I haven’t posted anything here in some time. Though I do have a few thoughts for this website in the pipeline, I want to inform my six or seven daily visitors (you are dearly prized) that I am also up to a thing or two elsewhere.
What then, you ask? KCFreePress.com
As of Wednesday—when the site launched—I am a contributor for the city’s first web-only “newspaper.” Even if I weren’t a contributor, I would be both proud and excited about the Kansas City Free Press. The editors at KCFP are letting me run with an idea I’ve been toying with for years, in the form of a regular column dealing with the notion of place. When I first started keeping a blog, in 2004, the entries I enjoyed writing the most—and those that my readers also seemed to enjoy—were dealing with my own fleeting involvement with the places I traveled to, near or far.
What’s the KCFreePress? Let the Editor-in-Chief tell you himself.
Since the site launched, people have asked me what it means to write “about place.” Admittedly, I am using a noun, which most people use in passing, to describe something more contemplative. When I refer to the concept of place, I am quietly referring to something I believe: Most places are unique, and different from other places; they are divisible and definable. And even when they are not—especially when they are not—they are interesting. An excerpt from my column’s introduction works to solidify my aims.
When I travel from town to town, or through one nebulous rural place after another, I gather a sense of how welcome I am as an observer. It’s largely dependent upon the part of the country I’m in. However, suspicion can grow anywhere an outsider lingers. If I see something curious that I’d like to take a closer look at, I give myself three passes at the very most. By then, the least suspecting have noticed me, and the most suspicious are interested in me. Even in the places I call home, I approach and observe my environment as an outsider…
…Kansas City carries a reputation with visitors and natives alike as being a somewhat homogeneous place. To the contrary, I find that its outlying regions contain surprises, its suburbs are in disagreement, and its neighborhoods each jostle as home to the city’s ideals. To that end, I suspect the city’s inhabitants offer just as much to discover. With the method I have described, this column will be an opportunity for me to make those discoveries, one place at a time.
This column, entitled “Many Places One”, is as soft as news gets. My hope is that the column is found and welcomed by those who enjoy wondering about the mysteries and charms of the place they call home. These “stories” will be presented in more shades of gray than preferred by those who want only news, “hard” information, or sensational opinion. If it is found unsatisfying, it will be a worthy exercise nonetheless. One of the most interesting elements of any locale is the often surprising way in which inhabitants think of themselves in relation to their home.
At the very least, “Many Places One” will serve my pursuits as an artist with an active studio practice. The work I have been making for the last several years is directly involved with these ideas, and I am interested to see how the content of my work is altered by this formalization of a working habit. For some time my method has been to open myself to experience and imagery by wandering on tire and foot, until enough subjective inferences have been made that I am driven to produce paintings in the studio. I am curious what will happen when I systematically report my findings, between the naturally formed phases.
Anything else? Yeah, just a little.
With this last bit in mind, I will also mention that I am doing what I can to get the Free Press Arts section off the ground. Though there is rarely such thing as “hard news” in the vague and dubious art world, my goal is to be neither a critic nor an automaton reporter, as art requires cogitation. My views on the subject are neither authoritative nor exhaustive, but I can promise that they will be objective and descriptive. My modus operandi, in all things, is to say what I see.