CHRISTOPHER D THOMPSON - PORTFOLIO

CHRISTOPHER D. THOMPSON

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CONTENTS://////////////PHOTOS \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -COLOR: 5 - 23 ///////// -B&W: 24 - 29 \\\\\\

ART//// -COLLAGES: 30 - 35 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -FEAR-KARAWALKER: 36 - 37 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ -WALDENPOSTER 38 ///////////////////// -CAC-THEBLACKMARIA: 40 - 49 ///////////////////////////

ECSTATIC SUNSHINE//////////////////////////////////////////

The Skull Lab was a small small venue in the heart of the infa-mously crime-ridden Over the Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati. Like most artist run venues in bad neighborhoods, the average attendance was between 10 and 30 people on any given night, which creates an odd social dynamic.There wasn’t really a ‘back-stage’ area per-se, so band members and attendees mixed and it became a guessing game of who was who. Which is how I came to offer my parents basement to Baltimore band Ecstatic Sun-shine. My mom made them pancakes.

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///////////// This is a group of photographs taken at various times with no intended relation, but their similarities of spirit, palette, and composition are undeniable. They all have a quality of warm lonesomeness, and were all taken during periods of loneliness in my own life. From top left to right; a jobless summer, a solo cross country drive home, and the first week in a new apartment.

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PHOTOGRAPHS\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

1. “Forest Fire/Diamond” - C-Print - 2007 2. “Show ‘Em” - C-Print - 2007 - Loveland, Ohio 3. “Chairlift to Heaven” - C-Print - 2005 - Whistler, British Columbia 4. “Self Portrait With Family” - C-Print - 2007 - Miami, FL for Cousins Wedding. 5. “Ollie” - C-Print - 2006 6. “Ecstatic Sunshine Slept at My House” - C-Print - 2007 7. “Ecstatic Sunshine at The Skull Lab, Cincinnati, OH” - C-Print - 2007 8. “The Things” - Digital - 2007 9. “Untitled” - Digital - 200710. “I 70, Wyoming” - Polaroid - 200711. “Leaving Laramie” - Polaroid - 200712. “Negative Ten in Laramie, Wyoming” - Polaroid -200713. “Basketball/Skateboard in Field of Green” - Polaroid - 200614. “Scarlet Luminence” - Digital - 2007 - At hotel in Gunnison, Colorado. 15. “Domestic Illumination #7” - Digital - 200716. “Earl” - Digital - 2007 - A friend of my Mother’s, at her second wedding.17. “Sunset Salt Lake City” - Digital - 2007 - A final picture from my Salt Lake Residence. 18. “Weil and Hopewell Roads” - Digital - 200719. “On/Off” - Digital - 200820. “US 50, Colorado” - Digital - 2007 - Taken on Solo Return from Salt Lake City, Utah21. “New Apartment” - Digital - 200822. “Zach Marben, Backside 7 Tailgrab” - Digital - Mt. Hood, Oregon - 200623. “Untitled” - Digital - Mt. Hood, Oregon - 200624. “Preston Strout, Darkslide at High Cascade” - Digital Sequence - 200625. “I-70, Kansas” - Digital - Taken en route to Salt Lake City - 200726. “Spotted Wolf Canyon, Utah” - Digital - Taken on Solo Return from Salt Lake City - 200727. “Mt. Hood” - Digital - 200628. “The Hump” - Scholastic Gold Key Portfolio - -Silver Gelatin Print - 8”X 10” - 200629. “Shadow Figure/Skatepark” - Scholastic Gold Key Portfolio - Silver Gelatin Print - 8”X 10” - 200630. Scholastic Gold Key Portfolio - -Silver Gelatin Print - 8”X 10” - 200631. “S” - Scholastic Gold Key Portfolio -Silver Gelatin Print - 8”X 10” - 200632. “The Cycle” - Quadruple Silver Gelatin Print - 6” X 9” - 2006

COLLAGES//////////////

UNTITLED, MAGAZINE PIECES, ACRYLIC, INDIA INK - 2009

UNTITLED - MAGAZINE PIECES, ACRYLIC, INDIA INK -2009


UNTITLED - MAGAZINE PIECES, ACRYLIC, INDIA INK - 2009

KARA WALKER/FEAR\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Based on Kara Walker’s paper shilouette works, we were asked to create a work based on one of our own fears. I started with my nervousness in Over-The-Rhine, a low-income minority section of Cincinnati known for violence and drug trade. In the spirit of Walkers work, I decided that I would use racial stereotypes to address the sources of fear as well as the actual reason for fear; violence. Violence is central to both sides of urban fear, and I therefore made it central to my shilouette. This work was placed on a wall near UC’s DAAP Café.

Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the

clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become

one of the worthies of the world. I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of

two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. To be awake is to be alive. A man is rich in proportion to the number of

things which he can afford to let alone. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls. A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expres-

sive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns. I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confi-

dently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. However

mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves,

dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world. I have heard of a dog that barked at every stranger who approached his master's premises with

clothes on,but was easily quieted by a naked thief. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture,

but I had not made it worth anyone's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul

to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe. Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns. I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. There have been many stories told about the bottom, or rather no bottom, of this pond, which certainly had no foundation for themselves. It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it. As for the inlet or outlet of Walden, I have not yet discovered any but rain and snow and evaporation,

though perhaps, with a thermometer and a line, such places may be found. As for clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of

clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one

in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. The mass of men lead lives of quiet

desperation. Drive a nail home, and secure it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with

satisfaction. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. That man is the richest whose

pleasures are the cheapest. Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

Things do not change; we change. Goodness is the only

in-

HENRY DAVID THOUREAU

simplify simplify simplify

beware of all enterprises that require new clothes

things do not change;we change

the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation

as if you could kill time without injuring eternity

to be awake is to be alive

a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

while men believe in the infinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.

A SOLO PERFORMANCEPatricia Corbett Theater CCMJanuary 9-11th$10, $5 W/ COLLEGE ID, UC STUDENTS FREE

11X14 POSTER CREATED WITH ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR AND PHOTOSHOP FOR A FICTIONAL EVENT - 2008

THE BLACK MARIA\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Held at the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati, The Black Maria was a multi-class project held in conjunction with the CAC ‘s exhibition of Carlos Amorales show of ‘archived’ images. Each student was asked to write down eight sentences of a dream, and google image search each word from each sentence. Out of the results an image was picked for each word. Each sentence and it’s corresponding pictures were com-bined in Adobe Illustrator to create an abstracted visual representation of that sentence. Students printed forty copies of all eight pictures, spread them across two long tables, and then picked out other students pictures and compiled them randomly in a stapled book. The following works are my contribution to this project.

CHRISTOPHER D. THOMPSON------------

[email protected] 608 7373

CHRISTOPHER D THOMPSON - PORTFOLIO

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