Category Archives: about chris

Artist as Entrepreneur

March 24, 2017 by Chris | 1 Comment

Make Art Your Living

Some of you may know that I am passionate about helping artists learn the business skills they need to have sustainable art practices. It comes from a fundamental Continue reading »

Patterns of a Kaleidescope

November 26, 2015 by Chris | 0 Comments

Reverend W.W. and Adena Jones

Legacy

As I prepare to spend the day with loved ones, friends so dear that the line between family and friends was blurred long ago by a friendship forged with my grandparents and passed along the generations, I recall once again the legacy that was left to me in both big and small ways. The legacy of love, of gratitude, of faithfulness.

(Thank you for indulging me once again in my Thanksgiving tradition of reading and sharing this beautiful inheritance.)

Thanksgiving Love Letter

Written on Thanksgiving Day, 1945 by my Grandfather, Rev. Dr. W.W. Jones to my Grandmother, Adena White Jones, before he returned home from serving as a chaplain in WW2.

Thanksgiving Day, 1945

For some reason on this Thanksgiving day my thoughts have picked up that little phrase someone wrote us when we were married.  “May there be just enough clouds to make the sunset beautiful.”  Of course it would be quite a shallow view of life if we thanked God only for the bright and pleasant things.  For this would be such a dreadful place in which to live without the clouds and the rain.  So I’m especially thankful today that I have you for my sunshine, and we can look out all our windows at the clouds, which will make our sunset beautiful, and that you will always be there to warm my heart when it is cold, to be my strength when I would falter, to hold my hand when I have lost the way.

Grandmommie & DaddyBuck

Grandmommie & DaddyBuck

All my reams of paper couldn’t contain the mercies that I’m thankful for today, for they pass my imagination in an never-ending parade.  The rain of yesterday, the bright sunshine of today; the little ponds of ice I saw outside this morning, a shelter warm as toast; memories, rich and mellow, embroidered with hearty friendship and camaraderie; enemies – and the joy of being able not to hate them; cool water from a spring on a long, hot hike; good food that makes one comfortable inside; flitting glimpses out of the past that now seems so far away, so much apart of another world that one gives pause to think-could it be so and could that have been me? Continue reading »

Looking way back

January 22, 2015 by Chris | 0 Comments

Maybe you have seen the Facebook challenge that is going around right now. Maybe not if your Facebook feed isn’t stuffed full of artists like mine, but periodically it seems there is a new meme going around fb to fill it with flowers, or art, or kittens (oh wait…it is always filled with kittens). The current one is challenging artists to post three pieces of art everyday for 5 days.

Since I already feel like a constant fountain of art spam I decided to dig a little deeper, at least for today. I went to the very back of a filing cabinet drawer that houses a pile of three-ring binders, with yellowing and crusty masking tape on the spines declaring their contents: photo articles, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade, yearbook, odd jobs, seniors. In them lie roll after roll of negatives and contact sheets from my high school career, which I experienced mostly through the camera. Continue reading »

Not an Architectural Photographer…

May 30, 2014 by Chris | 0 Comments

Last week I made it pretty clear the I am not a wedding photographer – this week I provide evidence that neither am I an architectural photographer. Although the Bloch Building by Steven Holl at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art makes it pretty damn hard not to be… How lucky are we in Kansas City to have this masterpiece?

 

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Not a wedding photographer…

May 22, 2014 by Chris | 0 Comments

I’ve worked hard for over 20 years avoiding photographing weddings, senior portraits, and the like. However, that is not to say that I don’t occasionally have my camera at such an event. And although I might occasionally be shooting, I am not likely to take the glamour shots the subjects (or their parents) might be hoping for…

The dance

New Artist Statement

May 8, 2014 by Chris | 2 Comments

I wrote a new artist statement to take to Fotofest last month and almost forgot to share it with you.

 

Mile Marker 422v, 16x22Since I was eight years old, I have used a camera to quiet a world that contains too much visual stimulation for my racing brain. The lens gives me a distance from my environment, and acts as a filter to slow the intake of information so that I can capture what is before me. Once back in my studio, I am afforded the quiet space to consider the collected images, the silence that allows the dialogue to take shape. Continue reading »

Collective Memories

April 4, 2014 by Chris | 0 Comments

Some things never change:

Yesterday I was digging through some archived writings and found an artist statement that I wrote in 2007 for the Collective Memories series of photographs. What really stood out to me is that regardless of the imagery or technique I am using, the memories and the feeling I am hoping to evoke have remained the same. The artist statement written 7 years ago could be written about any artwork I have ever made. It is a nice reminder of what is at the core of my work. Continue reading »

A Maker

January 10, 2014 by Chris | 2 Comments

What I make when I’m not in the studio making things…

Long before Etsy and Renegade Craft Fairs made crafting cool I was a maker (Think Deb in Napoleon Dynamite selling her jewelry and key chains door-to-door). For as far back as I can remember, my favorite aisle in the toy store was the long line of craft kits. And I was thrilled by an afternoon spent with a widow from the church gluing sea shells to terra-cotta pots. Pot holders, friendship pins, Christmas ornaments, “wrapped” coat hangers, jams (from the Ocean Pacific days), and anything else I could make with my hands filled my childhood.

Things are still much the same, but luckily for the recipients of my handiwork, the sophistication level has gotten a little better (most of the time!). Continue reading »

Play like a 10 year old

April 11, 2013 by Chris | 0 Comments

Kyle and I on 1st bike ride of the year!

 

Prompted by Gretchen Rubin, author of the Happiness Project (and coincidently the sister of a high-school friend of mine), I have been thinking about my favorite activities when I was 10. Reflecting on how many of them I am doing now, decades later, and if they aren’t in my daily practice, is it possible to add them. Would they still bring me pleasure and happiness? Because frankly, a life lived solely in my art and studio makes me a bore even to myself! Continue reading »

Chasing the rainbow

March 28, 2013 by Chris | 1 Comment

How did I end up here? (the not so short story I wrote last year for Art Fair Insiders)

 

I learned to use a camera and work in the darkroom as I was learning to write in cursive and ride a bicycle, and I have been on a photographic journey ever since. Looking through the lens shapes my life and experience of the world. My art, my camera, and my life are inextricable – I am fortunate.

 

 

Prior to my professional life, my focus was almost solely on my experience from behind the camera, but as I began working in commercial photography and then in film, I realized the true power the medium could have to influence (manipulate?) the viewer. During this time, I played many roles and the work was wide ranging, from photographing hamburgers for a national fast food chain, or arranging flowers for greeting card covers, to scouting filming locations for shoe store commercials. I loved the day-to-day challenges and problem solving of the field, but the goals of my clients, the advertisers, didn’t fit with my personal values. I was using my craft to sell people goods that were bad for them, the community, and the environment. I was so disheartened by this I almost put my camera down for good. Continue reading »