Artist's Statement

I've been sick as a dog all this week, so writing is about all I've gotten done as far as MFA work is concerned. For those lucky few of you who visit my blob (heh, nice typo...I mean BLOG of course), you get the preview of my artist's statement for January. Subject to change, prices may vary by location.


"These tintype portraits and landscape photographs on glass seem to represent two disparate bodies of work, but both are grounded on a similar foundation: an exploration of memory, history, and nostalgia.

Using the rural American folk art tradition of painted photographic portraits in the 19th century, the series of tintypes could very well represent missing portraits of my own family, since I have very limited family connections and hardly any portraits to speak of. However, these images are of mannequins in an antique store near my home. They have been carefully photographed and framed with the same reverence as a real family member would be treated, with full knowledge of their artificiality. Locks of hair from the wigs worn by these mannequins (some wigs made from real human hair, others not), artificial flowers, real dried flowers, and other objects and decorations have been included with the tintypes in antique wood and plaster frames. By intentionally mixing artificial, “modern” products with objects identified as antique, I am attempting to comment on the temporal qualities of remembrance and the still photograph’s inability to be an accurate record of memory. The mannequin photographs here have no more, no less memory embedded into them than a portrait of a real human, even of a family member. Further, the reading of nostalgia in these works is skewed by the fact of their artificiality, and helps to lay bare the deceit which nostalgia holds. The simpler time one may long for while viewing these works is just as artificial as the figures in the photographs.

The liquid emulsion images on glass also use what might be termed an antiquarian photographic process to explore how memory and history are recorded in the landscape. I have made a series of landscape images in a variation of the panorama format, using a half-frame 35mm camera. These overlapping photographs depict Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Not only is this the place where over 7,500 soldiers lost their lives during three days in July, 1863, it is also where I spent the first twelve years of my life. My visit here in October of this year was only the second since my childhood, and the first where I had a true knowledge and sense of the historic events that happened there. These photographs are the beginning stages of a further investigation into the ways a landscape evolves from a space to a Place; that is, how a landscape records both a personal history and a natural and human history on a grander scale, and becomes important to understanding the human condition. By printing the landscape images on glass, I not only make a connection to photographic processes used during the Civil War era, but the ephemeral, translucent qualities of the images allow them to be read as a palimpsest, making possible the layering of images to allude to the passage of time and the constant evolution of memory and the landscape. Further adaptations of this project may include other photographs from different time periods or enlargements of maps from the region."

It's snowing right now

...and that's just wrong. What's even wronger (is that a word?) is that we went shopping at the local mall yesterday ("local" around here means 35 miles away) and many of the stores are playing Christmas music already. It's not even Thanksgiving yet. One holiday at a time please!

As the residency gets closer and my nervousness increases, I'm trying to coalesce my ideas for the particular projects I'm working on so that I can put together a decent artist's statement. My statements tend to be overlong, rambling essays, so I reallly need to make this one more consice. Right now there are two main projects I'm pursuing: one, the mannequins, seems to be progressing nicely and I pretty much know what direction I want to head towards. The other, the Gettysburg Landscape project, is in its infancy. The panoramas on glass, or whatever I end up showing in January, are just sketches really: sketches that I have no idea how I'm going to display! They need to be spaced slightly away from the wall, which means that they'll either have to be suspended somehow or I'll have to build some sort of base for them and put them on a pedestal (which as we all know, are scarce in the AIB building). Anyhoo, I digress. Here are some quick notes on the two series which will hopefully help me build a statement that makes sense:

Mannequins

• from the rural American tradition of 19th century portrait photography
• possibly represents a series of "missing family portraits" for myself, since I have little family communication and very few pictures of family members
• mannequins treated as "real," however with full knowledge of their artificial quality
• represents the artificiality of memory, and photography's inability to be an accurate record of memory
• comments on nostalgia through process and subject matter (reflective nostalgia)
• painting on tintypes acts as palimpsest - erases information underneath to assign further layers of time and thought
• addition of artificial flowers and hair placed in authentic 19th century wood & plaster frames further complicates the separation of reality and artificiality
• notions of fetish in early portraiture
• related artists: Morton Bartlett, Mark Ostermann, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, 19th century tintype parlor photographers

Landscapes

• interest in landscape as a record of human and natural history - on grand scale and also personal history
• the idea of "place" as importance to the human condition
• landscape as memory (using Gettysburg, a landscape noted for its history and near my old hometown, as an example)
• using a type of panorama format to investigate issues of space and composition in landscape art
• images printed on glass to allow for layering of images (histories and memories) and also to connect to photographic techniques used during the Civil War
• interest in maps and mapping, possible element to be introduced to series
• comments on nostalgia through process and subject matter (reflective nostalgia)
• related artists: Matthew Brady, Masumi Hayashi, Sally Mann

That's what I've got so far. Thoughts?

Critical Theory!!

Whoops! Apparently this month's thought paper was, according to Louise, supposed to relate my work to the Critical Theory reading done last semester! Well, damn! I guess I'll have to write another paper!! Bear with me...

My Kid Could Paint That

Here is a link to an NPR story about the movie, My Kid Could Paint That. I can't wait to see this film. I wonder if it's as good as, Who the !#*? is Jackson Pollock?