Final Project- Ariel

Artists Statement: Hello everyone, meet Ariel. You might not have known that harpists name their harps. In fact, many instrumentalists I know name their instruments. Like you might bring a good friend into the studio and bring out their best characteristics, I have been wanting to bring Ariel into the studio. Though they may be inanimate objects to everyone else, for musicians their instruments take on a personified presence. They are our precious babies, our collaborators, and also our voice. Central to this series is a self-portrait which is the first time the instrument is recognizable in a fuller form as a representation of the reality that instruments only carry meaning in relation to the artists that work through them.  In a way, the whole project is a self-portrait, since the instrument is simply an extension of ourselves; and the qualities we love about our instrument are potential strengths that we cannot see as easily just in ourselves. 

Technically, this project also marked my first time using studio lighting. The process was very rewarding, but also more difficult that I had imagined. Creating the lighting that I envisioned took more rearranging and fiddling than I had anticipated. Figuring out what variables to change when seems like an art in itself that makes beautiful photographs, but it is a skill that I look forward to refining over time.




Some enlargements, out of scale:

                         

           

Nostalgia

Lightbulbs like this one found in a downtown coffee shop give me the same impression as walking through a dusty antique shop...with Instagram as just one example, we clearly like decor/photos/etc. etc.  that give us a feeling of cozy nostalgia. 

Project #2-Boxes + Clouds

Boxes + Clouds was driven by two specific experiences. First, since my freshman year my friend Mary and I began collecting letters, pictures, and charts of our pasts experiences in what we call the "Box of Shmeh." The name arose form a debate our group of friends had over whether boxes or clouds is the best metaphor for where we keep emotions. What Mary and I decided was that some things live in clouds, future hopes that are more ephemeral, but difficult issues that we deal with stay compartmentalized in boxes. Some days it takes more tape to keep the box shut, and other days we let ourselves open the box and shuffle through it, but most days our boxes stay "out of sight, out of mind" unassumingly tucked away. As my artist statement explains, my box holds the jumbled mix of memories and emotions-nostalgic memories of everyday items and inside jokes in a faded sepia, and cold symbols of isolation and negativity in black and white. I don't really have any pictures of me and my dad, so I did my best to recreate iconic images from places I can access.

Second, I wanted to explore the pressure I often feel from the art world to produce work that deals with heavy subject matter. I think work that addresses difficult social issues is important, and has the power to catalyze change; however, as an idealist I also feel strongly that people usually need more hope than reminders of the broken structures that lead to pain. With this work, I tried to reconcile this tension and show that both the light and heavy experiences in my life are important to me.

Some of the Box Photos:

 

Some of my screenshots of collections of pins:
   

Artists Statement:
"Where do you keep your most difficult memories or your lofty day dreams? I think the painful parts of our past often live in boxes-contained, quietly kept away from our everyday mental space. When we look to the future, we keep our "head in the clouds"that are filled with intangible, imagined ideas and desires. My box holds the estrangement of a parent due to alcoholism, and my clouds hold my collection of pins that reflect light, playfulness, faith, beauty, and simple everyday comfort that I aspire to create on a broader scale. Both our past and our future aspirations form who we are, and this work aims to show that they each deserve respected space." 

Signs of Spring

Every year around this time, I rush to document the first signs of spring after a grueling winter. To me they are simple, but cherished signs of renewed life.

Project #3- Lamberton

For our third project, we were promoted to represent a space that we like and given the opportunity to print in large format, specifically 44x44 inches. As everyone in Rochester knows, we had a particularly brutal winter this year. One place away from Eastman that has become very special to me is Lamberton Conservatory in Hyland Park. In the dead of winter, it feels so wonderful to step into the warm humid air and soak up the vibrant plant life.

I knew I wanted to play with a few inspirations in this project. 1) I wanted to mimic both the style of the artist I presented on earlier, Karl Blossfeldt, and an artist whose work I have loved for years, Steven N. Meyers. I love that the the work feels elegant and clean to me, highlighting the beautiful forms of the plants.

                           

 
I thought that this "scientific" aspect of their photography would mirror our printing format, since I associate squares with math and ideals of perfections. This affected how I arranged my photos. I originally had a vision of sm

aller squares framing progressively larger squares which you can see in some of the sketches below. I ended up settling on just resizing the original rectangular format in most photos, but I still I kept them within their rigid frames.

                                           

With floral photography, I am most captivated when the flowers look luminous because of how they are backlit. Overall, I was thinking of creating the effect of a mosaic. I spent a lot of time making seams transition so that if you blurred your eyes you might also get a surreal effect.

Diamonds

"Diamonds" by Johnnyswim

"In the wake of every heartache, in the depth of every fear, there are diamonds waiting to break out of here."

We carry around our worry, stressors, and burdens like stones that weigh on our minds. Break out the gem, the lesson, the beauty inside each stone and leave the rest behind and be free.

Aims of Ambiguity

This post covers a topic that I've been mulling in different contexts for years...so bear with me as I try to cover a lot of contextual ground...

Last year on my plane home for Winter Break, I happened upon one of those rare conversations with the stranger sitting next to me that was particularly memorable and inspirational. As introductions progressed and I talked about my two degrees, Digital Media Studies and Harp Performance, and how I hope to bring visual media to classical music and via storytelling engage a broader audience in the narratives that already live inside performers' minds. It turned out that my new companion had a varied background as well. Mr. Dangerfield started out studying jazz piano, but then went on to architecture school. His current job was working for a company called The Brand Experience; their clients are companies who ask ask for an experience for their customers that sells the story of the brand. Our conversation meandered across many different topics, but one of Mr. Dangerfield's statements that impacted me most was that he found across every expression of the arts- from music, to theatre, to visual media, there are about ten characteristics/goals that connect them all. I haven't figured out what all ten are yet, but I think one is the spectrum of complexity.

In a course I took last spring, Music and the Mind, we talked about complexity and preference falling along a hedonic curve. You can read about this theory in more detail here, http://www.intropsych.com/ch09_motivation/complexity_and_preference_a_hedgehog_theory.html, but the jist is that there is a sweet spot for individuals of complexity that they find enjoyable- too simple and the content is boring, too complex and it is overwhelming. The more familiarity increases, the more complexity is needed to provide the same amount of enjoyment. Classical music today struggles with how to appeal to two audiences simultaneously. Orchestras have to plan programs that appeal to both the well-versed patrons with high familiarity, but with continued funding crises they also have to draw in new audiences with no familiarity.

 As I've ventured into the visual arts this year, I've found that this concept has recurred in critical feedback I've received from my peers and professors. It would seem that most people enjoy when an image is not immediately clear to them, and they have to work at interpretation. In yet another parallel, this seems to echo McLuhan's theories of hot and cold media, promoting that media that give less meaningful information are more engaging. My first photography professor said work that is too straightforward is "too heavy handed." I thought about this balance leading up to my final project in particular, and here are some images that I ended up leaving out of my series in favor of others that were a bit more opaque.

More...

  

Or less?

So maybe as the saying goes less is more. I think both are beautiful, it just depends what affect and audience you're aiming for. 

Passing Pulses

     When I look through my camera roll on my iPhone, I see so many pictures that I have sent in text messages to family and friends, quick selfies or snapshots of my surroundings. With a few exceptions, my first thought is that I need to take the time to go through and delete them to open up more memory. Far removed from analog photography where each print is a precious artifact, my usage of photography often serves more as a shorthand, visual language. Clearly I'm not the only one, since many of my peers use the app "Snapchat" which has its niche precisely in the transient existence of images. I titled this post "Passing Pulses" because today check up on how family/friends are doing, and share our own "vitals" within a decentralized community via texting, email, and social media. I see this shift as both a blessing and a curse; with family that is out-of-state now that I am in school I enjoy sharing humorous snippets of life to make them smile, yet it can only serve as an augmentation, not a substitute for deeper connection. As far as photography itself is concerned, I still enjoy taking casual snapshots enabled by my smartphone, but I also enjoy the satisfaction of working for the perfect shot with intention.
     
   

 

Sunset Sand

     Expanding on an earlier post on "Lighting and 'Reframing Photography'," it might sound redundant to say I am mesmerized by photos that beautifully show off light. Last year I found the series Broken Mirror/ Evening Sky by Bing Wright, and his images stayed with me.
 

  

    Along a similar vein, water reflects light much like mirrors. Thinking back to Bing Wright's photos, I took these pictures during a sunset in San Diego this spring break. I used the wet sand clouds, two very different states of water to appreciate the hues of a sunset more abstractly. I shifted how I normally frame a sunset (no sun or centered horizon in sight), and as a result I enjoyed taking the following photos:

Candid Photography

     During my last two family vacations, I have enjoyed sitting at the beach or from our balcony and taking candid photos of other guests with my camera that I bought for its longer zoom capability. When I read Roland Barthes text Camera Lucida for my Intro to Photo course last fall, I enjoyed thinking about how power dynamics play into photography. I think everyone is familiar with the challenge of putting family and friends at ease in front of the camera. People may project withdrawn self-consciousness or a fake persona, but either way the presence of the camera is interfering with how the subjects naturally appear. For these reasons,  I really enjoy capturing candid photos for their authenticity. Here are some I took over spring break:

    With all this in mind, I was eager to hear what would be presented in our lecture on copyright laws. Candids fall into the gray area of "personality rights" are contained in the First Amendment that allow individuals to control their image and likeness for publicity. It also contains the flip-side, the right for privacy, which prohibits any public display. To be clear, I am only interested in photograph in public space; I'm not a stalker, I promise. The issue is fuzzy because you can take a photograph of a place, which happens to have people in it, but you can't photographs of the people. However, in addition to these personality rights coexists the freedom of speech and the press.
    To tie this all back to the Roland Barthes, I think that its clear that these issues of personality rights are complicated because our relationship with cameras is also a complicated balance of power. I still haven't fully decided how to negotiate the issue. For now all I know is that my intent is not to malign these individuals, but rather celebrate them and appreciate serendipitous moments captured from a far.

Artist Presentation- Karl Blossfeldt

   

     In my Introduction to Media Studies course we briefly studied Walter Benjamin's writing. Our lecture quickly introduced the artist Karl Blossfeldt as an example of Benjamin's theory of the optical unconscious: "It is through photography that we first discover the existence of this optical unconscious through psychoanalysis. Details of structure, cellular tissue, with which technology and medicine are normally concerned-all this is in its origins more native to the camera than the atmospheric landscape or the soulful portrait. Yet at the same time photography reveals in this material the physiognomic aspects of visual worlds which dwell in the smallest things, meaningful yet covert enough to find a hiding place in waking dreams...Thus Blossfeldt with his astonishing plant photographs reveals the forms of ancient columns in horse willow, a bishop's crosier in the ostrich fern, totem poles in the tenfold enlargements of chestnut and maple shoots, and gothic tracery in the fuller's thistle." (59)

     
     For some background information, Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was raised in Schielo, Germany and as a young child enjoyed walking and collecting flowers and plant cuttings, which he then arranged into small gardens. He began work as a sculpturing and iron casting apprentice, and then received a scholarship to study at the Royal Arts and Crafts Museum. For several years he toured Europe with his professor of ornament and design, Moritz Meurer. Rather than collect plant specimens for models, that would quickly wilt, he began taking photographs for a reference. In 1899 Blossfeldt became a professor of modeling at the same Institute of Royal Arts and Crafts Museum, a position he held for 31 years. He continued to collect pictures for his teaching, on which Hans Christian Adam comments "He did not consider his photos an artistic achievement in their own right. For him, the camera served only to bring out and reproduce plant details that hitherto had been ignored owing to their tininess."

    Blossfeldt is considered to be one of the leaders of the movement, "New Objectivity" (neue sachlichkeit). As a reaction to World War I, this style is characterized by a cool, detached approach. The MoMA defines it well as, "a style in Germany in the 1920s as a challenge to Expressionism. As its name suggests, it offered a return to unsentimental reality and a focus on the objective world, as opposed to the more abstract, romantic, or idealistic tendencies of Expressionism." Blossfeldt's work is objective and cool by removing the plants from their original context, placing them against a blank white background instead. Though I would often say that I am drawn to the sentimentality of the romantic era, visually I often am drawn to clean, elegant lines.

    Blossfeldt's "breakthrough" took place when art dealer Nierendorf approached him and wanted to publish his work, Art Forms in Nature (1927). The couple who archives Blossfeldt's work, Ann and Jurgen Wilde, found collages of photographs that were never published by Blossfeldt himself and stated the following: "Nierendorf played an important part in the reevaluation of Blossfeldt's photographic work, not only as a 'discoverer,' and as an initiator of Art Forms in Nature, but also as author of the book's introductory essay. Nierendorf's role as the 'engineer' of Blossfeldt's success is often mentioned in the related literature. However, as the working collages have established, Blossfeldt himself was actively involved in the publication of his book, and various factors indicate that between 1926 and 1928 Blossfeldt used the collages in planning Art Forms in Nature."

     In a later work, Magic Garden of Nature (1932), Blossfeldt himself commented on how he viewed his work which again echoes the relationship of his work to architecture. It also highlights how Blossfeldt was not concerned with his own artistry, rather, in keeping with "new objectivity," he viewed himself as a simply the facilitator to showcasing the art inherent in nature: "The plant may be described as an architectural structure, shaped and designed ornamentally and objectively. Compelled in its fight for existence to build in a purposeful manner, it contracts the necessary, practical units for its advancement, governed by the laws familiar to every architect, and combines practicality and expedience in the highest form of art, but equally in the realm of science, Nature is our best teacher."

Sources:

"Karl Blossfeldt: 1865-1932." Adam, Hans Christian.
"Working Collages." Blossfeldt, Karl (edited by Ann and Jurgen Wilde).
"A Short History of Photography." Benjamin, Walter.

Project #1

Project #1 challenged us to anonymously exchange photos from our archive and use them as our prompt, somehow still incorporating the original photo we received. It was amazing to see how much responses and prompts varied, but also how in many cases the recipient picked up on emotions/intent that the original photographer held in their photo. The photo I received was the one below:

Being a Colorado native, this prompt brought to mind a rich store of images I associate with the mountains. I chose to focus on one aspect, the way that mountains are layered, that I always find captivating. Also, I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to explore Photoshop for the first time, and learn how to create "layers" within that software. The content of each layer is a texture that I would find on a hike in the Rocky Mountain National park. Playing on perspective, I looked for patterns on a small scale that would mimic the ridges of mountains. Here are some of the images that I took before processing that were used in this piece:

 
 

   

 



I arranged them in Photoshop and gave them a blue cast to mimic the atmosphere's effects, but then I printed each layer separately and stacked the physical prints. I felt like this added a sense of more depth than if I had printed just the one flattened image from Photoshop. The final installation that I think would be best would be for it to be matted on a blank, white piece of paper. My artist statement that accompanied this piece is as follows:

"I have always loved the mountains, I am from Colorado after all, but I never realized how much I appreciate their strong, regal presence as a daily backdrop until I left for college. What often mesmerizes me most is the way the blue layers face as they recede. The second set of images that come to mind are the textures of pine trees, snow, and rocks when I am in the mountains themselves. Technically, I wanted to use this project as my first foray into Photoshop and play with the "layers" to blend these macro and micro perspectives. Additionally-since my seed of inspiration was another person's photograph which has been nested in as a layer, this work layers meanings and memories-those of mine and those of the original photographer."