@1. You also lack even the basic knowledge of who curated this show.

@1

Owl4art, hibrowgorilla, northwest mystic, We know who you are. You have electronic signatures. Your hallmark style stands out like a sore thumb. You always have the same infantile slant. If only you could change your tune and give us real food for thought. I'm thinking it's your writing that needs to improve, but it seems hopeless. Your one note approach is tiring.

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" ~ Johnny Rotten

@G F••khole...not this time loser- but i cant say i disagree with@1. Infantile? Hallmark? Food for thought? Where's your brilliant defense??? NOT! The pathetic part of this is your inability to shine and lack of intellectual clarity in your self-minded championing of yourself and your childish vigilantism. F' OFF and let this be the OPEN editorial comment forum for ALL opinions and stop with your junior high school awkward put downs and call outs. If you dont like someones opinion-FINE-but this IS America and the Stranger-HELLO LOSER. You're just SOOO annoying! Seriously...Pull your head out of Jen and Co's azz cuz it dont make ANYBODY really like you more tha they already don't-btw.

@2
What about his brain. You think it's there?

@1 & @6

Dear multiple personality with ADD (hibrowgorilla, sucka69, owl4art, northwest mystic) your brainstorms are kind of funny and I fear they are from an adult. There are a number of things that are your hallmark including nastiness towards the Stranger, Jen Graves and that you seem to go ballistic with nastiness at Photography as serious art. You seem to have a very old-fashioned take on what can be included in your notion of the world of fine art. Sometimes you mock what you take Jen’s style to be by writing as if you were her.
Among the IT tools available to identify people and mine data is intelligent software that can compare blog comments and show the ones that are related to each other by style. You have a very identifiable style. If you want to show that what I've said is not true you are free to come out of the closet. I don't have the goal or fantasy that I need to be liked by people to post my thoughts. Even by those you mention. I rather expect the opposite. That is easily that case for expressing oneself. I would probably be better for me socially if I kept my mouth shut—so to speak. I’m clearly not preventing you from expressing yourself, just criticizing you.

What I TRULY gives thanks to this week is for the enormous effect and influence my comments and writings have had on you F'hole and obviously ALL the others who "wont talk to the troll" but can't seem to ignore it...any-who...it makes me warm with holiday cheer to realize how obsessed you and all the others are with "us"( as you say so technologically informed). I want to be clear I love The Stranger and think it rocks. I do not have anything against Jen personally as I'm sure she's quite nice. But she is beneath her position and does not do it the justice it deserves(as most say publicly behind her back). I WISH she was a good critic, as good a writer as Savage or Lindy, but she is not-period. She is nepotic, unseasoned, unfair, bitchy, and forced. I know you like my commentary-and for all your silly amateur criticisms-you know I'm making sense. Art is a big arena and there's more shit than shine-A LOT MORE-so let it roll, dude.

Interesting, but still the one note slam on the writer who you think has to meet some ridiculous arbitrary standard. When it comes to your posts there seems to be a collaborative fiction going on (either in your head or from an outside team). I don't think of some of y’all as a trolls but as insistent pests with terrible manners. I probably would find interest in many of your ideas but they don't appear here. I generally don't appreciate your commentary. If you support art and the art community one would think you would help the experience of the artists being reviewed and not sully their opportunity to enjoy their moment in the sun. It's just too bad. Your “northwest mystic” delusion make you come off as so pompous and dinosauric about art.

“I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them.”~ George Bush

NORTHWEST MYSTIC:

This isn't about opinions or points of view. Baiting people with prolific amounts of negativity in the message boards is simply a way for you to find stimulation. It's sick and it causes real harm. I truly believe that you have some mental issues and need some help.

@10
northwest mystic: "Art is a big arena and there's more shit than shine-A LOT MORE"
Showing your hand and world-view? I know the art world has an amount of discord between some artists and critics and gallerists, etc. Warhol was not warmly embraced by Jasper Johns and Lichtenstein. I and others have some problems with Chihuly. Still the huge community of art tends to be extremely open to and supportive of the many within, to openly accept the good of everybody’s creativity and whatever art they make. This is a hallmark of the Arts community and it is not their take that most of it is more shit than shine. Art schools are noted for the freedom of expression they carefully guard and promote. Individualism is rather sacred in the arts and one tends to go easy on criticism. We stand out of the way of the natural impulses any child learning art brings to their work. We all know this. So what's with you?

The younger folk probably don't realize what the art world was like a few decades back. I think one of the amazing things about the Layman photo prints on show at the Frye is that they probably wouldn't have been considered appropriate for the museum for most of its life. As I recall the original Frye, it was mostly into exhibiting painting or sculpture exclusively as the premiere media of fine art and photos were not to be included--mostly romantic winning watercolors from various shows were featured. In the early 60's the UW art school wouldn't consider photography as a serious media that an art student could graduate in. Strangely, SAM also seemed to be prejudiced about including photography as fine art for much of its life. SAM did not seem to take photography as serious art till the 70's. It was only then that they created their first Photography Art Council that disappeared some years later to the consternation of many of its photography loving members. The Photography Art Council was moved into the Contemporary Art Council. The politics was not pretty.

The curator of this show is clearly an extremely qualified professional to evaluate the importance of giving Isaac Layman his own show. She has international scope in experience in these matters. Isaac is a curious study in the challenges of doing photography as serious contemporary art containing a lot of conceptualism and now a lot of minimalism. The world of photography is not all art from the point of view of contemporary art. The local nature photographer Art Wolfe and Erwin Wurm using photographs are engaged in different professions. Artists with cameras is kind of different than a photographer. Aperture magazine has historically seriously stumbled on this distinction as has Photo Center NW. Layman has been heard to say he did ordinary photography at one time in his life and tired of it. It is not easy to conceive what he is trying to do. Contemporary art can challenge not only the artist but just about anyone. Layman seems to have a special ability at this. Layman uses a 4x5 view camera with a back that records the image often extremely slowly as it scans the image. The idea of using multiple images to counter the problem of depth of field is not new but is used to raise special questions by Layman. It is rewarding to see Layman get this boost to his career and the support he's received from Scott Lawrimore and other leaders in the art world. It should be interesting to follow the growth and direction of this gifted young UW artist. He has a very interesting mind when it comes to photography. A look at some of his early work he did in Italy and just after is very revealing.

http://www.lawrimoreproject.com/lp/Artis…

I went to Layman's show and I'm interested to read more opinions about it. I had a hard time with an entire wall of dirty windowpanes and the deadpan textures all framed up. I liked the cul-de-sacs of ice cube trays(?) breaking down the empty space. With the clinical presentation of ickiness and tenacious framing, intimacy is broken down to the point of austerity. Also, It was a strange and disorienting experience going from Layman's meditative environment to the main gallery packed full of figurative paintings-- that seemed to be a large part of the concept. I saw his work at Soil and at Elizabeth Leach and liked those works more than the current show. But "Paradise" grows on me the more I think about it.

You know what we need to cleanse the palate of all that negativity and shit? Get on over to Hennessy Youngman's youtube channel and check them shitz out, yo. It's all you ever need to hear about the sublime.

You walk into a gallery full of textures and empty places. You reach a picture of a cloud-heaven made of used tissues, placed front and center in the room like a pulpit. It is parenthood. It IS a parent: Perhaps something was handed down by a 1000ft. tall Charleton Heston. Whatever it was, it exploded and cooked up more cataclysms, mere sneezes on the scale of time. On the side wall there is a picture of a metal brad revolving around a larger metal orb. A hydrogen atom. A tiny eye looking up at something that is indifferent to it. And you! You lucky person! Through all the vast ejaculations and membranes, you get to jump out of it, and as part of it, you look at yourself. You see mysterious shapes and you fill them with your imagination and comprehension. Fill it in with more things. In a perfect little place, in time and space, life is a short pause. It's sweet too, if you're lucky and you know what's good for you,.

"women like you they're a dime a dozen, you can buy 'em anywhere"
-L.Lynn

This brings to mind-F'hole-the basic world wide existance of the exaltation of the common man perspective/opinion as gospel. Worthy and wonderful. Deserving, valid, relevant , and contemporary, so right now (not 'dinosauric'- praise God for that!) Well-I can only offer you this insightfully defining quote G-man-woman

,"I don't know much but I know what I like"
...says it all.

Oh yeah?

Well my cat can eat a whole watermelon!