Mark Takamichi Miller

 

About five years ago I bought an anonymous person's snapshots from Costco.  At that time you could go up and buy anyone's photos you liked.  I looked for ones that have been there a long time (2 months) and that had a double set of prints.  I went to my car and took the second set of prints out, which I kept.  I took the envelope with their negatives and first set of prints back to the racks so they could buy them.  I used the snapshots as a source for my paintings.  At first I had the intention of doing the paintings really quickly, taking snapshots of the paintings, and putting them back in the original photo envelope at Costco so the customer could have the photos of the paintings as their second set.  I started to do this but the CEO of Costco happened to see my paintings in a show and changed the procedure of submitting film for processing, so I was never able to get the snapshots of the paintings back to the customer.  I could still do my project when I visited a Costco far from the ones in the Seattle area, I did this once more on Maui.  Now all the Costco's have made this impossible, perhaps partly because of my influence.

  Feel free to ask me anything.  mmiller@whitelead.com

 

"1Hour Photo"  (from a roll taken in Seattle)

 

 

 

This is the first roll I took.  It turned out to be a child's birthday party.  Everything was in a Bug's Life theme, wrapping paper, tablecloth, even the cake.  This is the roll I meant to give back to people so they could see the paintings of their snapshots.  Costco changed the way you submit photos around here and I was never able to show them to the family.  These are all 16"x20".

"Taken"  (from a roll taken in Maui)

      

Three-Friends//Two-Friends-Outside/Two-Couples-with-Balloon/Prom-Queen/Moving-Couple/Backlit-Couple

 

 

  couple-moving.jpg (769280 bytes)   

Couple-Turning/Formal-Couple-Outdoors/Conversation-with-Sign/Prom-Queen-Horizontal

This is a roll I got from the Maui Costco.  I love going to Costco, so no matter where I am I try to go to the local Costco and see how it differs from the Costcos in my area.  So as soon as my plane landed in Maui I dragged my wife and kid to Costco.  They had some neat local specialties there.  On my way out I bought this roll of pictures which turned out to be a nice high school prom.  It was interesting because it was just like proms everywhere.   The only difference was the men wear the flowers.  These are all 60"x72".

 

"Zion"  (from a roll found in Zion National Park)

                        

I went hiking by myself in Zion Canyon.  I was camping a lot and pretty grungy so I did not feel comfortable going to the Costcos around there and getting pictures. After hiking I was just lying on this rock looking up at a waterfall.  Everybody else left as it was getting dark.  I laid there a while more enjoying the view.  When I got up to leave I noticed that someone had left a roll of undeveloped film right next to me.  I wish I knew who those people are because these are the best paintings yet.  They are painted really thick with oil on unprimed canvas.  This is an idea I got from a guy named Colin in Phoenix.  I hope he doesn't mind that I used his idea.  These canvases are all 60"x40".

JEMA   (a portable museum)

 

         

A friend in Florida, Sean Miller, built this Museum in a box.  He asked me to make a show for it.  JEMA is the name of the museum.  This work was different as  I ignored the composition in the photos and just picked out the faces.  They became more sculptural.  Someone who worked at a photo development chain gave me a huge garbage bag full of negatives that people never picked up.  This was lucky since I can't get pictures from Costco anymore.  The process is less random now because I can pick and choose from thousands of pictures.  Also I am not using the photographer's composition.  For some reason these things that were so important to me don't really seem to matter anymore.

This picture is from our reception for the show which we held in the parking lot at Costco.  It was fun until the manager came out and told us to leave.  This is the show that the "Interview" blog entry is from. 

"Evicted" (from roll found in a dumpster along with a household's possessions)

A man named Paul gave me this roll of film.  He found it in a dumpster along with a whole household full of belongings.  He said this often happens in his neighborhood after a forced eviction.  These were the last pictures these people took before the disruption.  They were painted on glass and let dry and then scraped off to hang on the wall without any canvas.  In the larger ones there is a hidden piece of wood imbedded  to add stiffness. They are pure oil paint without any additives.  The paintings in the top row range from 6" to 20".  The ones on the bottom are done from the index prints and are 2.5". 

"Granpacop" (from a roll found on Yahoo)

 granpacop on duty.jpg (571645 bytes) granpacop head down.jpg (684473 bytes)  granpacop-with-hat.jpg (445920 bytes)  granpacop seated portrait with inset.jpg (584674 bytes)

This series is called "Granpacop" because that was the subject's Yahoo user name.  I mistyped a URL and ended up in Yahoo photos with this retired NY policeman's personal photos.  I was able to order prints of them from Yahoo and have them sent to me.  They were very sad pictures as this guy was clearly alone.  He would take self portraits at the kitchen table in his big empty upstate house.  When people see the pictures of him they usually ask if he is a cop.  You can just tell.  When I finally got around to painting these I started to feel as though he was dead by now.  His user name no longer exists, but I put him back up on Yahoo under "Granpacop1".  It is open to anyone at:  http://new.photos.yahoo.com/granpacop1/albums
"Abandoned" (from a roll abandoned at a film development kiosk)

man_with_glasses.jpg (273041 bytes) man_with_glasses_2.jpg (261659 bytes) man-with-mustache-1.jpg (239291 bytes) man_with_mustache_2.jpg (259165 bytes) smiling_man.jpg.jpg (219908 bytes) smiling_man _2.jpg (257312 bytes) woman.jpg (325107 bytes)girl.jpg (252658 bytes) grandma.jpg (285019 bytes) man-with-mustache-3.jpg (453890 bytes) grandma-2.jpg (440605 bytes) woman_in_halter_top.jpg (408714 bytes) girl closeup.jpg (443765 bytes)

This series is in progress.   I think I am going to call it "Abandoned" since the photos were abandoned at a photo development store that eventually went out of business.  I got all the negatives that people had left there over the years from a student of mine who worked at the place.  The shots on this roll are actually the best photos I have ever used in terms of composition, lighting, and spontaneity of the subject.  I didn't want to paint them for a long time based on that.  They didn't really need me to make them any better, they were already good.  I don't know why I eventually gave in.  It really was a relief to look at them though, after some of the others.  These are all 72"x48".