Making Superheroes

In class

Sum of the Weekend

 Saturday Night 9-28

Do we look smart? 9-29

Chapter 7 Cotton

 The title of the chapter "Revived and Remade" sums up the entire chapter well.  Cotton discusses photographers who use iconic symbols, characters, and techniques to transform contemporary art.  The first section is devoted to artists like Yasumasa Morimura who take on character persona's that are recognizable by society.  Morimura is easily recognizable as people like Van Gough, though a viewer would likely not recognize Morimura over Van Gough in the image.  Other artists recreate popular images in order to question choices made by the original artists.  Collier Schorr's work interested me in the way that the work was presented.  It showed the original 'iconic image' alongside Schorr's work bringing and outside viewer into the process of the other artist.  It openly questioned the intimate relationship Wyeth (the original artist) had with the models.  The rest of the chapter focused on technique revival and renewal, going back to the most basic technique, photogram.

Susan Sontag on Photography

Sontag's article "On Photography"  discusses how photography has changed over time.  She says that today photography is "the knowledge people have about the look of the past and the reach of the present".  I was really interested in her discussion on early photography as a surveillance tool that showed, during the early years of photography (1870's all the way into the 20th century), images were incontrovertible truth.  Where most art shows an interpretation of the truth, photography blurs the line between truth and art.  She separates photography from painting for its ability to capture such large scale as well as large numbers of people, however she does go on to explain the ways that photography has turned into an everyday hobby like other art forms.  Though she clearly states that photography is an easy way of expierencing, "A photograph is not just the result of an encounter between an event and a photographer" but an event itself.  I think that is one of the biggest developments in photography, the ability to accept photos as not just capturing a moment, but actually being the reason for the moment.  To me that seemed to read as one of the reasons photography is now taken as an art form.

Open Space

Color Ring Around

 

Option 2

One of the shots from my photo shoot with Thunderbolt and Rusto for the project.  I really liked how it turned out.

Inside Out

Weekend Upload

 9-21 Laid Back Kinda Night

9-22 Watch out They'll Getcha

View from the Box

Molding Agent

Portrait Proposal

It has taken a while for me to figure out what I want to do with this project.  I think it's really hard to choose what parts of yourself you want to depict; it's often much easier to portray another because you show what you see.  Obviously knowing myself so well I'm struggling most with filtering through ideas.  I think for the 'non self portrait' I want to work with images that involve a focal point that maybe isn't on screen.  I want to show levels and layers in the image that are ambiguous of the idea that maybe the surface isn't all there is to me.  One example is of an image I took recently of a horse I work with showing down his neck across his back but not including his face.  For the portrait image I want to look at my hands specifically.  Being an artist I obviously use my hands a lot between making work and writing.  I also believe fully in the idea that your hands can speak as much as your mouth or show as much emotion as your eyes.  When I work with horses my hands are a tool that speaks a language with them that maybe doesn't always make sense in words.  I can convey to a horse what my emotions and intent are without having to use my voice.  I think these ideas connect together through not necessarily showing my face but still discussing my voice.

Collection from the week of Friday the 13th

 Moving In 9-10  This is my studio for the year, lots of space!

 

Archery 101... Line your feet up like you are playing golf. 9- 13

 Believe.  I love seeing military support around the town on people's car.  Ironically this sticker is on a Jeep Patriot. 9-15

Chapter 1

This chapter focuses on staged or posed photography.  I liked how in the whole chapter emphasized that the subject of a staged photograph is commonly a person.  However no matter the subject or set up there is always a single focal point, meaning that the extensive and elaborate work that goes into a staged photograph (from a complete set to a art performance) there is only one 'object' the viewer is supposed to focus on.  A lot of the images in the chapter show close ups or distorted images that highlight the figure at the center.  However I was intrigued by Shizuka Yokomizo's 'Stranger'.  I was particularly interested in the fact that the person is standing in the middle ground and even through the glass we are supposed to focus on them; yet there is a barrier that blocks the viewer from connecting with the person and from the person connecting with the viewer.  The glass that separates us did not separate Yokomizo, she was the one who asked the person to stand there and has thus broken the barrier.

Looking through Movement

The chapter "Practices of Looking" discusses the idea of image and different definitions of image.  It starts with a short discussion on the difference between seeing and looking.  I think as an artist this is a very important concept, to really study your surroundings and the images you are creating.  I really liked how the chapter connected the idea of representation to ideology in images.  The author discussed the idea that an image we create is a reflection or representation of not only what we look at but of our cultural, political, and economic surroundings an upbringing.  Meaning that we are conditioned to view certain images in one way or another, giving a sense of power to an image.  For example to cropped almost posed images used on the news to instill fear or worry over an accident, or how we automatically associate a head shot with personal identification whether it be a drivers license or a mug shot. I was interested especially in the section on ideology that the focus was only on American ideology, focusing on racial issues in image.  Where obviously images can easily become very controversial in America, I think arguments should have been made using comparison to other cultural ideologies.

In the Grandstand

Saw Thompson Square play Monday night at the Wayne Co. Fair.  They are one of my favorite music groups, a lil bit of rock n roll and a whole lot of country!  I also love their relationship, they make such a great group because they let their marriage drive the partnership.

Neon

One of the images I was editing for the project.  I ended up not having a place for it, so thought I'd post it for a daily image.

Bluebird

Digital Capture

This project definitely challenged me.  I tried to use some complicated compositions and use the elements for this project at the same time.  In attempting this I found it hard to fully understand what each part of the project asked for, and what I wanted to achieve in the images.

 Harmonic Color-  I chose this image because it blended the tones from the cows skin well with the darker walls and hay in the foreground.  I had a little trouble dimming the blue of the divider out but felt it was a necessary part of the composition.

  Isolated Color- This image was probably the hardest for me.  I felt I was forcing the composition of the other attempts I made for this part of the project.  I shot this as just an extra image but liked the color connection between the sheep's blanket and boys shirt.

Dominant Color- I again struggled in creating an image that had a singular color pop.  I did however like how the red and yellow on the 'crown piece' and sleigh really pushed into the foreground.

 Other Image- I originally wanted to use this for Isolated Color, however I am still learning about editing.  I could not get the color on the halter and lead rope to pop quite as much as I wanted.

Spicy boy

Working with Rustto today.  He is very sensitive, the top photo was as my trainer was trying to kill the deer fly that is buzzing past her shirt while a crabby little boy is getting pissed.  The bottom photo is my trainer calming him down after he jumped all four feet off the ground when she smacked the fly, total mood change in spicy boy Rustto.

Surroundings

I try to be a quick learner, but it is seemingly taking me a while to grasp onto photo editing.  Reading about the different programs in Adobe was helpful.  We will mainly be using Photoshop, Lightroom, and Bridge for the class; so quite obviously it is important to understand what each program does.  Very obviously Adobe Bridge is a 'bridge', it is an easy way to link work between Adobe's many 'creative suite' programs.  It means that one can easily move through their work digitally, going onto other programs like Flash and Dreamweaver as well.  However the program is limited to files that can be directly accessed from your computer, meaning if they are on a usb drive or disc the drive must be connected.  Lightroom can do the opposite.  This program allows the user to 'import' an image and work on the program with out having the image physically copied or moved onto your computer. The program also was built by photographers for photographers and is focused on the digital needs of a photographer.  It takes away the complexity in Bridge and focuses on critical photographic elements.

New Ideas

"I want to walk away feeling like I had a human experience.  I demand that from art."-Keith Carter

 "Last Kiss" is by Adam Martinakis, a recent artist interest of mine.  I am captured by his focus on the human subject as well as his imaging techniques.  I really love this piece because of its raw emotion that is exuded through these unknown figures that lack eyes, the part of the body that many would say exude the most emotion.  I want to be able to bring that much emotion to my own pieces, with as much elegance as Martinakis does.  The rather simplistic composition is filled with extreme complexity that doesn't overpower the piece.  This is a problem I struggle with, giving as much detail as I want in a piece without making it too complex or messy because there is so much going on. 

http://adamakis.blogspot.com/

  

 "Two Men Dancing" is by the famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.  I have always been fascinated as well as intimidated by Mapplethorpe.  His work pushes so many boundaries even today, in such ways that I would be afraid to.  Just like Martinakis I really like the simplicity of the composition, and the complexity in the subject matter.  The emotion you can tell comes from Mapplethorpe as much as from the two mean and the final image.  You can really tell there is the artist's emotion and artistic force behind the piece.  That is what I want for my own work.  While I want it to stand on it's own without me behind it, I want my audience to be able to tell that I am driving the work.

http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2013/02/the-man-podcast-robert-mapplethorpes-xyz/

Old Work

 

 
This piece is not my most recent, it's from fall of 2012, but I chose it very specifically.  It unintentionally turned into one of my most openly emotional pieces.  As an artist I put a lot of myself emotionally into my work but often it seems I hide behind the work rather than exuding the emotion through the piece. 
I created this shortly after going to my boyfriend's Naval Recruit Training Command (basic) graduation.  The extreme amount of pride I had for him and his accomplishments I felt being at the event, and my love for my man in uniform went on to drive the piece.
Originally I titled the piece "To be", it has since been untitled. 
I wanted to create a series about the military, specifically, about the uniformity and discipline that is the same across all branches.  However it did not want to just create a bunch of the same object, I wanted my audience to remember that each member of military is different, and regardless of the uniforms or marching they are still individual.  I really liked the symbolism of the boot, because every branch of the military wears them and they represent marching.  Obviously because it is also a well recognized symbol.  The boots were created by pouring beeswax into a mold.  To personalize this piece more I used my family’s raw beeswax the still had impurities like pollen mixed in.  I also used different methods of pouring the boots creating different end results for each boot.  Pushing the piece further I added in army men figurines by either placing them within the hardened boots or melting them in with the wax.  I melted some of the boots down with mixed results (army men don’t melt, they burn).  At each step I tried not to force the piece to much but let things flow from one idea to the next.  I really feel it opened the piece up and myself as an artist.
Next I wanted the presentation to be extremely uniform: each boot was placed a boot length apart from left to right and a boot width apart front to back.  This allowed for 15 total boots.  During the presentation there were many different reactions.  Hearing how it moved people, and hauntingly reminded them of military cemeteries was such a good experience.  I also was contacted by a parent after they toured Wooster, who said they could not get the piece out of their minds.  It was everything I want from my art is to individually move people to feel something.

Sunday Morning Truck Stop

Part of this class is actual work rather than just creation and exploration.  We are reading Charlotte Cotton's "The Photograph as Contemporary Art", this time the introduction.  I was expecting some boring background about why the book was written, instead my eyes were opened more the the medium of photography.  Obviously there was sections about each chapter's purpose, however there was more focus on background of photography.  There were two points in the intro that really caught me, the first quote was from page 7, "Throughout the history of photography there have always been promoters of the medium".  It was intriguing to me that Cotton used the word promoter to describe photography, because in the past photography was often used to promote art.  Just as the introduction explains photography is still coming up in the world as an high art form in the gallery world.  Cotton states "This introduction also acknowledges the decision to minimize the space given to the work of earlier photographers who helped establish photography as an art form.".  The rest of the introduction gave a brief background of photography with a good understanding that the focus of the book is on photography now and the medium's movement towards the future of art.