ausgang

Deborah's Grilled Cheese Collection
copyright Deborah Stratman

For years, Chicago artist Melinda Fries has devoted herself to curating and managing a collective website called ausgang, which my German mother told me means "exit" in German. Each season, Melinda proposes two new topics and welcomes submissions from artists and writers in response to these or previous topics, and so ausgang expands each winter, spring, summer and fall with more written and visual ideas including drawings, photographs, videos, lists, letters, and stories.

I have contributed some series of photos in response to topics such as guns and true crime and obsessions and things in the road, and have found the topics a helpful way to generate ideas for small and fun projects. On account of a spinning head from recent work obligations, I missed the dead-line to respond to the fall topics, animals and desire, which is too bad, because those are certainly favorite subjects of mine.

Pictured above is a collection of polaroids of grilled cheese sandwiches in American diners by Chicago film-maker, Deborah Stratman, which can be found in the archives of ausgang.

To view the Fall07 ausgang and find out more about submitting ideas, go to:

www.ausgang.com