Semester Reflection/Future Plans

3rd Residency Summary
Kevin Gray

In the town I used to live in, there is a foot race called the Pit Run in which I have participated. It isn’t a particularly long race – only ten kilometers – but the way in which the race is laid out makes it seem significantly longer. About two and a half kilometers into the race, the path leaves the flat roads of the valley and begins to rise eight hundred feet or so into the surrounding hills. The halfway point of the race is reached at the top of a very steep hill, where a state college campus overlooks the countryside. For every runner who enters this race, reaching this pinnacle is an important milestone, because he or she knows that “it’s all downhill from here.” And while the downhill portion may be a little bit harder on the knees, it is a refreshing feeling to know that from here on to the finish, the heart won’t be beating quite so hard and that every stride of the legs will be longer. Once the top of the great hill is reached, every runner knows that their chances of making it to the finish line are greatly increased.

I have just reached the middle of the 2 year-long MFA program at the Art Institute of Boston and a similar feeling as above has come over me. The amount of information I’ve taken in during the past year, and the sheer volume of artwork I have created and how it has been enriched, seem absolutely overwhelming when I think about it. The first semester was basically an open invitation for me to experiment, to use any materials I wanted to explore and to investigate a series of subject matter to find common threads between theme and medium. I created Polaroid emulsion lifts, charcoal drawings, tintypes, and photos using liquid emulsion on glass. Subjects in these works included cityscapes, still lifes from an antique store, mannequin portraits, and photographs of an abandoned hotel. The second semester was more of an uphill battle as I fought to streamline my work in terms of both medium and theme. With the indispensable help of my advisor Jesseca Ferguson and artist mentor Fawn Potash, I decided to narrow my exploration to two series: a group of framed mannequin tintypes and a series of landscape panoramas of Gettysburg printed on glass. The tintype images were created to explore nostalgia in art as it related to portraiture, and how both memory and photography create artificial histories in their own ways. The landscape images were the beginning stages of another examination of nostalgia, and how certain American landscapes are recreated and preserved to record a particular moment in time. An important aspect to these works for me is the ability to speak about nostalgia without becoming purely nostalgic. These are the two bodies of work I displayed at the latest residency in January.

The most burning question on my mind as this semester began was, how do these disparate-looking series of work find a common ground (if at all), and would it be reasonable to attempt to tie both works together in a final thesis? It turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that there were a multitude of answers to this question given to me by my peers and the professors at AIB. Some thought that it was completely possible to do so (and one professor even believed that a third project may be necessary to neatly tie it all together). Others, however, felt that coalescing both projects into one tidy thesis would be as likely as, say, effectively injecting a sports metaphor into a written report about contemporary art. If one reads the first paragraph of this paper again, it can be pretty well deduced which direction I have chosen to take. It could very well be all downhill from here.

Over the next six months I will work to further develop both the tintypes and the images on glass. I feel that both series could become very strong work, and for that reason I choose not to abandon either of them. In fact, I have a third project in mind that may help to tie the projects together, one that involves maps and mapmaking, and I do intend to explore this one during the semester as well. By the end of the semester, when my thesis outline is due, I will have developed through my work a clear answer as to what my thesis should include, and what it should not.

What follows is a list of opinions, suggestions, and questions posed to me by students and faculty at the January residency:

· Explore the idea of landscape as a place that people connect to. Why is there an emotional charge? – John Kramer
· The mannequin tintypes can be pushed farther, add more extravagant layers to the images – JK
· There is a peculiar contrast and resonance between the tintype and the mannequin. This could be enhanced by printing larger – JK
· The theme of landscape is “safer” – JK

· Work on more coherence with the tintypes, making them seem more convincing of a time period and of a cared-for, loved portrait – Jesseca Ferguson

· Nostalgia can be a tricky subject. Focus on it very deeply in both series, or just choose one series so it becomes more manageable – Sunanda Sanyal
· Explore a layered, critical approach to nostalgia through the history of American photography – SS
· The mannequin is iconic and waiting to be written about by someone, but there are richer elements in my landscape images – SS
· Is it necessary to appropriate work and processes of the past to speak about the past? – SS
· Why is America nostalgic about our history while others may not be? – SS
· Look at Hudson River School painters, Native American photography, etc. – SS
· Do not get caught up in institutional (restorative) nostalgia; keep focus on personal (reflective) nostalgia – SS
· Be cold and analytical when exploring these themes, or else face the danger of the “tearful journey” during thesis presentation – SS

· In the landscape images, do more exploration of the way history can be remembered or forgotten and how this affects the landscape – Melissa Good

· Break the boundaries in terms of both series. The tintypes should be “kitschy as hell,” by adding more elements and stretching out beyond the limits of the frames. The landscape images, as well, are too controlled. Try changing the distance between panes of glass, breaking the glass, printing images as a negative, etc. – Oscar Palacio

· Use nostalgia as the tying thread between projects. When thinking about the series, place nostalgia at the top of the list and then put three words under nostalgia for each series that describes how they differ – Deb Todd Wheeler
· Instead of choosing just one series to focus on, perhaps a third project is needed to tie things together better – DTW
· Explore “applied” history and the relationship to fakery – DTW

· Make the mannequins stand out more; add more info to the tintype to compete with info in the frame – Kate Philbrick

· Play with scale in both the tintypes and landscapes – Deborah Davidson

· The tintypes have room to grow, while the landscapes seem resolved – Laurel Sparks
· Exploit the imperfections in the photographs on glass – LS


Here are suggested artists and authors to explore:

Artists –
Joseph Cornell
Mildred Howard
Gary Winogrand
Barbara Bosworth
Joseph Sudek
Marcel Broodthaers
Native American photographers
Hudson River School painters
Jeremy Lepisto
Mary van Cline
Deborah Muirhead
Lauren Fensterstock
Sally Mann
James Casebere
Lorna Simpson
Maya Lin

Authors –
Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory
Kate Harmon, You Are Here
Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime
Kenneth Clark, Landscape Into Art
James Young, The Texture of Memory
Lucy Lippard, Overlay