TED PASSON
I never really planned the pictures more than a minute or two before I took them, but I found myself planning the settings very carefully and thinking about who I knew and where they would be at what time. Philly for me is a mix of amazing people and architecture so I just thought about some people I love and places I like and did my best to snap some pictures of them when I was around them.
Thinking back, the whole thing was kind of dumb and I have to out myself for getting way over my head with it. My friend Jesse Goldstein and I sometimes talk about what he calls the “artist genius” misconception and about how this capitalist-esque myth of singular genius threatens so much artwork and shuts down so many artists. I had to admit that I was totally letting myself get swallowed up in it. Even when I was conscious of it, it was still hard not to buy into this expectation that I had to create these “perfect” images. There is a huge danger of taking the ability to fail out of artwork. Ironically that’s a big part of what it means to be in Philadelphia so it’s funny that I would have such a hard time remembering it
Philadelphia as a city carries an amazing underdog complex and it transcends into the art scene, albeit in a much more positive way. The people in Philly that I am lucky enough to surround myself with are not afraid of failing. Their goal is simply to make something for the love of it and if it doesn’t come out the way you want it to you simply do it over and laugh at yourself and do it better next time. It’s not about getting stuck but moving forward. My friend Ben often talks about the values of skateboarding in art making and how it skating teaches you that failure is just going to happen so there’s no point in getting upset when it does. This purity of vision is what attracts me to these people and this city in the first place and this show became a valuable reminder of that.
Selected Prints (click to enlarge):
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