The past five months have been a lot of work for me, I've spent the entire summer inside stringing together an art show, painting pictures and digging through countless unlabeled VHS tapes. Other than that, nothing else really of any importance to me has been on my mind. The people at the Horse Hospital were of great help in organizing and helping with the whole layout of the exhibition. The building itself was the perfect setting as well, an old horse stable clinic with ramps instead of stairs it resembled an archaic dungeon rather than the typical bleached white art gallery, and the cobbled floors were the best part of the 200+ year old structure. I even heard there were some ghost horses lurking around, but I didn't see any!
So on Friday October, 15th it was opening night for "Ronny Long- My Life on Earth 1991-2002" curated by Matthew Killip, and it was a great success with way more people than I expected in attendance.
My Life on Earth is a collection (or museum rather) of all the creative events from my childhood, with 84 pieces in all and a looping video on display.
October the 20th was another night of fun, a 3 hour life drawing session inspired by PT Barnhams traveling wildman show of the 1860's, put on by the great Nervous Stephen Fowler, who on this night resembled a mad scientist clad in a white lab coat as he prodded with a stick, known Sasquatch doppelganger Nicholas Abrahams, into an array of different positions before the hungry crowd of sketch artists. I later realized this event was held on the 44th anniversary of the famous Rodger Patterson film.
At times the wildman would disobey his handler, growling angrily and throwing bananas into the crowd before smashing a bench to pieces and lurching into the audience. I even lost a shoe in the process. Here's a clip from the nights events.
The exhibition runs until November the 5th with nervous Stephen hosting a special Halloween night (October 31st) of wildman bigfoot movies along with the award winning "Master of Reality".
Here's a link to the Horse Hospital's web page for more information.
After watching so many tapes over the sumer I really like the look of VHS, and it's something not everyone will understand, returning to technology from the past is looked at as "less", but I think it can add sentimental feelings and bring you to a different mindset that has been erased with 1080 p. There was such a rush to get away from VHS the past decade, but how much clarity is really needed? I feel that HD is good for is watching sports, science shows and exposing the the worn out faces of nightly news anchors. It makes movies look fake, they don't have the fantasy aspect to them anymore, like in a dream for example, no one dreams in 1080p, it's all foggy and there isn't really any color to it. If your watching HD with terrible eye sight to begin with then the quality is probably less than VHS looks with good eyes. Ramble ramble ramble
I've been very busy this, hot Texas summer, living in the era of the late 90's via the VHS videos I shot during that time, looking at all those videos leaves me slightly heart broken, in the way Sunday afternoons do after a big Saturday night party. Like time has passed me by. I think one can be more productive when young and enthusiastic, because there is a stronger quest for knowledge and you eagerly want to make a statement, whatever it is. Then once your older and 'wiser' you look at things differently in a burned out sort of way. I think this explains why simpletons are always in such good, happy moods. I've been piecing together a short documentary out of all these VHS tapes, there must be around 150 or more, and it's just so time consuming to watch them all and then string together a video out of it.
I've done all of this for my upcoming art show in London,
This video I have made will be coupled with the 2007 documentary, "Master of Reality" and released on DVD for around 5 pounds at the show, I have also created my own webpage
