The Object as an Image

Over the summer, I made some cyanotypes while visiting my grandmother. She owns kitchen utensils that were passed down to her by her own mother. A couple may have even belonged to her grandmother as well. These objects are beautiful in their own right.

Although they are still being used, they hold for me memories of my great-grandmother and her cooking. They also bring to mind issues of legacy and inheritance. Not only do these objects symbolize the values of hard work and devotion to family that was the legacy my great-grandmother passed on to my grandmother and the rest of her descendants, but they are also imbued with memories of her recipes, mealtimes and holidays spent with family, and a tangible symbol of her touch and labor.

My goal is to incorporate several of these images into my quilted collage work. I will also experiment with using them as part of a wall collage, that will draw connections between my hand photographs and hand shell sculptures.

Lists & Inventories

Ever since visiting Harris County over the summer, I've been haunted by the probate records of my slave owning 5th great grandfather. I find the inventory and subsequent sale records of his belongings fascinating.

Over the past weeks, I've been working on transcribing the inventory. It was not as easy as I had hoped. Old styles of penmanship, farm equipment jargon, and misspellings made the transcription slow and frustrating. Currently, I have a draft that I find satisfactory, with only two words that I have not been able to figure out.

According to my research on Georgia standards of agricultural wealth, Isaiah would have been considered in the elite class of farmers called planters. This means he was reasonably wealthy. At the time of his death in 1961, his entire estate was appraised at $35,340 and included about 900 acres of land and 23 slaves.

This inventory is extraordinary because it lists each slave by name and monetary value, along with farm animals, equipment, and household items as mundane as wash kettles and lard. One of the questions this document raised for me was what factors determine a slave's value? The obvious answer to that question was work potential, but I also found that reproductive potential and life expectancy were also significant factors.

When comparing this inventory to the slave schedules that accompanied the US census taken the year before, I learned several things. The first thing that I noticed was the number of children; over half of the slaves were under the age of 16. The second fact that the women of childbearing age and had at least one child were more valuable than those who do not have children. After crosschecking both documents with the 1870 census (which listed African American people on the regular schedules which included names and ages) I was able to match Charity Ann and several of her children (Henry, Julius, Hiram and possibly Virginia).

Another question this document raised is what would an inventory of my possessions look like when compared to Isaiah's? I have started working on taking a complete inventory of my workspace as a result of these ponderings. This inventory might grow into a larger project, where I attempt to record all of my possessions but I want to set a limit for the time being.

Although not a question, the fact that this is the first official document listing my 4th great grandmother, Charity Ann (and several of her children) by name it seems almost like a genesis of sorts. Something that laid the foundation for everything that came after. It provides personal context for my family and their eventual migration to Muscogee County and beyond as well as cultural context for issues of power and valuation. How much was a black life worth in 1861 and how does that contrast with now?

I'm working on an audio project in response to this list. By overlapping one channel with a list of slave names with another channel listing animals, objects and property, I seek to emphasize the contrasts between the two while also pointing out the fact that they appear on the same list.

Reflections - Sculpture & Installation

Hannah Wilke, Fork and Spoon, 1974, kneaded erasers and metal utensils
Image source

The following reflections originated with my Residency Summary from July. In italics, I have included my thoughts about how the ideas have developed over the last couple of months and how I plan to proceed now that I'm back in the studio.

Shells
- Really consider how the shell work functions beyond the memorialization of a gesture. In thinking about how I can incorporate some of the photographs I used over the summer and cross reference work across different media. I will translate my mother and grandmother's gesture photographs into shell forms.

- Revisit Hannah Wilke. I'm very interested in her gestural forms, especially when she combines abstracted gestures with representational imagery/objects. The interior space in my shells also resemble yonic forms, as well as mouth and ear cavities, creating possibilities to reference narration (what is heard and spoken)

- Consider other material for this work (etc. silicon, resin, clay) In response to my desire to create work that encourages and rewards interaction, I want to use a material that is pleasing to touch, while maintaining the sense of immediacy and level of detail that plaster lends to the work.

- Should these be multiples? Or unique? I think with the way that the idea is developing definitely unique is the way to go. I am capturing specific moments and referencing different people.

- Think about how to arrange or display work to encourage viewer interaction. Packaging? This is still under consideration.

Papier-mache
Ontologically, sculpture on the floor is confrontational to the viewer. The forms that I use are also much more aggressive (almost grotesque) than the narration that accompanies them.
Find a way to resolve this disconnect through ontological shift, use platform and/or Plexi cover, or make experience more immersive. Intentional or not, this work has Pop/Surrealist references. Consider a shift in scale.
The tactile relationship that the viewer has with the work is very important to me, which leads me to believe that limiting the work to a handheld scale should be my goal. These objects can then be displayed as collections on a shelf or in a vitrine.

Work on consolidating tone with other works
Certain motifs are more eloquent in the pictorial than in objects. In this work the motifs are too obscure, becoming illustrative of ideas rather than interactive.
How can I increase the complexity of this work? I believe the scale shift and clarifying my conceptual intentions will help answer these questions. This work displayed in context with the other work (quilts, images, audio, and reliefs, etc.) will also help build a narrative. The tone in this work should help lend meaning to the other objects rather than detract from it. I will also reintroduce papier-mache reliefs to my practice, but rather than depicting archetypes of land forms as they did before, they will map specific places and memories. This will help bridge the gap between object and pictorial.

Are these works necessary? I can't really determine this right now. I need to continue making them following the guidelines I set above and see where that takes me. Keep making and experimenting, maybe they will be absorbed into the other work. Maybe not.

If so, how can I improve their construction? Work on armatures, surface, and color.

Make sure that materiality and form connect. Why am I using paper to create this work? Is there a way to use paper in a more intentional way with this work? These questions need to be clarified for me personally and it the work itself.

Stories in the Details: Grandma's House

While at my grandmother's house, I collected more images from her backyard. As with my mom's yard I focused on details that tell a story of place and time. However, unlike mom's house, I have a long history and deep connection to this place. There, each detail felt like a window into my parent's personalities and everyday life. Here, each detail also reveals something about my grandmother's lifestyle, but it is also steeped in memory, loss, personal history, and change. 

Looking for Traces: Harris County Court House

Next, we headed to the county court house. A call I made earlier confirmed that the probate court kept marriage and probate records on site. I knew that there were probate proceeding following Isaiah Sr.'s death in 1861 and that there were likely to be some remaining records on file. However, I wasn't really prepared for the amount of records we found or their contents. 

We found numerous documents spread out across a dozen or so books detailing each step of the probate process of Isaiah Sr.'s estate. Isaiah Jr., my 4th great-grandfather, and his elder brother, Fleming, were listed by name in almost every one. Things got really interesting when we discovered a document dated 1829 asking for permission for Isaiah Sr. and his brother William, to sell property in Washington County they had inherited from their father, Cader. This was the first evidence I had ever seen or heard that named ancestors more than 7 generations back.

I also found a document closing out the division and sales of property included in the probate proceedings. It asks that all bills be paid in full with Confederate States Treasury notes by July 6, 1866. By that date the majority of Confederate forces had surrendered but the war wouldn't officially come to an end until President Johnson signed a proclamation a little over a month later.

Until reading this, I never would have considered the possibility of having blood relations that actually lived during this time and accepted the Confederate government as their own. This passage is written in such a matter of fact way, it seems as though at the time that it was written the survival of the Confederate States of America was taken for granted and the possibility that the South might lose the war was somewhat remote.

The more time I spent exploring these books, the more I appreciated their beauty as objects. I was mesmerized by the use of text. The precise penmanship, organization of objects and people into lists, and language of symbolic doodles enhanced their historic value. They became precious objects that I held and manipulated with reverence. Not only for their beauty and fragility, but also for the information they held.

The most fascinating document I came across was an inventory and appraisement of Isaiah Sr.'s estate. A seven-page detailed list of everything he owned that would be up for sale; land, mundane objects, tools, furniture, kitchen utensils, and people, including my 4th-great grandmother and her three children.

Casting

"...an empty shell, like an empty nest invites day-dreams of refuge." 

- from The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

In my recent explorations with tinted plaster, I've found that adding pigment to the plaster changes its texture. This has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, it seems to prolong the setting process. On the other, the set plaster seems a bit more brittle. I need to keep experimenting to find a way to achieve the vibrancy of color I'm looking for while maintaining the integrity of the material. As I work on this project, it strikes me how much these castings resemble shells.

Ode to Charity Ann

In my last post, I mentioned a series of narratives unified through the use of meandering lines. The first of these narratives is that of my fifth great-grandmother, Charity Ann. I've been developing this work through drawings, a two-piece, papier-mache sculpture, plaster casts, and a written narrative. 

Drawings
I started by making several charcoal drawings. My favorite two are posted below and I plan to create a few more as color studies. I was recently inspired by a show of Elio Rodriguez's work that included study drawings. Those drawings helped the viewer see each sculpture differently as well as being beautiful in their own right,

Landscape Form
The papier-mache on the largest of the two forms will be finished today. It will take several days to dry before they can be finished off with color and surface treatment. I've been collecting images of work that I find inspiring in terms of form and surface. While the work dries this week, I will experiment with a set of papier-mache test tiles. In thinking about how I wanted to work with narrative for this series, I looked to artists like Susan Hiller and Gregory Crewdson. I like the ambiguity between fact and fiction in their work. Crewdson's work also contains an otherworldliness that I really respond to. I always look for ways to incorporate my interest in film into my work. A few weeks ago, I had the idea to source color for this series from specific scenes in films that could add narrative and emotive insight into story that I am trying to tell.

Plaster Relics
For each narrative, I plan to make one or more plaster casts of the negative space capturing a gesture made by my own hands. For this work, I've made a couple of maquettes. I'm not entirely convinced that they capture the gesture the way I intended, however creating them gave me a better idea for how to achieve what I'm looking for. If the weather permits the next works in this series will be attempted early this week. 

Narrative
The short narrative that will accompany this work recalls a fictionalized version of an actual event. This memory narrative focuses on the description of a place through the senses. How it will be used is yet to be determined. Posting as wall text, inclusion in a book, and recorded narration are all under consideration.

Where have all the lightning bugs gone?

 I've been journaling memories this semester and it is proving to be a valuable way to generate ideas for work. One thing that stood out to me was a memory of chasing and catching lightning bugs in my grandmother's backyard. I remembered there being so many. They seemed to hang like storm cloud among the low hanging branches of  trees, flashing as unpredictably as the bolts they are named after. Watching them swarm in my childhood was a near nightly occurrence at dusk during the summer and fall months. These days, I might see one or two of these flying beetles occasionally throughout the season, but can't remember the last time I saw a swarm of them. 

My musings led me to research what if their populations are dwindling. I found that they are, on a global scale and not just locally. As is the case with bees, scientists aren't exactly sure what is causing their disappearance, however there is one theory that increased light pollution disrupts their mating patterns. This revelation has let to several projects I'm currently working on. They deal with a fossilization of memories and personal/family narratives dealing with fireflies through objects. The first one is a plaster cast of the negative space between my hands, depicting the gesture of capturing a lightning bug. This is a sketch and not the final piece. I'm still working out the final form and the best way to construct it.

Biophilia

Near the end of last semester, I started making collard leaves. I created these leaves by casting handmade paper in molds. The pulp was made using library catalogue cards under the subject heading, "modern history" and Canson paper to add color. This was the result of spending the entire semester looking for ways to infuse my work with personal connection. My relationship to collard greens has been complicated, but rich with cultural and personal significance. This realization has me searching for other places where identity, culture, and nature overlap. My advisor gave me some very valuable feedback concerning the leaves and how to use the aesthetics of research to explore how display can add to the work's content. I've started organizing research and ideas on modes of display on my Tumblr blog, Stream of Consciousness.

This is a sketch I made during the residency exploring  possibilities for display incorporating labels and aesthetics of specimen display.

In the coming months, I aim to continue exploring the construction of collard leaves and other flora using the following criteria:

Refine process of making leaves...

• Experiment with color, texture, form
• Paint the back with gel medium to increase strength
• Build new molds

Determine how important is evidence of the material...

• Experiment with transparency of material
• Dye cards before pulping
• Try using whole cards without pulping them

Ascertain which materials and form will best depict what I want to say...

• Can I use different leaves?
• How does this work function?

Consider different options for installation... 

• Make use of the aesthetics of research
• Research installation possibilities
• Experiment with using text (faux labels) to convey meaning
• How does display become content?