal role in the magazine’s future, it’s in my best interest to try to make it as good as possible in whatever way I am able to. The country is desperate for some good publications. Particularly Hanoi. I like the idea of being able to help rectify that problem.

I’m off to Pleiku and Son La in a little under two weeks for a few quick trips with the US military (and a helicopter ride!). Photographing things. Then after perhaps a quick job in Ninh Binh, just a few hours south of the capital. Also trying to get a new year’s trip to Thailand together, but as of now that’s going to depend on a few other factors.

Lastly, a special thanks to the beautiful and talented Valeska Mosich-Miller, pictured above, for just standing there and making my photography look a whole lot better than it actually is. I had the pleasure of meeting and working with her and fellow model Ha Anh for the first issue of the magazine. Not only are they very talented individuals, but they didn’t blink an eye when I asked them both to climb eight flights of rickety stairs so I could photograph them on a dirty roof overlooking the city’s West Lake district. Awesome people.

Have a good weekend. Go enjoy the great outdoors.

Magazine Launch Party

The Word Ha Noi magazine will have its official launch party in the capital on Wednesday night at Softwater restaurant. The address is 42 Duong 9 F361 An Duong. And if that’s as revealing for you as it was for me, then just know that it’s toward the Red River across from the Sofitel Plaza. Head down that road and keep right until you see Duong 9. Take a left. Go forth until you hit the restaurant. Easy. It’s a beautiful space and should be a fun party. A good way to get through the middle of the week. Who doesn’t like a little free food and booze, anyway?

Let There Be Light Shows

The images above are from a light installation art show along the banks of the Red River that happened last weekend in Hanoi. I had gone to the area a week prior to photograph one of the participating artists, but had no idea what kind of spectacle was in store. It was one of those rare occasions where art and community truly mixed, as thousands of local residents made their way out to the streets to walk around and see the displays. Traffic was diverted and several of the art works encouraged community interaction. And while they may not have been the most innovative or groundbreaking works I’ve ever seen, they were far and away some of the most fun and perhaps important pieces show-wise in recent memory. So that’s something. Getting people out of their houses and into the streets is never a bad thing.

A Quick Update

I updated my website with a new “Recent Work” section. You can see it HERE. I’ve always wanted something a bit looser and more casual to show images from recent shoots and assignments, and now with my new website, updating is easy enough to finally do just that. So color me pleased.

Studio: Artist Phi Phi Oanh

Let Us Now Praise Famous Women

The above photographs are from a brief visit to friend and artist Phi Phi Oanh’s studio, out near the capital’s West Lake. She’s preparing new work for a few shows in Hanoi in December, and was kind enough to let me stop by to see the progression and to chat about art, the universe and everything else for a while. Using local materials and a natural tree resin lacquer indigenous to northern Vietnam, her new body of work, Specula, is a brooding mix between an ancient fairytale of sorts and a really intense acid trip-like journey through the way way long ago. In the best way possible. She’s literally building a cave, and even brought up the idea of blackening out the entire room and handing out mini lights for people to shine over the installation. I don’t pretend to know very much about very much, particularly art, so in the artist’s own words, the new work is:

Inspired by sources such as the Altamira cave paintings, Plato’s allegory of the cave, Gothic naves, Buddhist temples, and contemporary works from artists such James Turrell and Richard Serra. Specula highlights my interest in incorporating traditional mediums to create viscerally engaging spaces that reference instances throughout human history when fantasy and art are called upon to cope with our metaphysical inquiries. Re-occurring throughout many cultures and time, the cave is a space for private individual thought.

Unfortunately, my hippie new school degree didn’t give me prose/praise-worthy art school chops like that. So I’m stuck with half-baked ideas and phrases like “the way way long ago”. For those interested and in the area, I’ll try to keep updated on the shows’ openings and so forth. They will definitely be worth attending.

Of course, what I like most about her studio, and what I tried to convey in the images above, is how it has become something of an extension of the art and of the artist herself. It’s sometimes difficult to see where the lacquer ends and the floor begins, and the walls have taken on the same layered, subtracted and washed away feel that many of the works portray. It’s brighter than a cave, but the more work she produces there, the more history seems to gather and stick around the edges.