[p] Philodendron

Philodendron’s can be found most everywhere and are incredibly easy to grow. In Taiwan, they are often placed in the public bathrooms, with only florescent light to aid their growth. 

In 2012, I took a philodendron I’ve had since I moved here and cut off each leaf, taking a picture so I could see the leaves as individuals of a whole.

The images of each leaf are below.

I used the final leaf (that you see in the last picture) and let it regrow in a new pot. After it grew back to the same size, it was again cut down to a single leaf. This leaf is now is in water in a small ounce-sized jar on my desk. 

 


 
 

[p] Chinese New Year in Taipei

Chinese New Year (CNY) is, by a wide margin, the most celebrated and important holiday for Chinese culture. Each year in Taipei, the mood of the entire populous becomes a little more cheery, lively and vivid. Markets open up, the colors red and gold make the concrete structures a little more bearable. This year, we attempted to be out and around it as much as time allowed.

Living in Guandu, a neighborhood in northern Taipei, I'm located at a particularly lively spot during this holiday. On a high point near the Danshui River, sit a number of temples, the largest being Guandu Temple, first erected in 1661.

 
 
 
 

These Daoist/Buddhist temples get excessive traffic during CNY, so Ruei and I went out to be among the throngs. Here's a few photos from the holiday.

 

[w] Autograph added

Autograph, like a similar work, Self-Portrait, is a work I began in 2011 with no end-date planned. It is interactive, and like Self-Portrait, it requires a lot of contact with friends and strangers and allows me to create work that is not just "personal." I do the action which the work suggests, not the actual creation of the object. That comes with the help of many of the people I meet.

The act of asking for an autograph requires humility and, at first, elevates the signer. After these autographs are signed, one over the other, the names start to disappear into a larger "signature," or a larger form of humility.

 

They start out as this:

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A number of autographs more and they start to fill in:

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And many, many autographs later, singular autographs are not distinguishable, although they still remain.

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The other aspect is personal. I sign the same sheet of paper in the same spot, adding my autograph. Doing this over a long period of time represents different versions of my self, and as it does, my recognizable name starts to disappear.

I should briefly mention and say that these works were inspired by a much earlier work of mine, entitled, Work I Should Have Done, which I signed my name hundreds of times in the same spot, at the same time. The title speaks rather loudly to my self-deprecation at that time, but one that I eventually replaced.

The new page, Autographs, includes four pieces of the newer version of this work in progress that I call Autograph. I hope to expand these few sheets to eight. 

 

[w] What's Out There added

While the main thrust of my photography for "creation" sake is done for my lexicon, Self-Portrait and a number of other projects, I have also loved taking photos of things I want to remember. I don't really see these as compositions, but more as what "taking" photographs suggest they are - captured moments, taken to hold on to.

The ones included on What's Out There are a selection that is representative of what I have seen and how I have seen them. They also make a good case for my interests, though in a more conscious way than those images in my lexicon. The photographs, taken starting in 2006, are from work travel, personal travel, friends, family, and many many miles of wandering/walking. Here are a few that can serve as an introduction:

 

As a quick item of trivia, "What's Out There" is a small nod to the "first" website, which can be seen at: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

You will also notice that I took a lot of cues for the design of my [index] page from that "first" page.