visual codec archives »

one shot project »
one shot specifications »
one shot purchasing »

about us »
contributors »
submissions »
contact us »

Letter from the Editor

March.01.2006

Launching an enterprise-level website that hosts a monthly magazine featuring content commissioned from contributors spread out over three cities is no small undertaking. It was hard to even write that sentence...

So perhaps it is not surprising that not long into last month's Portland leg of the Visual Codec roadtrip (less than a day after our official launch) I found myself craving the comfort of a small booth and a carefully crafted martini far above First Thursday artwalking.

Luckily, my friends and fellow Visual Codec colleagues, critic/curator Carrie E.A. Scott, and badass photographer Alice Wheeler, took me in tow so as not to miss the shows we had been looking forward to seeing that night...

And so it was a few hours later that I found myself introduced by Alice to Christopher Rauschenberg at Blue Sky Gallery.

Now, it's conceivable that I could've simply shook his hand and made a few polite remarks about the show...

Regrettably for any shy flowers in the near vicinity, I was fresh off a viewing of a John Divola photograph depicting a pink house in the middle of nowhere....

And consequently (because I'm really quite dotty when it comes to the color pink, especially when incorporated into an exceptional work of art) I skipped right over a polite "how do you do" and instead found myself gushing quite excitedly (and thus very loudly) all over Mr. Rauschenberg about the house, the color, the surreal quality of the light, and John Divola's work in general...

Directly after which I came to my imagined senses and started to apologize to him for my outburst, wherein I'm sure I started to look a bit on the bright side of pink myself...

However, to my surprise, I found my apology swiftly swept aside and my excitement both matched and exceeded by Rauschenberg's own thoughts about strange houses in the middle of nowhere, John Divola, and a host of other topics.

Safe to say, the residual buzz of this conversation lifted me out of my post-launch blur and carried me on wings through hours more of art viewing, socializing, and a final and memorable landing at Sugar Gallery's late-night pseudo-rave.

It wasn't until the next day that I began to wonder why I had felt the need to apologize for getting excited about art inside an art gallery.

It didn't take me very long to reach the conclusion that visiting many galleries is not unlike attending a golf tournament or a tennis match. In stark contrast to this "More Reserved than Thou Milieu," Blue Sky has been excited about their art for decades, and it hasn't done them any harm.

This fact acts for me as a benediction of sorts for this publication.

Here at Visual Codec we don't talk in hushed tones about art while clinging to plastic glasses full of cheap wine. Here it's encouraged, essential, even, to be excited about art and the venues that harbor it.

I think you'll find this excitement prevalent in this month's issue, not only in the programming of my Associate Editor, Carrie E.A. Scott, and our Core Contributors, Alice Wheeler, Lance Blomgren, and Jeff Jahn, but also in the handiwork of our featured Guest Writers, well respected critic Regina Hackett, and all around artistic troublemaker Greg Lundgren.

May you have as much fun in the reading as we did in the making.

Cheers to all,

m.

Founding Editor
Visual Codec
editor@visualcodec.com