James Buckhouse

Wintershed

2011-12-30T16:14:00.000-08:00

A buck drops its antlers every winter.
Collected from the forest floor and now in my studio:

Wintershed twitter.com/buckhouse/stat…
— James Buckhouse (@buckhouse) December 31, 2011

Timing calculus

2011-10-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

Moments before this.

How to hold a rope

2011-10-15T16:30:00.001-07:00

Thinking of the initial vibration that first made polyphonic sound... and the overtone series. Can we imagine holding that rope and whipping it through the paces of tonal harmonics? The tonic, the octave, the dominant, the sub-dominat.

Can we imagine the first two human voices that sang together? At first they might have sung the same song. And then tried an octave apart. But then, the first polyphonic attempt—what great courage! Did the 5th come naturally? Or was there scooping and searching and tuning mid-flight?

As the tones and songs collapsed upon each other, what dissonance rubbed the right way to create some new thought for the nature of sound?

The crack of a tree limb falling in a thunderstorm, the snort of a horse sucking oxygen on a hard run, the chatter of currents carving a river bed, sound is always environmental. Art is always contextual.

Can we imagine a new art that is equal parts mathematics and experience? Can we have the courage to admit that the visual and the aural are experienced simultaneously (even if we care more for one than the other)?

Opera vs. ballet

2011-10-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

Why do opera fans and ballet fans resist each other's art? Both seem to be an elaboration on music: an elucidation, an exaltation; and yet there is a mutual distrust among audiences. It seems out of date. Fresher would be to celebrate the genius of both forms, learning from one to inform the other. Both are theatre. Both are music embodied. Both can transform the viewer through excellence.

Both require an architecture of form and a vocabulary of norms to rub up against, to bend, to both subvert and confirm. Both are old traditions that are always contemporary. Both owe more to narrative and story than either wishes to admit. Both are complex webs of signification, looping and interlocking signs and tropes to reveal something new from the old and something familiar, loved or trusted from the new.

Both forms can shock. Both forms can bore. Both forms require a time and a place and a willing audience. Both forms unfold. Both forms exist in a moment of perpetual risk: at any moment the performance could tumble, and yet, almost always it does not. Both forms are metonymic stand-ins for life. The curtain rises, we risk, we dare, we try, we fail, we succeed, we try again and then without exception it ends. Opera and ballet both remind us to love more, try harder, and think better thoughts. What can we bring from opera to ballet, and what can we bring from ballet to opera? How can each benefit from the other?

Friends and Strangers

2011-10-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

Friends and strangers watercolors added to JamesBuckhouse.net

All Fashion is Fiction

2011-10-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

Serg Riva images on James Buckhouse.net

Elucidate material sensuality

2011-09-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

I've posted a series of 20 C-prints 20"x30" of close-ups of my intaglio portfolio. The work is a deep exploration into a vocabulary of mark-making. I trained under a master print maker from Crown Point Press 15 years ago. Recently, I went back to that work to look into the rhythm, punctuation, and utterance of the mark. Teasing out close-ups that unlocked new compositions of expression, rhythm, decision-making and hope. The work parallels my recent explorations into language, narrative, and the physics of resonance, but is rendered in a direct way: explicit, direct, physical marks to elucidate material sensuality.

You can see all 20 online here:

http://jamesbuckhouse.net

Hope you enjoy.

Two of a kind

2011-08-15T10:59:00.001-07:00

I met these two a few years ago at the Haight street fair. It was not Halloween, but they were still in costume. She wore a rubber horse mask, he dressed like Kurt Cobain.

Wash portrait

2011-08-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

Looking at the liminal fringe between brown and blue, I made this wash portrait.

View from the ground

2011-08-02T16:45:00.001-07:00

That same scene, as seen from the ground.

On foot

2011-08-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

How to catch a wild horse on foot: use a strong rope, plan your angle of attack.

The mouth of the wolf

2011-07-25T11:10:00.001-07:00

In bocca al lupo!

Recently I dreamed I hosted a TV show about contemporary opera called "In Bocca al Lupo!" where the announcer repeatedly introduced me as "the Ryan Seacrest of Opera" and every time he did, the camera would cut to a shot of Mr. Seacrest who smiled from a special seat in the front row of the studio audience. Others in the front row included the guy who posted the "@pluckbro" video to YouTube and the man who played the matchstick game in Last Year at Marienbad.

The show opened with me in a tuxedo inside of a wolf costume, embodying the old Italian saying for "break a leg" —into the mouth of the wolf.

The rest of the dream was a discussion of Ligeti, John Adams, Nico Muhly, Berio, and the future of chamber opera in the digital age. The final half hour of the show closed with a mini-opera composed for TV. I did not catch the title, but the opera made heavy use of animation. The music was gloriously obtuse while delivering the promise of tunefulness just around the corner. The meter was 7 against 3. The key (as much as there was one) was F# minor.

Group show at Walter Maciel

2011-07-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Size Matters
Group Show
16 July - 19 August 2011

An early watercolor portrait from my Friends and Strangers series is on view at the Walter Maciel Gallery.

map to the gallery
2642 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034

Rope work

2011-07-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

NYTimes Book Review

2010-09-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

My book just got reviewed in the NYTimes online. You can find the book on amazon.

Enjoy!

Serg Riva book

2010-08-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Serg Riva book is now available online. You can check it out on amazon. Thanks for everyone who helped with the production of the book.

Also, if you are interested, you can follow the character on twitter. Think of the twitter feed as serialized fiction playing out over time, like the way novels used to get published a bit at a time in newspapers. Or just follow it for fun advice on fashion with a secret literary bent.

Serg Riva Archived

2010-07-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Even though the exhibition has officially closed, the Serg Riva Project will remained permanently archived at University of California Berkeley Museum of Art/Pacific Film Archive online gallery and open museum.

See the exhibition description here
See the archive here

CCI 2010 Grant

2010-04-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

The Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) today announced twenty‐six artists who received funding in the fifth
round of funding under its Investing in Artists grants program, which is designed to build the personal and
creative capacity of California’s artists working in all disciplines.

The Investing in Artists grants program was established by the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) in 2007 to
enhance the working lives and strengthen the creative support system for California artists working in all
disciplines. Following three initial rounds of funding made to 54 artists in 2007 and 2008, CCI was able to
expand the program which will now make $1 million in new grants to artists from 2009‐2011, supported by
The James Irvine Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Round V of the Investing in Artists grants program specifically provided support to working artists in the
Visual Arts, Craft and Literary Arts in two categories: 1) for the acquisition of Artistic Equipment & Tools; and
2) for Artistic Innovation.

In the Artistic Equipment & Tools category, fourteen (14) artists received Investing in Artists grants:

• Susan Avila (Craft, Oakland)
• Amy Balkin (Multidisciplinary, San Francisco)
• Chris Bell (Multidisciplinary, San Mateo)
• Cindy Bernard (Visual Arts, Los Angeles)
• James Buckhouse (Multidisciplinary, Palo Alto)
• Heather Bursch (Visual Arts, Los Angeles)
• Joshua Churchill (Multidisciplinary, San Francisco)
• Binh Danh (Photography, San Jose)
• David Gurman (Multidisciplinary, San Francisco)
• Taro Hattori (Visual Arts, Oakland)
• Packard Jennings (Multidisciplinary, Oakland)
• Larry Kline (Visual Arts, Escondido)
• Blaine Merker (Multidisciplinary, San Francisco)
• Kim Stringfellow (Multidisciplinary, Joshua Tree)

In the Artistic Innovation category, twelve (12) artists received Investing in Artists grants:

• Jeff Chang (Literary Arts, Berkeley)
• Sara Daleiden (Multidisciplinary, Los Angeles)
• Sergio de la Torre (Multidisciplinary, San Francisco)
• Amy Franceschini (Visual Arts, San Francisco)
• Guillermo Gomez‐Pena (Multidisciplinary, San Francisco)
• Desiree Holman (Multidisciplinary, Oakland)
• Ali Liebegott (Literary Arts, San Francisco)
• Kelly Nipper (Multidisciplinary, Los Angeles)
• Scott Oliver (Visual Arts, Oakland)
• Alison Pebworth (Visual Arts, San Francisco)
• Jessica Rath (Visual Arts, Los Angeles)
• Philip Ross (Multidisciplinary, San Francisco)

UCB

2009-12-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

save the date for an opening party at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive for a Serg Riva online exhibition and book release.

Rope

2009-05-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

My favorite painting of rope.

Reviewed...

2009-02-21T15:50:00.000-08:00

If you missed the show in LA, here is a review which gives a good sense of what the show was like.

Check it out if you get a chance. Pictures!

http://www.dailyserving.com/2009/02/james_buckhouse.php

The review is by Allison Gibson.

More DAYFORNIGHT

2009-02-19T14:42:00.001-08:00

DAY FOR NIGHT

2009-01-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

Walter Maciel Gallery is pleased to present:

DAY FOR NIGHT
January 10, 2009 to February 14, 2009

A solo exhibition by James Buckhouse

DAY FOR NIGHT is a computer controlled animated video that re-edits itself every time it plays. The video is made up of hand-drawn animation, computer processed video and computer generated images. The subject matter of the video is the structure of cinematic narrativity itself – with common tropes of cinema replaying themselves with structural fidelity, but narrative obscurity. The story traces the lives of several characters as they meet, discuss, and pursue each other through cinematic space.

walter maciel gallery
2642 s. la cienega boulevard
los angeles, ca 90034

310 839 1840 phone
310 839 1844 fax

info@waltermacielgallery.com
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11:00am - 6:00pm

Architectural League NY - Feb 7, 2008

2008-01-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

I will be taking part in a roundtable discussion at the Architectural League . Details below...
306090: On Models
Emily Abruzzo, James Buckhouse, D. Graham Burnett, Eric Ellingsen, John Nastasi, and Jonathan Solomon Thursday, February 7
7:00 p.m.
The Urban Center
457 Madison Avenue

"On Models is an opportunity to reflect on the increasing use of models developed for disciplines not traditionally associated with the field of architecture in the design, making, and study of architecture. At the same time architects are employing these models in increasingly rigorous ways, they are transforming the role of the models from appropriated images to adopted processes, complicating the fields of contemporary art, architecture, and research in wonderful ways. On Models will ask: How do these shifts fit into the development of new technologies in modeling, both in contemporary and historical terms? How do the changing attitudes towards physical models affect changing attitudes towards theoretical models? How do models bridge gaps between disciplines? Who and what are our role models and how does design in a post-post Modern era acknowledge this kind of sharing, borrowing, inspiration, and blurring of boundaries? On Models will bring issue editors Emily Abruzzo, Jonathan Solomon, and Eric Ellingsen together with issue contributors artist James Buckhouse, historian of science at Princeton D. Graham Burnett, and architect and educator John Nastasi."

Admission is free for League members and $10 for non-members. League members may make reservations by emailing rsvp@archleague.org. For more information call 212.753.1722 x13. AIA and New York State continuing education credits are available.

Co-sponsored by Urban Center Books.

Save the Date - Art Opening

2007-12-30T14:01:00.001-08:00

Save the Date. Feb 2, 2008 6-8pm

Art opening of Friends and Strangers at Walter Maciel Gallery in LA.

(310) 839-1840

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Pulse Art Fair - Miami

2007-10-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

Walter Maciel gallery will be presenting my work at the Pulse Art Fair in Miami, Dec. 5-9, 2007. The works will be a preview of my upcoming solo show coming Jan/Feb 2008.

Bookstore

2007-10-02T22:20:00.000-07:00

I've added a bookstore feature to www.jamesbuckhouse.com

It is an aStore by Amazon, and lists exhibition catalogs and other books where my work is mentioned or featured.

Building your own is really easy, here's a link to getting started.

MODELS 306090

2007-10-01T23:31:00.001-07:00

Princeton Architectural Press publishes Models (306090) by Emily Abruzzo (Editor), Eric Ellingsen (Editor), Jonathan D. Solomo (Editor).

Included in the book are several images and a short text I wrote about the Friends and Strangers series.

Nightingale and the Rose

2007-10-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

June 2007 - Nightingale and the Rose

I was in NY in June working with Christopher Wheeldon as the production designer of his new ballet, The Nightingale and the Rose. I created both hand-painted and computer-generated animations which were projected onto scrims for the scenery.

Click here for the review in the NY Times.