digressions: a blog

Luke Batten’s studio, iPhone photo by Daniel Shea

One of the greatest things about being an artist, in my opinion, is seeing the spaces and studios where other artists carry out their practice. I’m generally fond of those who organize their space cleanly and efficiently (I’m a complete square), have their source of inspiration readily available (books, other works), and have lots of personal artifacts laying around. For photographers, this often translates into a semi-orgasmic “ooh and aah” session over printers, scanners, and other important technological bullshit. This weekend I hung out with Ben Horns and Luke Batten in Luke’s studio in the West Loop, as documented so wonderfully above.

Big Ten Coed with Ski Mask No. 6, © New Catalogue

Luke makes up one half of New Catalogue, with Jonathan Sadler being the other. Together they employ “a flexible workforce of graphic designers, illustrators, and writers who offer solutions to representational problems,” according to their site. Hearing Luke talk about his work was really inspiring and did nothing but support the strong conceptual consistency that threads their projects together. Big Ten Co-eds with Ski Masks and Preppy Girls with BB Guns playfully tug at our own partiality towards youthful suspended states, and provide a near-absolution for the resulting cultural despondency. It’s the truth.

Preppy Girl with BB Gun No. 3, © New Catalogue

So seriously spend some time on their site, you won’t regret it. They are currently focusing their efforts on some design work, which I got to see in print. The work is much more quiet, less brazen, and more political. I’m not posting that work, because it wouldn’t hold up in this context. So just look at that on the site.

As I mentioned before Ben Horns was present. Ben and I met this summer as he was biking across the country and had stopped in Baltimore. We realized we went to the same high school, among many other similarities. He looked very familiar, and later I realized he had been a photographic subject in New Catalogue’s go-to project, Tiger Afternoon. Here’s an example:

Boy With Backpack, © New Catalogue

Amazingly enough, I had the foresight to take a picture of Ben to post in the future. I knew at some point I’d write about New Catalogue, it just took awhile. Ben from this summer past:

Ben Horns by Daniel Shea

Posting may be quiet in the next week or so. Between the holidays and starting my new job, time will be hard to come by.