Jordan Swartz-The Rad Times #17

I had a very full circle moment the other night. My friend Tyler Burkhart played at a local venue and even though we’ve been friends since we were 15, I’ve never had the chance to see him live. In high school he was always talented, he played music and painted, but rarely shared any of it (one of those paintings is framed and in my house to this day.) He’s been continuously releasing music for well over a decade now, not with any rhyme or reason, but when he sees fit. We have talked a lot about art, expectations, and who it is all for, and he has such a calm approach and view of it all. But he played the other night and I went to see and we sat and watched and listened as Tyler beautifully finger picked through a handful of songs. He’s a caring and thoughtful person and it’s apparent in his music. His lyrics described scenes that I could picture vividly because they were my memories too, from almost 20 years ago. It hit me in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. He finished abruptly and with some crowd urging, he played another song called Rachel, that I’ve had on repeat since. When it finished I talked to his wife and him in the lobby and it all felt so rewarding. He’s so formative to who I am as a person and to see him make his art some 20 years on in a space of mutual and new friends and his wife and family, it was a truly heart warming experience. Seeing my friends succeed is one of the true joys in my life. Support your friends in whatever they do; frame their art, read their books, eat their food, just support their endeavors whatever those may be.

Thanks for hanging!
Be good to each other.

Photographed between 2015 and 2022, Maen Hammad’s “Landing,” documents the life of Palestinian skateboarders in the occupied West Bank. It offers a window into a form of resistance against a decades long oppressive occupier, obviously reading even more powerful in current times. The book beautifully merges text and photo and is really well designed. Forever and always, Free Palestine.

I enjoy Pavement but I never fully tapped into them the way some of my friends have, but I love music documentaries and this one especially peaked my interest. I’d heard some interviews with the director, Alex Ross Perry, talking about playing with the form of the traditional rock documentary and to say he did so is an understatement. Fusing archival footage, reunion practices, an off broadway musical, a fake (real?) museum, and a more traditional rock biopic; Perry weaves a layered story of a very layered band. Easily one of my favorite documentaries of all time.

I first watched the 1962 French film La Jetée in a college photo class where the goal was to see photography outside of it’s normal parameters. Showing us what else we may be able to do and say with still images, a topic I explored extensively in undergrad; straight framed photos on a wall has never been my go to. I rewatched it recently and was struck by how successful it really is. In college I had enjoyed it, but in the intervening 15ish years I have become enamored with movies, watching hundreds a year and learning more about form, techniques, and the overall process. Though being comprised of still photos, the movement in this is propulsive, with some scenes still feeling like a traditional moving film.

In high school we would have wiki-races, as they came to be known, in the library. One person would pick two seemingly disparate topics (people, place, or thing) and everyone else would race to see who could connect the two topics the fastest, by only clicking on blue links. So as clickbaity as they are, article titles like the above still hold a special place in my heart. I thought there’s no way this is true, lo and behold, they’re not totally wrong. The article delves into the building of communities both on and offline, as well as a time when computing was the counterculture.

I had the chance to do the identity and some collateral for an adult summer camp called Camp Friendship.

I’m wrapping up a few bigger projects that I can hopefully share soon.

In the mean time, I’m moving across the country next month and I have a bunch of paintings for sale that I’d love to see go to some good homes, as well as a few prints still available.

I’m currently working on a zine for a new photo series called Salt From the Sea, some of those photos can be seen on my website.