- finish portfolio for study abroad application
- finish essay for study abroad application
- go to the library
- check out D90 & shoot for exquisite corpse video assignment
- feed the cats
- 12noon: be in Frank's video
(this is also written in my notebook.)
(i better do it all.)
28 February, 2010
23 February, 2010
last wednesday's class...
i showed prints last week in class.
i asked the class whether the prints just looked like Man Ray imitations, or if my goal of creating my own images that were simply inspired by his work was showing through. Austin felt that they just looked like imitations; he said this was partially due to the fact that the pose of the figure in the image i printed was so similar to Man Ray's Minotaur....
Minotaur is one of Man Ray's most famous images, published in the Minotaur magazine. of course i was aware of the similarity in poses; for all of the images i shot i had Man Ray's poses and abstractions of the body in mind...
when i was shooting i took long exposures with one hit of the strobe; i was thinking of what i did for the first assignment last semester;
i was "painting with light" using my body. i thought the same method would be a useful way to convey my visual idea of surrealism.
i thought perhaps that would visually separate my images from Man Ray's.
perhaps when i print another of the images i shot, the differences will be more evident.
one of the things i'm trying to do with this project is discover what defines my images. i want to see how i react to the inspirations of artists and movements of the past. so far it seems i am unsuccessful... but this is the first image i have printed.
another thing that was brought up in class was the fact that these are nude, female self portraits.
this relates directly to a quote i read in Aperture about Carrie Mae Weems' "Not Manet's Type"
(this is just one image from the piece, and only a portion of the text... i am unable to find the rest online, unfortunately)
"...She purposefully casts herself as the object of the male gaze, and then shapes scenarios that overturn that role. One could speculate that these masters' often distorted images of women reflect a fear of the feminine; if this is the case, then Weems takes that threat a step further. In this series the black womam's body is seductive but also willful and independent - and it is the female artist who is putting herself on display. Not Manet's Type explores the dilemma of the modern woman who wishes to be desired, yet not to be created in the image of a male-generated reality."
... which made me think of chapter 4 of Ways of Seeing (which, if you haven't read, come on. read it already), which was all about the female nude in art, how women are always being observed by men, and because of that we always see ourselves as we would be seen by others.
my response, so far, however, is that i don't know how i feel about that, or why i use myself in my images (my excuse has always been that i'm the best model i know... but that's just because i don't have to explain to myself what i want)
i was fortunate last Wednesday night to have Fatimah Tuggar in my expanded cinema practice class. when critiquing the video i showed, she brought up feminism (i would have to go in to too much detail about the video to explain what was going on, and this is already a long post, so we'll just leave it at "she brought up feminism"..) and told me that because i am a female artist, that fact will always be a part of critiques of my work.
And who am i to say that it doesn't have something to do with feminism? certainly i have been influenced by the world around me, and i AM female, and these ARE nude photographs of me, not only taken by a female artist but by me, of me.
just things to think about.
things suggested for me to look in to:
"Woman House"
Lucy Lippard
Cara Lee Sheeman
Sherri Lavine
(i think i have the spelling wrong on the last two)
that was a very long post, i hope you read it all, (or at least enjoyed the images,) thanks if you did.
i asked the class whether the prints just looked like Man Ray imitations, or if my goal of creating my own images that were simply inspired by his work was showing through. Austin felt that they just looked like imitations; he said this was partially due to the fact that the pose of the figure in the image i printed was so similar to Man Ray's Minotaur....
Minotaur is one of Man Ray's most famous images, published in the Minotaur magazine. of course i was aware of the similarity in poses; for all of the images i shot i had Man Ray's poses and abstractions of the body in mind...
when i was shooting i took long exposures with one hit of the strobe; i was thinking of what i did for the first assignment last semester;
i was "painting with light" using my body. i thought the same method would be a useful way to convey my visual idea of surrealism.
i thought perhaps that would visually separate my images from Man Ray's.
perhaps when i print another of the images i shot, the differences will be more evident.
one of the things i'm trying to do with this project is discover what defines my images. i want to see how i react to the inspirations of artists and movements of the past. so far it seems i am unsuccessful... but this is the first image i have printed.
another thing that was brought up in class was the fact that these are nude, female self portraits.
this relates directly to a quote i read in Aperture about Carrie Mae Weems' "Not Manet's Type"
(this is just one image from the piece, and only a portion of the text... i am unable to find the rest online, unfortunately)
"...She purposefully casts herself as the object of the male gaze, and then shapes scenarios that overturn that role. One could speculate that these masters' often distorted images of women reflect a fear of the feminine; if this is the case, then Weems takes that threat a step further. In this series the black womam's body is seductive but also willful and independent - and it is the female artist who is putting herself on display. Not Manet's Type explores the dilemma of the modern woman who wishes to be desired, yet not to be created in the image of a male-generated reality."
... which made me think of chapter 4 of Ways of Seeing (which, if you haven't read, come on. read it already), which was all about the female nude in art, how women are always being observed by men, and because of that we always see ourselves as we would be seen by others.
my response, so far, however, is that i don't know how i feel about that, or why i use myself in my images (my excuse has always been that i'm the best model i know... but that's just because i don't have to explain to myself what i want)
i was fortunate last Wednesday night to have Fatimah Tuggar in my expanded cinema practice class. when critiquing the video i showed, she brought up feminism (i would have to go in to too much detail about the video to explain what was going on, and this is already a long post, so we'll just leave it at "she brought up feminism"..) and told me that because i am a female artist, that fact will always be a part of critiques of my work.
And who am i to say that it doesn't have something to do with feminism? certainly i have been influenced by the world around me, and i AM female, and these ARE nude photographs of me, not only taken by a female artist but by me, of me.
just things to think about.
things suggested for me to look in to:
"Woman House"
Lucy Lippard
Cara Lee Sheeman
Sherri Lavine
(i think i have the spelling wrong on the last two)
that was a very long post, i hope you read it all, (or at least enjoyed the images,) thanks if you did.
daily lydia
i used to have a million pictures of myself on my macbook pro. but she was stolen from me.
cory has been taking a photobooth picture of herself every day since she got hers.
i just got a new one, and i'm going to do that too.
it's mostly a personal thing.
2/20/2010
2/21/2010
2/22/2010
i'm interested to see the changes, i know my hair changes a lot, what i'm wearing, what i'm doing, who i'm with when i remember to open photobooth
eventually i will notice similarities in the images i choose to represent myself. common facial expressions. angles. etc.
here i will just post the pictures; i don't really care to reflect on them in text. if you are interested in the images you can draw your own observations, i think.
cory has been taking a photobooth picture of herself every day since she got hers.
i just got a new one, and i'm going to do that too.
it's mostly a personal thing.
2/20/2010
2/21/2010
2/22/2010
i'm interested to see the changes, i know my hair changes a lot, what i'm wearing, what i'm doing, who i'm with when i remember to open photobooth
eventually i will notice similarities in the images i choose to represent myself. common facial expressions. angles. etc.
here i will just post the pictures; i don't really care to reflect on them in text. if you are interested in the images you can draw your own observations, i think.
20 February, 2010
16 February, 2010
solarising test 1
here we have a lovely photobooth snapshot of a tray full of prints.
this was my first attempt at solarisation. unfortunately i forgot to hit up the media center before it closed, so i was working without a contact printing frame, without a lens, without filters, etc. i found a piece of plexi and made due without the lens (which i don't think is really necessary anyhow since i'm contact printing...)
the print in the center-ish is the best solarised one i came up with. the one in the upper right is the non-solarised version. the rest are tests/attempts
i think i need to use a contrast filter, probably a five, because the image really greys out when solarised. there's no white in the solarised photos....
i doubt i'll have time for the darkroom tomorrow, so i'll probably show these prints on wednesday. however, i'm going to wait until i have better prints before i make legit scans...
13 February, 2010
eight images for solarisation
shot these today
i am going to make digital negatives, so that i may make silver gelatin prints, so that i may try out solarising.
i've never really done nudes before, with the exception of this photo from freshman year.
hm.
i am going to make digital negatives, so that i may make silver gelatin prints, so that i may try out solarising.
i've never really done nudes before, with the exception of this photo from freshman year.
hm.
11 February, 2010
Man Ray and Lee Miller.
as to be expected, the first artist i will be focusing on is Man Ray. he was involved in Modernism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Avant-Garde, which means i have a lot more reading to do
at this point in time i don't have any information beyond the internet and what i knew already from Photo history; for the next week i will be focused specifically on Man Ray and Lee Miller.
Lee Miller was Man Ray's girlfriend, and claims credit for many of Man Ray's photographs done while the two lived together. (i'm surprised there isn't a movie about the two yet).
it is also debatable which of the two figured out Solarisation (Man Ray made it popular);
i'm going to create a solarised print in the next week
- josef ehm (solarisation)
- lee miller
- man ray (solarisation)
- man ray
at this point in time i don't have any information beyond the internet and what i knew already from Photo history; for the next week i will be focused specifically on Man Ray and Lee Miller.
Lee Miller was Man Ray's girlfriend, and claims credit for many of Man Ray's photographs done while the two lived together. (i'm surprised there isn't a movie about the two yet).
it is also debatable which of the two figured out Solarisation (Man Ray made it popular);
i'm going to create a solarised print in the next week
- josef ehm (solarisation)
- lee miller
- man ray (solarisation)
- man ray
09 February, 2010
preparing to go Abroad
as you may or may not know, i am planning on spending next semester at Otago Polytechnic School of Art in Dunedin, NZ. while there is no doubt in my mind that this Will happen, i still must go through the application process, beginning with being accepted by KCAI to study abroad.
i must select ten images for my portfolio.
it is important, to me, that these images not only reflect my artistic style and beliefs but also my growth; i will accompany each image with writing detailing my thought process for that work and how it relates to my work as a whole. showing that my ideas can grow and change while still holding to my personal mindset is my primary goal. in essence, i am putting together a bit of a retrospective.
these are the images i am thinking of including:
(documentation of show)
on my flickr i have everything organized by year, so if you were to look at that and then look at this, perhaps you could tell me if these images are an accurate representation of my work over the years? or, if there is some other image i must include, do tell me.
thank you.
PS the tenth image will be one that i create in the next couple weeks.
i must select ten images for my portfolio.
it is important, to me, that these images not only reflect my artistic style and beliefs but also my growth; i will accompany each image with writing detailing my thought process for that work and how it relates to my work as a whole. showing that my ideas can grow and change while still holding to my personal mindset is my primary goal. in essence, i am putting together a bit of a retrospective.
these are the images i am thinking of including:
(documentation of show)
on my flickr i have everything organized by year, so if you were to look at that and then look at this, perhaps you could tell me if these images are an accurate representation of my work over the years? or, if there is some other image i must include, do tell me.
thank you.
PS the tenth image will be one that i create in the next couple weeks.
05 February, 2010
explorative project proposal
For my first self-directed assignment this semester, I plan on continuing to search for my personal photographic theory (see my writings on the collective blog) through research. I will read various theories, not just those regarding visual arts, but also philosophy, literature, science, etc. By reading writings and manifestos I hope to make conclusions of my own about the topics discussed. I will begin with Surrealism. For everything that I read or see I will create a photographic response to what I have found. This blog will be where I put my notes, thoughts, findings, images, etc. over the next few weeks.
Wednesday in class i proposed this project. Pat suggested i read Rosalind Krauss, who has written on surrealism and photography and look at Fredrick Selmer's images. Abbe suggested i look at Maria Buszek's website for the information from her Surrealism class, and read the book for that class, Dada and Surrealism. I should also look at surrealist film and Ubu film for inspirations in lighting, etc. Emily suggested the book Art in Theory 1900-2000. Patrick also suggested October Magazine to keep up to date on current art theory.
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