Untitled (Cardinals)

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    A friend of mine dreamed this so I made it outside her home. 2005. It remains one of my favorite pictures.

    bethfromabove, govm89, victory o'the people, Lisa Fritsch, and 68 other people added this photo to their favorites.

    1. Shaun Flynn 22 months ago | reply

      Most of you are here because apparently this image has received some popularity on Tumblr. Although I am pleased to get some exposure of my work outside of the circles that are familiar with it, I would like to take a moment to say that I find the phenomenon of sites like tumblr, weheartit, ffffound, etc, to be troubling. I believe these sites and the people who addictively post and repost pictures/art they find actually undermine the artist by removing the work from any creative context and therefore, content, of the images as individual artworks, reducing them to pretty pictures among a sea of pretty meaningless pictures. This also seems to be about letting the poster co-opt other mostly unnamed peoples' artworks as some part of their own visual identity through posting/liking it, without ever having to consider where the images came from or considering that perhaps real artists' intellectual property is being compromised without their consent. I didn't post this to Tumblr, someone I don't know did, and I'm not sure I approve of the greater cultural implications of this activity. Just because you may think this is a pretty picture, I think that it doesn't make you cool or artistic or creative or any damn thing at all by adorning your hyper-linked social network with others' work as if they were Christmas ornaments that you somehow feel makes the prettiest You Tree. There are of course, exceptions to the uses/users and application of these sites, but for the most part, internet addicted teenagers who don't ever make anything or take a walk in the woods or look at cardinals with the awe that nature reveals, make me sad. Go take a walk, go make something, go have a real conversation about what you think is beautiful. Rethink what these gigantic social network corporations might be doing with the incredible volume of information they are gleaning from your activities, and enjoy the Earth like humans were meant to, as it might not be around tomorrow. Thanks for visiting.

    2. thatnolenguy 14 months ago | reply

      Well said, Shaun!

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