Welfare Mom

Breaking out of the "Welfare Mom" role.

Jack's North Hi Carryout Reopens

Click here for audio slide show.

Owners Joe and Barbara Moore re-opened Jacks Monday after purchasing the building last October. The 1950s burger institution suffered a fire in early 2007 and has been closed since, but North High alumni Albert Murray bought the building and contents at auction in May of 2007 to keep it from disappearing. The Moores promised Murry they would restore the burger joint to its original glory when they bought it. Moore said he wanted to open during spring break to work out the bugs, so to speak, before school resumes next week. He said he has never worked in a resturaunt before. "They're gonna hit us hard," he said. "They're gonna hit us real hard."

Sheriff's Auction of Foreclosed Homes

Click here for audio slideshow

1,200 Wichita school kids are homeless

(Link here for story.)That's more than they ever thought. District estimates had placed it at perhaps 1,000, but a new way of tracking parents' living arrangements showed the district a clearer picture of homelessness.
See Audio gallery: Megan Morgan talks about being homeless.

Nicolette Perez

As she lay in her hospital bed about a month ago, 28-year-old stroke survivor Nicolette Perez was asked how she felt about the prospect of living in a nursing home. She immediately and emphatically turned her thumb down -- the stroke had taken her ability to speak.

See "View an audio slideshow about 28-year-old stroke survivor Nicolette Perez

This Movie Stuff Isn't Going Away...

My newspaper editors are clamoring for more videos and multimedia presence online from our photo staff. I have balked, resisted, hesitated, whined and declared outright that, relative to still imagery, video is a lame format for news and documentary -- even though I really do like well-made documentary films. It's just not good journalism, I would postulate.

I highly regard audio slide shows using still images, but video? I'm not completely convinced.

Yet I have learned over the years that summary statements, like, "video is not good journalism," can bite me where I don't care to be bitten. I have seen stories, documentaries and concepts that work better in wiggly pictures than with stills. As with most things, it depends on the subject. If it lends itself better to video than still then that's how it should be done, and I'd be a fool not to learn to do it and to do it well. Solomon said, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."

And video is what the boss wants and expects. It's a skill most others who might be interested in my work could want should I ever be considered for a freelance or NGO gig. Like being bilingual, anyone who can do more than one thing, and do it well, is in a much better position than a one-trick pony.

As a result, I've been looking at short videos (vidiettes?) differently. Which ones work, which ones suck, which ones keep my interest for more than 30 seconds or which ones bore me to death.

I'm taking a closer look at what makes great cinematography: light, shadow, camera angles, perspective, et al. Frankly, the same things that apply to good still photography, only different because one moves and the other doesn't. Oh, and one has sound and the other doesn't. I am watching, with great delight, the classic Mexican films of director Emilio Fernandez and the great cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa.

I plan to pic the brains of mi amigos and local movie-makers Rod Pocowatchit, Wade Hampton and Gino Salerno. I hope to avoid like the plague the usual television style of news video production that, except for the subject matter, all look the same (turn the volume down while watching a local news cast and you'll see what I mean).

I'm also considering investing in my own equipment.

My newspaper has a fixed working budget for photo equipment -- about $50 a year, it seems -- so with more of us hopping the video bandwagon, the two or three working video cameras and one or two computers with the appropriate software are in very high demand. And, naturally, the more the video equipment is used, the more likely it will break and sit on a shelf awaiting a few spare pesos to be repaired. Even more assuredly, random cords, cables, chargers, adapters and electro-doodads will be left at an assignment, in someone's trunk or simply go missing.

So I'm consiering a Canon 5D Mark II. If I buy one, it's mine. I can use it for freelance or take it out of the country (which we cannot do with company gear) and, even better, I won't have to meet a fellow staffer in some parking lot to hand off a company-owned handycam after I finish one assignement and he or she embarks on another. Besides, aren't we all more responsible with our own investments than we are with someone else's? Consider, for example, how the government spends your tax money.

Here's what the 5D MkII can do in the hands of a production crew with more skill and schmaltz than I'll ever need (or want):

Starving Artists: Some People Just Didn't Get It

After seeing the ad on TV I thought, "That might be an interesting place to get a few snaps of people buying trailer trash art." (link for audio slide show).

The day after I brought my cameras and a digital recorder to absorb and record the scene, I pitched the story idea to my editors and set the hook.

After it was published methinks some readers, friends and art snobs didn't quite make it to the end of the story before taking issue with the issue.

My first draft, below, had a bit more of an edge to it, which was purged mercilessly and published in a more buttoned-down version:

==============================

Local gallery owners would drool over crowds like this. Willing and eager art buyers with checkbooks in hand, swarming and snaking between row upon row of sofa-size paintings of landscapes, seascapes, European cityscapes and an occasional classical nude. And nothing over $59.

It's the annual "Starving Artist Group Art Sale," held twice this month in a swank, mid-size Marriott Hotel conference room.

Perhaps if Wichita galleries displayed art by leaning it on chairs perched on folding tables and stacked other paintings on the floor, they, too, might attract droves of art buying patrons in these trouble economic times.

A typical 30% gallery commission would only net $18 for a single $59 painting, but multiply that by, let's say, 300 paying art connoisseurs, that would net a gallery $5,400 in five hours. Not bad considering the only overhead is wine and cheese.
Of course, this isn't how galleries operate. They hang paintings on the wall; they serve hors d'oeuvres and wine at their hoity-toity openings, receptions and gallery crawls, but otherwise are silent as morgues.

Far from the gallery experience, this is art shopping on steroids.

If you see a painting you like, you better grab it now or it'll be gone on your next lap. Unless, of course, the Starving Artists Group swings back though town with a second truckload of original paintings from the Houston warehouse next weekend, like they did last weekend and the weekend before that.

Highbrow art this isn't. It's art for the common man; for those who rarely, if ever, encounter an actual art gallery.

For anyone looking for something to go with new carpet or drapes, odds are good they'll find it here, particularly if the subject matter is less important than dimension or color scheme. Looking for a Parisian cityscape? The same Eiffel tower graces dozens in a variety of colors and sizes.

Better hurry. It's only between 11:00 AM and 4:00 PM at the Marriott Hotel. Who knows when these starving artists will bring their masterpieces back to town?

The "Starving Artist Group Art Sale" certainly strikes a chord with a broad swath of art buyers. After one successful sale two weeks ago, Starving Artist Group Art Sale manager Daniel Mansour, a University of Houston biology student, brought a second truckload of paintings to Wichita last weekend to satisfy the local demand for "original" paintings. Apparently the tight economic times have not hindered the art market in Wichita.
No doubt about it, people liked what they saw.

Joanna Cassidy was looking for something to go in her recently remodeled a bedroom.

"Oh, they're beautiful, absolutely wonderful," she gushed while deciding between two paintings for a repainted bedroom. "I'm looking for colors to bring out the color of the comforter I just bought."

Tom Newman was flipping through paintings with his wife Dawn and knew exactly what he wanted.
"I'm looking for a couch-sized painting of sailing ships with a seas and skies background," he said . "I've been looking for one for years and I haven found one that I can afford." Otherwise, Tom said, they were looking for something that simply caught their eye. They clearly had no intention of walking away empty-handed.

Bryan and Andrea Blundell of Park City were scouting for some traditional, classical style paintings for their refinished basement. "I am curious about how local some of these artists are," Andrea said. "Especially the paintings we get, to know a little bit about the artist."

Sales manager Mansour said the Houston-based company he works for travels the country once a year bringing the inexpensive art to the masses.

"We brought a 28-foot box truck full of paintings," Mansour said during the first of two sales at the Marriott this month. "it's a lot of work." He estimates the total to be about 1,500 paintings on this particular trip.

"Where do the paintings come from? Um, I'm not sure," he said when quiried. "The only thing I'm here for is managing the actual show itself. I can't really tell you where they come from; I don't really know. I assume artists send them in, or, you know, I'm not sure I know.... I'm pretty sure they come from the States. I assume so. I'm not really sure where they come from."

Actually, the paintings come from Asia, most likely China, syndicated art columnist Dr. Lori Verderame, a certified fine art and antiques appraiser and east-coast television personality, said during a telephone interview.

Verderame says on her website, "...Factory workers stand, for hours at a time, in front of machines that support a long roll of blank canvas. With brushes and paint, each worker is responsible for painting one image or portion of a painting's entire composition."

During a telephone interview, Dr. Lori said the paintings are easy to spot. "They're cheap and they're the same," she said. "The materials are cheap, the compositions are alike, the way the brush strokes are put together. You can see they are done by many different hands."

Stephen Gleissner, chief curator for the Wichita Art Museum, pointed out, however, that mass produced art has been generated at least since the Renaissance. Artists like Van Dyck and Reubens had studios of skilled specialists, either students or paid sub-contractors, who followed the master's direction in filling in the details of what, today, are pricey masterpieces.

"It wasn't a fraud," he said. "It was the system." The Master, he said, would sketch out the basics of a portrait, for instance, and instruct the specialist in how he wanted the background or foreground to be painted.

The difference, Gleissner said, between Reubens's studio workshop system -- with students and apprentices working under the master's direction -- and the assembly line style of paintings produced in Asia for Starving Artists sales, is the lack of the master overseer. Rather, he said, "They're working from a formula, not from an original artist's directions."

"But if it's meaningful to some people's lives," he said, "What's wrong with that?"

Kevin Mullins, exhibitions curator for the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University was equally magnanimous.

"I think the value of art is in the beholder," he said. "It translates into how you perceive things and how you value things. If you value a painting, which normally one thinks of as a one-of-a-kind object, or if you value a painting that is one of many copies produced in the course of minutes rather than days or weeks, then that's fine. Those are your values."

Most of our clothes, sneakers and home electronics are manufactured in China, so the fact that the paintings are being produced there isn't a big issue with Mullins. "A lot of them (the painters) are classically trained artists, and this is how they make their living."
Considering that the majority of Chinese live in poverty, the "Starving Artist" claim may not be all that far from the truth.

Mullins said buyers looking for an art bargain would be well served looking at local artwork. "I'm not saying they should buy it," he said, "but at least they can see what people are doing who aspire to being called an artist."

"Every year here at WSU there are two Pottery sales of student work," he said, "and there's a print sale, and because of the nature of prints, because they are multiples, they can be sold much cheaper than a painting."

And Dr. Lori agreed. "It's an unfortunate profile of the American art consumer because you won't see these people coming out in these kinds of numbers for a student exhibit at any of the nation's major art schools," she said. "You don't see the same reaction to it, you don't see people collecting art from those students who will undoubtedly be the next Jackson Pollack, the next Gerogia O'Keefe of the next decade."

Mullins suggested people are eventually drawn to the Starving Artists sales because of successfull marketing, again echoing Dr. Lori's concerns.

"There's so much good art out there to be had," she said, "and a lot of people might say 'these are not people who would go to a gallery,' then the galleries are failing, because everyone should feel comfortable going into museums and galleries."

Dr. Lori also suggested the appeal of the Starving Artists sale is the shopping experience. "It's for the event, for the experience of going to the Starving Artists sales. It's a social event, a social experience. It's the same thing as the Wichita Art crawl. On a Friday night you can go out and see the art. No harm, no foul -- go!"

The bottom line for Andrea and Bryan Blundell was, indeed, the bottom line. "It can be so expensive, buying a nice decent-size painting in a store somewhere," she said. "It can be extremely expensive, so that's what drew us -- nothing over $59."