found slide


my slide



"to collect photographs is to collect the world. movies and television programs light up walls, flicker, and go out; with still photographs the image is also an object, light weight, cheap to produce, easy to carry about, accumulate, store."
~susan sontag, "America, Seen through Photographs Darkly"

"time positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art."
~ sontag

these statements create a relevant insight into some of the ideas presented in my own work.
the more i read and re-read, the more i find these connections.
it is true in my own perspective; if i find an old photograph, whose original intention most likely
was not to be "art", its antiquated state that exists in the present makes it, for me, art-worthy.
of course this is problematic. this notion automatically places such images then in the
negative connotation of "instant art"...........although, if used for a good reason, maybe not.

my slide show (to be shown tuesday) is as of right now a collection, a hodge podge, a catharsis of my
creative subconscious
fragmented and scattered visual representation of inspiration to my thought processes
and artistic style.
after viewing the slides over and over again, i realize that there is something about
the spaces in between slides, the ones where nothing but a white rectangle of light is projected.
here is where memories are fabricated, lost, blurred........
collective vs selective memory
short-term memory loss.....

miss annie

petersburg


my nellie appropriation








miss annie lives in the historic district of petersburg, on what seems a quiet little road (although apparently is not at all far from a more dangerous part of town) in a tiny little house which has been her place of residence for about 60 of her 81 years on this earth. we pulled up in front of her house last tuesday afternoon, i became excited at the sight of her porch covered with potted plants. i knew that what i would see inside might mean more to me than what it would to andre; to him it was just his grandma's little house, the same one he had visited with her in since he was small. he was also not looking forward to seeing the man he called "his brother's father" , aka "shady", miss annie's 55 year old son and my own son's grandfather. i had met miss annie before, although she did not remember my name or that me and andre's baby was a boy. nonetheless she was very excited to see us. i entered the dim living room, and first noticed a soap opera droning quietly of the tv, then all the photos all over the wood paneled walls. i stood with miles in my arms and admired them, especially the ones that had faded out to a reddish tint, the people in them bearing afros and flower patterned button up shirts. this is the stuff i was looking for. i was left in there alone for a minute, and then a skinny robe clad old man stumbles in the room and with a raspy voice asks if that was the little guy. i said " yep! here he is. this is baby miles" unintentionally speaking as if to a child or a person who couldnt understand english very well. "so this is the man whose sperm created andre" i thought to myself. shady. shady whose father was grady. shady who made little shady, who didnt even care to tell old shady that a little shade tree was born. that would be my little miles, whom miss annie pronounced loudly "mile!" emphasis on the i, the s dropped off completely. miss annie told me about how all the people in the photographs, forgetting many of the names. i caught a glimpse of several polaroids which i think i will wait till next visit to inquire about. i took the opportunity to get my own photographs of shady and little shady together, and miss annie and miles . i even got a picture of miss annie eating chicken, which i am sure i wont show her, and im sure i may be accused of perpetuating a stereotype, but it was just for myself. i had to hold back from laughing when i heard "momma, give me some money so i can go get somethin to eat!" which sounded so all too familiar .............. little shady and old shady are almost painfully similar in more ways than one. but old shady had to ask for money from his momma because she has to keep his own from him to keep him from buying crack. little shady only asks because he is broke........
miss annie told me i better bring her some pictures to add to her collection so i will be back.

myself as the "art critic"

i have probably chosen the most absurdly difficult fellow student to critique/articulate/analyze, but for whatever reason his makes sense in a nonsensical way.
matt harvey's work to me is a visual representation of the human brain. matt himself compared his concept to the endless universe of the internet; i see the validity of this notion in how one link leads to another and another, how one page is a subcategory to a larger site, how some pages are "not found"....... in this i relate to the empty voids in one photograph, that then in turn contrasts to a hole that is filled in another (as if something was taken from one spot and put into the next) , or how one stone thrown into the pond (or a click of a mouse) sets off a series of ripples..........
and then i also see it as representative of the interworkings of our own thought processes. its like when you begin thinking about how you need to feed your cat and then think about buying trashbags (for the litterbox) and then think about visiting your friend who lives a block from the grocery store......then you go back to your cat and decide to brush his hair, to then realize you need to clean the hair out of your tub drain....... the cycle , recycle, and even dead ends go on and on.

maybe this did not explain anything at all. yet i almost think that is ultimately the point of matt harvey's work........

determining factors

a close friend of mine asked for advice on two guys she was seeing. she wanted to know which one seemed like the better choice. one, she said, may be a heroin addict, is 30 yrs old, and lives with his mom. the other is 21, lives on his own, and has a photograph of himself with his hand in the air, a little mustache drawn above his lip and the accompanying quote states " sieg heil 4life" (as a "joke") , and this tatoo that he got for free (also a "joke");



yes, it does say "white power" in the cloud , and there is a swastika on the unicorn.
(and i used to enjoy unicorns........)
weighing the options, hmmmm. that is a tough one.
apparently the "nazi" as even she has come to refer to him as, is better in bed.
i told her to paint herself brown and see if he would still have sex with her.
and then i thought about it; what a disturbing series of photographs that would make.
just in general, what if self-proclaimed or even closet racists were forced to engage in any intimate situation with the "other" , what resulting portraits would come out of it?
the tension makes me shudder. better yet what if you put a member of kkk and a black person in a photo booth together (if they did not kill eachother first....) 0r a bible thumping holy roller in a photo booth with a gay person? the notion of pushing comfort levels is a concept artists have toyed with for decades; vito acconci's "seedbed" performance piece comes to mind..... or paul macarthy and his vomiting with his genitals exposed......
yet the boundaries of predjudices is something i have not yet seen much of, for how possible is it to make a person so uncomfortable, perhaps to the point of aggression, and then take their photograph?

boltanski

"i thinkwe all have somebody who is dead inside of us. A dead child. I remember the little Christian who is dead inside of me"
~~these are the words spoken by the artist christian boltanski that are so relevant to me and my own work........ In my most recent body of work, i deal with my own childhood, through representations, like glimmers, of collected images. my photographic endeavors aspire to re- present, as boltanski does in so many of his photographs, something from the past and bring it into the present. A series of photographs that i select appear, as in a dream that jumps from one scene to the next, like a flashback of my past. it is as if i wish to live and photograph through my younger self......
contrary to many of boltanski's works though, my presentation is more arbitrary. there is no real single mood or emotion seen in the cluster of photographs, no organization. boltanski uses photographs in a theartrical way to evoke emotion; his installations draw on pathos in a universal manner. the images of the children of the holocaust for example, illuminated by strings of light bulbs, serve as a memorial to the ghosts of the children. the term "momento mori" has often been used to describe his work, which immediately creates an air of sadness for me without even having to look at the work. by contrast, my work is really only sad for me because i am no longer that person who originally took those photographs.
(to be continued.....)

brightly colored backpacks

Driving to class the other night i intently listened to NPR radio. i caught the end of an interview/story on citizenship and education in our country....

A man had come to our country to work to support his family. He worked hard and sent the money home, while he lived alone near his job. He dreamt of higher education. Upon completing high school level education and applying to colleges, he was accepted to a couple. Yet the system stood in his way. Although he was a legal citizen and had all his papers, there was some red tape bullshit about his visa being processed, which would end up taking a few years, and would prevent him from receiving any financial aid. A vision of loneliness was painted in my mind at hearing his tale; he so wanted to better himself. but setting an example for his children and gaining financial opportunity was a dream so close but so far. the interviewer described how everyday the man worked at the top of a tall building right next to a community college, and how he watched the students walking around campus with their brightly colored backpacks.........

i envisioned the backpack as a symbol of education, and began to think about how much some people take it for granted. as i wait for my own school monies to come in, and think about this semester and the one to follow (which will be my last) i wonder what will become of me. life throws so many obstacles that may be seen as a hinderance, may make you want to give up, or may make you try harder. right now my biggest obstacle is living off of campus, not always having a babysitter but constantly needing to get to the internet. and of course being poor is a given. i just cant wait to get my film in the mail, so i can begin shooting more and taking out my frustration through my camera. though i sometimes feel uninspired, unmotivated or disheartened (is that a word??), i am so grateful to have my "brightly colored backpack".

all this writing is now making me feel inspired............

my projections

One of these photographs is my own personal favorite, and the other is the one perceived as the most successful ( by a small responsive audience).
The girl under the tree was received as something no longer a photograph. Its lack of edges within its square frame ( as compared to some of the other images where the sharp lines of the projected slide can be seen) seemed to create a closed world sense of viewing. I believe also that its straight on composition drew some viewers in more so than those in the series which were shot more at an angle. Other viewers still, enjoyed the fact that some images appeared to be lit from behind, as if by a tv, and the sharp lines of the projection added to that.

The other image is one of the original few that initially inspired the whole project. For me, it is a feeling that i get from a photo that leads me to choose it. More than that feeling of nostalgia, (which of course is difficult to relate to viewers being that my memories are not personal to them) it is the light and shadow that is painted, the ambiguity, and the mystery.

i intend to further distinguish specific feelings through groupings of images, and to do so by looking within each individual image for that particular emotion.

photo diary

washing the dishes this evening
(miles is in his swing looking at me and pooping while i write this)
i see out the window a leafy weed creating a shadow on the brick wall of the garage, as if someone had put a spotlight on in.
(miles is getting angry now)
i thought about taking a picture of it and washed a couple more dishes .
when i looked up again the shadow was gone. 6:43. the sun moved in just a few minutes.

following this missed photo-op , i realized the recurring theme in my work; action and reaction. had i taken that photograph, i probably would have titled it "washing the dishes". it is not often anymore that i go looking for something to photograph, but instead that i am engaged in one activity and become incited to take a picture, that may or may not have anything to do with what i was initially doing.

this is essentially the premise of my photo diary project, which i began last january when i died some sheer curtains "mint green" and they came out turquois. this action became symbolic of what i thought of as "the beginning of my domestication," and so i took a picture of the stains of dye on a sheet to commemorate the occurrence .

aside from the project i already intend to continue in senior portfolio(which is something quite different), i would also like to keep "photo diary-ing" perhaps here in the blog. where as before i hand wrote little notes to go with each image, maybe i will update my methods to the include the internet.