Category: General (Page 1 of 6)

2021…

December 31, 2021 / Rick / 0 Comments

…is almost over. It’s hard to believe my last post to this was in July 2020. I didn’t mean for this to be a once-a-year thing. Let’s resolve in 2022 to up to the productivity. Let’s just hope I’m not merely adding to the pile of broken resolutions (admit it, you have some as well lol).

Since my last post, well, let’s take a look. There were the protests/riots after the death of George Floyd, a clusterf**k of a presidential election in the United States, a clusterf**k of a protest on the day Congress was to certify the election results, Covid vaccines developed and deployed, economic inflation that is threatening to do some real damage to economies around the world, new Covid variants, and an ever-deepening divide between people groups of people in the United States. This list is just the United States alone. Many nations around the world are facing their own new challenges brought on by Covid.

On a personal level, I lost someone I considered a friend (non-Covid related) as well as Ozzy, my beagle and all-around great dog that adopted me at the age of 8 weeks. He would have been 13 in Jan 2022. I miss him every day. I also almost lost my German Shepherd to a severe infection. Thankfully we were able to intervene before it could spread to other parts of her body. Many of you know I live in Texas and the challenges Texas residents across the entire state faced in February. All these things were in addition to the stresses brought on by the challenges of recovering from 2020. Recovery is going to continue into 2022, but one thing I feel is much more optimism than 365 days ago. I need this feeling if I have any hope of accomplishing my goals in 2022.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however. Texas began its collective reopening in 2020 and accelerated that process in 2021 as vaccines became widely available. I found myself with some promo work and, after getting the pokes myself, was back in the bars doing what I loved the most – photographing live metal performances.

Dawn Of Dissolution – the commission that stirred me awake

David Van of Kranc - the first published concert photo from me in over a year. — David Van of Kranc – This is the first concert image made by me in over a year.

Since June, I have shot 7 shows, which is a little slower than the normal pace over the past couple of years (excluding 2020). For me, however, this pace is good. The show from where the above image was made was a chance to reconnect with people I hadn’t seen in over a year (some in nearly 2 years). It was the fuel I needed after the Dawn Of Dissolution shoot to feel purposeful again.

Creatively (and in general) things felt as if they were getting pretty dark for a little while. I tried me hand at a few things in 2020 but quickly gave up on them as things with the outside world seemed to be only getting worse with each passing day. I tried my hand at digital painting from a photograph:

Scene just outside of Shiner, TX (photo made in 2011)

Zolrak Montes of Unholier at Destroying Texas Fest 2019

This little experiment last about a month before I fell back into the funk. A couple of friends and I joined together and started processing each other’s RAW images. This turned out some interesting results. Although at any one time we were working on the same image, this exercise taught us that different people can look at the same objective information and see something totally different from the others. This particular activity lasted several months until one of the members started classes at a local college. Once he completes his work, we will be starting this again.

There are several other things I started and continue to actively work, especially now that I feel a little more like myself again. One in particular is a marriage of text and imagery based of a lyric I once heard. “I will give you sanctuary in these hymns of Thanatos” is that lyric. It’s stuck with me since I first heard it a little over 14 years ago. I am organizing a series around it. Here are a couple of sketches:

These are a little all over the place as they were tests of different techniques and concepts. I’m beginning to drill down on some consistency over the execution and will soon start executing more fully realized images. I’m a little excited about this project as the lyric on which it’s based is beginning to burn more and more brightly in my mind.

For the final topic of this entry, I picked up work on an existing project that had been neglected for a long time. This project is the skyscape images that helped me get into the BFA program at the University of Houston. I’ve often wanted to continue this one, and now that is happening. As of right now, the project is strictly digital as I lost my medium format film camera in Hurricane Harvey in 2017. A friend of mine recently gifted me a Pentax K1000 35mm film SLR. As soon as I can begin purchasing color film, I am going to definitely be adding that back into the project (it is a mix of digital, color negative, and color positive images).

In terms of my art, this is where I’m at so far in 2021 and heading into 2022. I have a lot of goals to reach in 2022, both in terms of my art and in my personal life. I would like to get back to New York to visit my family sometime this year and find a way to get my wife home to visit hers (which is, in my view, the greater priority). I will find a way to discuss some things more in depth in a future post that will come much sooner rather than later. Until then, I bid you all a Happy New Year and good fortune in whatever form will do you best in 2022.

Pandeminomicon

March 31, 2020 / Rick / 0 Comments

To say 2020 is off to an interesting start would be, by many measures, an understatement. As a nation we’ve been treated to a presidential impeachment (voted for in 2019) and trial, a change in provider payment rules that severely affects my livelihood, and a pandemic which has infected, as of 4 pm EDT on 29 Mar 2020, 140,904 people in the United States. 2020 is also an election year, which makes everything even more interesting, perhaps even surreal. I’ve been seeing a lot of memes regarding 2020 and how much people think it sucks, but I am trying to stay positive about the whole thing.

The county where I reside is currently under a stay at home order. As such, we should only venture out for essential activities and only those who are essential workers should be reporting for work. My spouse is a Licensed Physical Therapist who specializes in home care for the elderly. For many of her patients, she may be the only one who is able to check on their wellness on a given day. I worry about her every day she goes out.

For me it’s been business as usual during the day given that I work from home supporting my wife’s activities – paperwork, phone calls, billing, etc. The only thing that really impacts me now is the lack of choice in what I can do with my day. I can’t run normal errands and there is the matter of my client agency employees now working from their own homes. That makes customer visits and getting paid in a timely manner an interesting prospect. Again, it’s time to stay positive. I just need to stop posting YouTube links to songs about disease on Facebook.

As part of the stay at home order (and I believe under the orders of the Governor of Texas), bars in my county have been forced to close their doors. This, of course, makes it impossible to photograph concerts. I do miss going to the local shows right now. The people in the metal community (both the musicians and employees) in Houston are near and dear to me. I can only hope they are weathering the storm and can hit the ground running on the other side.

The dearth of concerts right now isn’t such a bad thing. I mean, I am saving a little bit of money on cover charges, drinks, and CD’s. It’s also rekindling the creative flame in me. I thought about it earlier today – I’ve spent so much effort on concert images over the past 6 years that some of the other ideas floating in my head are being pushed away. In fact, one of my started projects has been on hiatus for the last 3 years due to my efforts on the Houston Metal Project. This would be a good time to achieve some balance in my creative efforts. The only problem with the hiatus project is that it’s portraiture. That isn’t very conducive to social distancing right now.

But hope exists because lately I’ve been rediscovering my macro lens. The panic buying in the run up to our current state of affairs in Texas left the shelves of most retailers rather barren. It appears to have calmed down since then, but it got me thinking what it is that people are seeking for the end of civilization (I know that’s hyperbolic, but I strongly feel things are going to change; whether the changes are positive or not remains to be seen). I’ve seen images arranged as formal still life compositions, but that’s about it. I’m using the macro lens because I want to really get to the object and to see what it is about the object that has people making obsessive purchases. This is what I have so far:

These are by no means final images for the series. I have more objects I need to photograph. I am also going to explore different ways to capture what I’ve already done.

Has anyone been able to resolve why there’s been such a run on toilet paper in response to a pandemic involving a respiratory illness? My wife’s sisters in the Philippines told her they are laughing at Americans over this particular phenomenon.

I read somewhere a few days ago a blog post title that encouraged creatives to write about their “quarantine” experience. I didn’t read the post as I was trying to get something else accomplished and, unfortunately, forgot to bookmark it. Going off that headline advice, this is my first foray into that. We’ll see if I write more in the coming days, especially now that President Trump has extended the social distancing guidelines to until 30 April 2020.

As for now, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I do need to sign off. Stay safe, practice your social distancing, and for those of you stuck at home – avoid naps, make sure to get dressed in more than your pajamas every day, and stay in contact with your friends and family. These are all mental health tips provided by one of my local news stations. I will be writing again sooner rather than later.

It’s 2019…

January 2, 2019 / Rick / 0 Comments

And I’ve just now realized that it’s been nearly a year and a half since my last update. Many who know me on a personal level know what I went through with Hurricane Harvey and the burglary of my home while I was working to get it to a point where repairs could begin. At this point I’m not going to write about that. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a past event and, while it affected me in many ways, I’m not going to rehash it. I will say the process of rebuilding my home is ongoing (I’m doing most of the work myself) but it’s moving along with all the other things I have going on in life.

It’s not that I’ve been neglecting this blog out of sheer laziness. When I opened the editor earlier, I found 3 posts that had been started but paused as I moved on to other tasks. Although much of my writing is, in the artistic sense, automatic, it does take an hour or more to post something here. I start with a thought going through my head and as I write, I’m constantly proofreading, editing, or sometimes just simply shifting gears on a post. Sometimes something comes along and completely derails the process.

I just lost 4 minutes because “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” came up in my iTunes shuffle and I just had to jam.

The thought that was going through my head for this particular blog post was the new year. Every year I used to do the “new year new me” line of thinking. I would make a promise to myself to make a big change. Around April, I would realize I broke my promise and steel my resolve. By the time the NFL season began to gear up, I would realize that what I promised was unrealistic and just look forward to the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall (which happens to be my favorite season). After the big changes forced on me by Harvey, I began to understand that life shouldn’t be about making a promise for a big change once a year. It should really be about making small changes to improve all throughout the year. It really hit home this past Spring as I battled with a bout of depression. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say it was Harvey-related and lasted quite a while. A lot of things suffered – my repair progress and my photographic work being among the hardest hit. I knew intellectually something was wrong, however, I couldn’t bring myself to figure it out and deal with it. All it really took to break through it was one small change I made. Afterward, I felt a renewed sense of energy and I saw that small changes are much more profound and longer lasting than the big ones we promise to make. I’ve made several process changes that have yielded great results and not just in my photo and home repair work.

One positive event in the past 18 months was going to New York for my dad’s 75th birthday. It was a surprise for him as he didn’t know I was going to be there for the party. It was great to see the smile on his face. I also got to connect with 2 old friends. I did set aside a couple of hours for making photos. This time, however, it was a little more difficult. I always get nostalgic when I visit the Cincinnatus area. One in particular was the ice cream shop in town, which is only open during the Summer months. Given that my dad’s birthday is in December, there was very little chance of me getting a chocolate soft serve cone. Seeing that shop all buttoned up for the winter, though, brought back a lot of memories.

Well, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you adieu until I come up with my next writing inspiration. As for right now, I have some photo work that is seriously overdue.

The Houston Metal Project

March 15, 2017 / Rick / 0 Comments

So much for those plans for an entry on Roy de Carava. As I started looking at things, I realized I didn’t really know how to say what I wanted to say on the subject of him and my own work. So, I’m changing my tactic a little bit. I think this will be a multi-part essay regarding my work and then bringing in how I’m being influenced by Roy de Carava and other artists.

A long time ago in my own galaxy in my own city not so far away…

If it hasn’t become plainly obvious to any of my regular readers, I’m a fan of heavy metal music. I remember my preteen years of listening to the radio, especially the Top 40 countdowns every Sunday evening. I liked the songs that were played, but always found myself more drawn to the rock and hard rock selections on the airwaves, e.g. “We’re Not Gonna Take it” by Twisted Sister and “Round and Round” by Ratt. I was 13 when I got my first true heavy metal album, Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil.” The rest, to borrow a cliché, is history.

So we fast forward a few years (ok, at least a decade, but that’s all I’m revealing) and I’m getting into photography. I wanted to learn to how to use a DSLR camera to take better concert photos for a website I was trying to build at the time. The effect was twofold – I learned how to use my camera and it reawakened the artist lying dormant within me. I took photos of big touring acts when I could get a pass, but there wasn’t really any direction with them. I was looking for that one image that could go on the website with an article, and that was about it. When I started my run at Coog Radio, the college radio station at the University of Houston (UH), I started scratching the surface of the local heavy metal scene in Houston. What I found was a scene that was vibrant and relatively untapped. Again, I took images when I felt like it (sometimes you just have to leave the camera at home and be a fan), but again, there was no real direction with my activities.

Given my love of heavy metal and art, it was a no-brainer to merge the 2. Instead of designing logos or album covers, I wanted to use my particular skills to bring a new visual perspective to the scene, with my primary focus on Houston. With a click of the mouse, The Houston Metal Project was born in the Spring of 2014. Now what was I going to do with it?

The project was initially started as a depository for the images I created at local shows, with the focus being on local artists. I also photograph national touring acts when I can (it’s not very easy to get photo passes to venues they play) as they add to the scene when they play in Houston. The bulk of the collection, however, is made up of images of local talent, with some of them on their way to becoming national acts.

Jonathan Bayliss of Desecrate The Faith (2014)

Jesse Brisendine of Behelit (2014)

Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society on the Revolver Golden Gods Tour (2014)

The 3 images above are part of the early months of my activities. These images to me represented the first steps I was taking as they seemed to capture the intensity of the live heavy metal performance, even if the focus isn’t as great as it could be. I definitely noticed a style developing.

Depravis Nocturna of Spectral Manifest (2014)

It was this image of Depravis Nocturna that crystallized the style I was going to work to develop. I wanted to stay in black and white and fill the frame as much as possible. I would use the venue lighting when possible, but I wasn’t going to rule out using my external flash if necessary. I couldn’t let all that time spent learning to effectively bounce light to go to waste, could I?

King Diamond (2014)

Nergal of Behemoth (2015)

Stage detail of Testament (2015)

Lit stage at Testament (2015)

The images above represent a little bit of a departure from my developed style – King Diamond was actually posing for his portrait on stage. I also dabbled a little bit in storytelling and stage detail. It usually happens more with national acts than local acts. I’m sure the show budget has a lot to with that.

Helmuth Lehner of Belphegor (2016)

John Hull of Desecrate The Faith (2016)

Alice Lima Lovchik of Insolvent (2016)

The images above are part of an experiment in color photography. I decided after this phase I was going to concentrate solely on black and white for this project. I will discuss that in my next entry as it pertains to what I’ve been thinking about as I wind my way through this endeavor. It’s not that I’m unhappy with these. I wouldn’t put them out if I were. They just don’t fit my vision. As an aside – Ms. Lovchik is a graduate of the University of Houston Law School. Last I heard, she was studying for her bar exam. Best of luck to you, Alice!

Casey Howard of Suicide Pandemic (2017)

It’s 3 years into this project. I have over 1000 images published (I haven’t counted) on the Facebook page for this project, whittled down from the tens of thousands taken over the past 3 years. I have an endgame in mind for what I’m doing, but I’m not quite ready to take that step just yet. I am, however, going to be taking a very critical look at what I have made so far, and charting a future based on that.

I promise my next entry will be sooner than later. I knew there was going to come a time when I needed to start taking trips down the intellectual rabbit hole and charting out a more concrete direction for this project. As for now, you can comment as you like below.

The published images can be seen on the project’s Facebook page. Just click here.

Wherefore art thou, Richard Custer?

February 20, 2017 / Rick / 0 Comments

I’ve been here, but a bit inactive as of late. I’ve been a little inactive in writing as well as creating art. My activity has experienced an uptick as of late, but not really enough to have anything to put out there. The long of the short of it is that I’ve fallen into a bit of a rut with my work and am slowly climbing out of it. It’s taken (and is taking) a little perseverance, but I’m getting there. I also just read this article over at Medium.com, which seems to have kicked me in the ass a little bit (I’d say this post is evidence of that).

I’ve started work on a digital art piece that’s going to require a full year to complete. It’s going to take a full year because I can only add to it a small element each day. It’s not a choice, it’s just the nature of the project. I was inspired by a piece I saw on Twitter, where the artist used only a period of one month. I’m not sure how this will turn out aesthetically as it’s more of a personal piece, but I am learning something about myself from the piece and the process. Just what comes out of that new knowledge will remain to be seen. The piece will be unveiled after the beginning of February 2018 after I examine and make refinements to the individual elements for consistency. I may mess with the colors a little as well, but the elements and their placement will not be touched otherwise.

My friends in Desecrate The Faith have a new album, entitled “Unholy Infestation,” dropping in early March. I was privileged (and more than slightly honored) to be asked by them to do the photography for the album. This is one of the images I can show at this time:

From left to right – Tyler Shiery, Mike Caputo, John Hull, Coleson Cowden, Jonathan Bayliss

The other images for the album will be released with the album, but I’m very proud of the work I did for them. I was also able to sit in on the recording sessions with them. That in itself was a hell of an experience. I had an idea of how albums were made, but this really showed the hard work that goes into creating an album before the CD’s are ever made. Those photos can be seen here.

In terms of death metal, this album is going to make an impact on the genre’s landscape, and will be a model for other bands to follow. Seeing my name in the liner notes is already surreal, but given the impact I’m sure this album is going to have, the level of surreal (for me) is off the charts.

I’ve been reading a lot, though, and it has helped keep my mind turning through this rut. I’ve also acquired some equipment to help with another project on which I’m working. I just need to get off my ass and make use of it.

As for now, this concludes the latest update. I know it’s short by my blog entry standards, but never fear. I am currently structuring a new post that will outline some things I’ve been thinking about in relation to some of my concert images. Look for that within the next day or 2.

PS – If you’re into death metal, do yourself a favor and check out the first promo single from “Unholy Infestation.” You won’t be sorry.

My Most Recent Show

August 2, 2016 / Rick / 0 Comments

My second show after graduation was a success. There was a large turnout for the show and many stopped and looked with great interest at my installation. All of the other artists hung their work in a salon style. Mine was the only work that had a conceptual theme with the work. I’m not saying they were wrong to go with a salon style, I just was a little taken back at the way my work stood out.

My installation (click to embiggen)

As you can see from the previous post, I did end up tweaking the installation a little bit. I decided to go with a longer horizontal element. It gives a little more balance to the overall composition, as well as giving a subtle hint of that most important of heavy metal iconography known as the pentagram. I also went with larger prints of the bigger elements. My goal was to get the same size as a vinyl sleeve, but unfortunately I am unable to print that large on my own. The larger prints ended up being 13″ x 13″, just short of a vinyl sleeve. A lot of the viewers seemed amazed at the use of CD jewel cases for the smaller prints. Most thought it was very innovative. At the time I came up with the idea, I didn’t think of it as innovative, but I do appreciate the compliment. I had thought about putting CD’s inside the jewel cases, but by the time that idea came to me, I realized I wasn’t going to have time to curate the selections properly.

The goal with the jewel case frames was twofold. First, I wanted the prints to be small so that people would actually have to go in close to view the images. Heavy metal is not a musical genre with a high tolerance of casual fans. One normally must be fully engaged with the music in order to fully appreciate it. Here I wanted to pull in the viewer in order to full see the image in front of them. The second reason, which I touched on in a previous post, was because of the importance of physical media to the fans. Heavy metal fans still purchase physical media more often than digital media. This reference to the CD is a nod to that importance.

The use of iconography in the larger prints puts forth the public image of heavy metal. The inverted cross display, also a use of iconography, was arranged to explore the ritual that is a heavy metal show. To this end, I specifically chose black metal and occult-oriented death metal acts.

In front of my installation. Photo by Jazmin Galindo Hull. (click to embiggen)

That was the thinking behind the most recent installation of my work. I ended up leaving it up for a week. It was sad to take it down, but I knew the show had to end sometime. I am pretty proud of what I accomplished with this installation, and I’m already toying with ideas for the next show, which, if I’m invited, will be in October.

I’m definitely not complaining about the opportunity to add to my CV.

To see other works from the show, check out the images on the Feral Noise Facebook page by clicking here (Facebook login required).

In other news, I am excited to report that I have been making significant progress on another artistic portrait endeavor. The project has evolved a little bit. I found, quite by accident (or serendipity), that the new direction is offering much more in terms of my conceptual vision. I am slowly acquiring images and hope to share these soon on the main website. I’m also looking at answering a CFE (call-for-entry) for a gallery in Vermont. I’ll have more details on that in a later post.

To all of you, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you good evening as the sandman is calling. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section below. I would enjoy your feedback as well.

Moving Forward

July 18, 2016 / Rick / 1 Comment

It only took a few hours of frustration to move this blog. That does not include the typo I made in the process, which locked me out of the old blog in nearly complete fashion. I took a few classes on relational databases when I was pursuing a computer science degree. Over a decade has passed since I had to practice database-related things, so this was a challenge. In the end, the knowledge was recalled and applied, and the move proceeded.

I now present “Rick’s Picture Corner” re-branded as “Richard Custer’s Blog.” I, of course, am Richard. This is my chosen artist moniker, but since we’re all on friendly terms, you can call me Rick. This blog is now more integrated into my artist website (www.artistrichardcuster.com), although the look and feel is much the same. I will soon be dumping the Rick’s Picture Corner domain as I start making more changes and updates to my main website.

Now with that bit of housekeeping out of the way, I’m pleased to announce that I will be exhibiting in my second show since graduating from the University of Houston. The show is going to be centered around hardcore, punk, and heavy metal music and features Houston-based artists. Here is the flyer:

The flyer (click to embiggen)

I found out about the show a few weeks ago. Given the short time left before the show, I placed a link to my work on the Facebook event page to ask to be considered for inclusion in future shows. The coordinator messaged me back the next day and told me he would find space for my work. It’s an understatement to say I was surprised, and was very happy when I found out that I would indeed be included in this upcoming show. I immediately went over installation concepts in my head. This will be my installation concept:

My installation concept (click to embiggen)

This is based on a wall space width of 4 feet. I will have to update this concept as I just found out that we will each have 5 feet, but it becomes a matter of moving the larger images out a little bit. As for the images themselves, the 2 larger images are finalized as shown. Each one will be a 12″ x 12″ print mounted on cradled wood. The smaller images, which have yet to be finalized, will be 4.75″ x 4.75″ and placed inside CD jewel cases.

Conceptually, the inverted cross is a reference to the adversarial nature of heavy metal music to religion and ideologies related to such, especially the Judeo-Christian belief systems that dominate the West. The live shots reflect the almost ritual aspect of the live performance and its importance in the genre. The jewel case “frames” for the smaller images signal the importance of the physical media format as CD sales outpace digital sales among heavy metal fans. The larger prints, as with the inverted cross, display the iconography often associated with heavy metal.

At this point, I will conclude this, the inaugural post of the re-branded blog. I have more updates coming as my activity in my chosen medium has picked up in the last month. To all of you, I thank you for your continued support. Feel free to comment below with any ideas or critiques you may have on what I’ve written this evening. I will see you all again soon. Until then, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you goodnight.

A Small Triumph (and Other Things)

March 22, 2016 / Rick / 0 Comments

Finally, I can string together a group of coherent thoughts in order to make a larger one. Truth be told, there’s not much method to my writing madness. Most times I simply sit down in front of the keyboard, let the thoughts stream out, then edit and organize on the fly. This past week, however, my body was ravaged by a virus that left me thinking about other, more immediate needs, such as relative distance to a bathroom and monitoring my body temperature.

Show flyer for “Armed and …” at The Lens Capsule

At this point, the sickness is relatively behind me. I’m still feeling a little weak physically, but mentally I’m back at form (which isn’t much to brag about, but it suits my purposes). So here we go…

I had my first post-graduation show earlier this month (11 March) as part of an opening at Houston’s Lawndale Art Center. The opening was in conjunction with FotoFest 2016, which opened the same night. My little opening happened in an alternative space called The Lens Capsule. Emily Peacock and Britt Thomas (co-founders and curators) make up The Lens Capsule. What they do is work with established art spaces in Houston to bring in a rented moving truck in order to exhibit a new artist. The artist’s work is installed in the moving truck and guests can go right inside to view the work. It provides great initial exposure to those just getting started in their artistic endeavors.

The work I had on display was from my “Armed and …” series (click here and here to view). It wasn’t my first time as an artist on display, but it was my first solo show, and being the center of attention was something to which I was unaccustomed. A lot of people wanted to speak with me after seeing the work, and I was happy to oblige, but nervous at the same time. All in all, I met a lot of great people that night and received a lot of great feedback from both critics and the public. This is definitely an experience I can use going forward. Now I just have to update that CV…

In terms of the stream of consciousness, I briefly thought about issuing a “fuck you” in a not-so-subtle message to an anonymous person out there. If this person is reading this, then the fact I had a show is “fuck you” enough. No more words need to be said on that subject.

Installation of “Armed and …” in The Lens Capsule

My wedding anniversary was a night later. 22 years is another small triumph. It offsets the 2 openings and 2 concerts I had to miss this past week.

At this point, I have a week’s worth of work (both artistic and non-) which needs to be accomplished. Digging out of the backlog won’t be fun, but it will be worth it at the end. I will be chatting with you again sooner rather than later.

Wow

September 3, 2015 / Rick / 0 Comments

It’s been way too long since my last post and it’s high time to remedy that. Let’s recap the past 6 months…

The final semester of the BFA portion of my studies seemed to fly by in a blur. Between losing my German Shepherd to complications stemming from megasophagus to the final preparations for my senior show, it got hard to grip the handle sometimes. I managed to get through it (with a little help from my old friend Nicotine) and emerged exhausted, both physically and mentally. I developed what I think are some strong bonds with a couple of my classmates and got to know everyone a little bit better. The stress of achieving a common goal can bring out the best in people, and I got a good look at the best of my classmates this past spring. As the president of the class, I am very proud of what everyone achieved with their collective effort. The show came off with no out-of-the-ordinary problems and only 1 very minor hiccup occurred on opening night.

My installation for the BFA show

The summer was spent decompressing. I kicked around a few ideas of future projects and resumed The Houston Metal Project, which was mostly on hold because of all my other commitments. Being able to take a road trip to a family reunion went a long way toward decompression. The best part was visiting an area of the country I had yet fully experience. Southern Illinois probably isn’t paradise to everyone, but the area has an allure about it I cannot quite nail down. I also got to spend a day in St. Louis, MO. Aside from the attempted break-in of my rental car (in a supposedly secure parking garage at the St. Louis Art Museum), I must say I had a great time. The best part of the whole experience of the family reunion (aside from meeting family members I have never known) was the fact that I had no phone signal at the event, which took place at an Illinois state park. The 4 hour disconnect from the outside world was, in a word, liberating.

It is worth noting that, even though there was no signal, everyone (including myself) tried to check their phones. That phenomenon is something for the critical theorists to ponder.

After spending a day in Minneapolis to reconnect with a couple of family members close to my heart, it was back to the daily grind and academic decompression.

The obligatory tourist photo

A rather scary sight from my window in central Iowa

That’s pretty much how I spent the rest of the summer. I looked forward to this, my final semester as an undergrad at the University of Houston. This semester does not include any studio courses as I am fulfilling my minor in Art History. These Art History courses aren’t your regular types, either. Both classes are seminar style, with an emphasis on reading and discussion. There are no midterms or finals, just a lot of writing. These classes are by no means going to be easy as they are going to challenge me on an intellectual level to think even more deeply about art in general and help chart the future course of the projects I am undertaking.

And, speaking of art projects, I have just been asked to do a show with a local alternative space. The organizers are in the planning stages right now, but I’m excited.

A test shot from my new project

My final semester as an undergrad is ending its second week. Expect a lot more posts over the next 14 weeks as I discuss some of the concepts being researched in my classes. As for now, it’s time to get back to the reading.

PS – Don’t forget to check out my new website – www.artistrichardcuster.com

Stream of Consciousness

December 14, 2014 / Rick / 0 Comments

Seemingly unrelated, these videos are an encapsulation of a state of mind I’m currently experiencing. They can be viewed in any order you wish, depending on your mood. If it were possible, these would not be placed in any linear type of order.