Wednesday Edition: Mike Sinclair

One-foot-out-the-door Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! I feel like a kid on the last day of school, yes I do. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm heading north for the holiday weekend. What I didn't mention is that I'm going with a very loose interpretation of "weekend" and starting mine today. In theory, at least — there's an awful lot standing between me and the open road at the moment.

Trying to write about Fourth of July #2, Independence, Missouri isn't helping matters any — every time I look at this captivating image from one of our most recently anointed Hot Shots — the very talented midwesterner Mike Sinclair — I find myself slipping off into a daydream and losing track of the very important task at hand.

I had the same problem with Colin Blakely's similarly seasonal edition last year, although with an out-of-town weekend in the offing, I find myself flashing forwards while gazing at Mike's image, rather than back. In the hopes of staying focused on my most immediate future, I'm going to refer you to some of the fine writing that's been done elsewhere about Mike's work.

I'll start close to home with Youngna Park's recent Q&A with Mike, published shortly after we announced 2009's first five Hot Shots. Upon reading it, I was pleased to discover that Mike and I share similar blog-reading habits and found myself nodding in agreement with the sage words of advice offered by his wife: "You don't know what you don't know."

Sara Distin's thoughts on Mike's photography are out in the blogosphere too. She declared Mike the Jen Bekman Photographer of the Month over on Flavorwire. She does a great job of pinpointing what's so insightful about his work, writing that his photographs "contain the sort of deeply-centered observations that seep into the core of what it is to be an American, and eventually find their way out, tickling the skin with warm familiarity."

Traveling further afield to Mike's stomping grounds, I can point you towards a thoughtful review of his recent Kansas City exhibition, a series of images captured at public parks in urban areas. In At the Dolphin, Mike Sinclair sees a City Beautiful, Dana Self opens with some background on the origin of the show's title: "The City Beautiful movement — out of which modern urban planning emerged — engaged architects and municipal leaders in the beautification of industrial America at the turn of the 20th century."

As for my own contribution, I suggest you mosey on over to Personism for the latest installment of my Paired series, which matches Mike's photograph with The Motorcyclists, a poem by James Tate.

I've got my own engine to rev, so bye for now! (But not for long.)