Sandy Carson

Stoked to announce a split show with punk/folk artist/musician legend, Tim Kerr. April 3rd at Tin Whistle Gallery, ATX. 7-10pm

I'll be showing work from my BMX archives.( future book!?) Tim's Up Around The Sun will play a set at 8pm among his painted skate decks. Be there!

Wonder Wheels

© Sandy Carson

The 2019 Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austin, Texas

Corndogs, cowboy hats and cheerleaders are not what I remember about Formula 1 through as a wee boy’s distant memories of Scotland in the 70s and 80s. Back then It was just a fizzy drink, crisps from the ice cream van and sat glued to a black n white TV Screen watching Ayrton Senna and Jackie Stewart rule the tracks in less safe cars back then.

Fast forward a lifetime later and I’m asked to shoot the F1 Grand Prix in 2019 at the Circuit of Americas racetrack in Austin Texas, the only purpose-built track in the States to host F1 and motorsports.

The dream assignment;- be a fly on the wall and do a tour thing following the Haas F1 Team superstars as they prepped in the pits, raced, and mingled with fans in the grandstands. I’ve always meant to check out F1 in my adopted town of Austin but this was my opportunity, or way in to be nosey. I knew it’d be fun to document the F1 madness, especially on Halloween, the city’s biggest holiday where they like to ‘Keep Austin Weird’. I’ve been to COTA to shoot the X games and numerous big concerts and knew fully well this one would bring out all the weirdos and die hard sports fans flying their countries colours as well as their freak flags under one big loud white noise revving weekend.

The whole weekend at F1 was actually a pretty fascinating whirlwind and bizarrely stimulating to photograph, as a cast of extraordinary characters and an international mix of everyday fans and royalty melted together to take in F1 right before a Covid-19 lockdown shut it down for 2020.

Excited to take our bike packing short film, California Golde to the Admit One Analogue Film Showcase in Houston on July 21st hosted by FLATS & Houston Cinema Arts Society!

Tickets here -https://lnkd.in/gnzGF5rc use 'celluliod' for 50% off on checkout.

Happy New Year, y’all! 

Kicking off 2023 here with a magazine release party and rock show on January 21st at FLATS Houston, TX.

Thrilled to be featured in FLAT FILES Issue 3 release with work from my Passing Place book alongside Kristina Knipe and Bucky Miller. My wife Karen and I’s band SKLOSS are also playing the party with Houston’s Little Outfit. Should be a right good time.

Our animated short film about bmx legend Paul Buchanan and the church gap is now showing at the 2022 Bicycle Film Festival through April 24th.

We are super proud this was an official selection this year and stoked to be included. We hope you get a good laugh out of it as much as we did making it. 🎟🍿 Festival passes are here to see Paul shred and and all the other radical cycling films in this year’s program. Animated brilliantly by Taj mihelich and narrated by yers truly. Intro by James Shepherd, sound design by David Jack, sound bites/archives by Stew Johnson & Chris Rye. 🎸 By The Taj and Monty band.

My wife Karen and I’s new music project SKLOSS have a 7 inch on purple vinyl out today for pre-order and streaming wherever you stream. Hope y’all dig it! 

Cheers!

  Living in East Austin, Texas remains an experiment. As the city grows, the mysterious peripheries of the landscape collide with expansion. The roar of the expressway cuts nomads and wildlife off from the city, and it’s at this juncture where SKLOSS formed their expansive, cathartic sound. 

“Living next to the woods had something to do with it,” says SKLOSS guitarist Carson. SKLOSS, consisting of Carson and drummer Karen Skloss, is a two-piece guitar and drums outfit that began as a side project out of the duo’s marriage. At first, it was an escape from their everyday lives as creative professionals. But the COVID-19 pandemic changed their focus. 

“We started to use music as an outlet. Like most everyone during that time, we were so cooped up,” says Skloss. Jams became songs, while the noise level and experimentation went up. The sound of SKLOSS became a response to the crazy world just outside their window. And the living room became their practice space.

Then came a call from Volcom, asking SKLOSS to score a film to coincide with the release of a Featured Artist Series collaboration with multi-platform artist Thomas Hooper. “This project kicked our arse to get out of the living room and into the studio,” says Carson.

Recorded and mixed by Jason Morales (Tia Carrera) and mastered by Grammy Award winning producer Erik Wofford (Explosions in The Sky, My Morning Jacket) at Cacophony Recorders in East Austin, SKLOSS’ experimental takes are meditative and psyche-influenced, while retaining an atmospheric, unknowing quality that mirrors the eeriness of East Austin. 

Happy New Year y’all! Hope you are keeping well and safe out there.

Cary Benbow wrote a lovely review of Pretty Much to start the new year over at Yield magazine-the art mag at the University of Notre Dame. 

Enjoy, 

Announcing my new monograph -’PRETTY MUCH’ for pre-order and shipping mid September from Aint Bad-

Order here.

In his latest body of work, Sandy Carson turns his wry wit to cataloging the year 2020, an uncertain and unprecedented time where the world began navigating the ‘new normal.’

Brilliantly observed and utterly relatable, these photographs (amassed mostly during lockdown in Austin, Texas and entirely during the calendar year) observe and document family relationships, grief, protests, social issues, and everyday street life as Carson left home to exercise and escape for his own sanity by foot or on his bike. Curious pairings evoke the interconnectedness many of us felt.

On the street or just around the corner, a timeless, heartfelt, and absurdist lens joins with Sandy’s hopeful approach to storytelling, inviting the observer to take a deep breath, buckle up and hold on just a bit longer. It’s a gentle reminder that someday, these days will be worth remembering. Pretty much.

Title : Pretty Much

Text By: Chloe Juno