Personal Mapping Update

Over the last week, I have made several collages using themed images from my grandparent's backyard:

• my childhood playhouse
• the basketball goal
• beyond the fence
• 2 generations of banana trees

After editing the images in Photoshop, they are printed, cut and used for collages. Since photo transfers are a new technique for me, I am experimenting with various methods on boards before I move on to the papier-mâché forms. So far, I've worked with acetone, matte medium and Mod Podge. My mentor suggested to also try oil of Spike Lavender and Citra Solv.

I'm also experimenting with surface: unfinished wood, primed and painted panels and paper, in addition to the papier-mache forms that are my ultimate goal.

To finish off the paintings, I add text. A list in prose form of my own memories associated with the place depicted in the collage.

Work in progress

Work in progress

Inspiration for this work comes from...  

Tone and texture

Tintypes, particularly the one shown above that I saw at the Smithsonian Museum of American History

Treatment of figure and setting in portraiture

Gerhard Richter's Portrait Wunderlich

Use of narrative and text

Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document

Figure and place imagery in collage

Romare Bearden's The Dove

The Taste of Memories

This is an in progress draft of a new video piece I've been working on. The audio is from an interview I conducted with my mom over the summer. The video features footage of a stream and wooded area near my home with superimposed photographs of family members mentioned during the narration. My intention is to make a two channel video installation to be projected simultaneously. Like the Water Secrets installation, this video visually merges nature and body, while also raising questions about the importance of food, family relationships, the home and its surrounding landscape to who we become.

Personal Mapping

I've been working on reintegrating the relief forms into my practice. Earlier this semester, I expressed a desire to use these works as an opportunity to map specific places and memories. This project has also evolved to document changes in the landscape over time. There have been significant changes in the construction and content of these forms.

1. Instead of using several layers of papier-mâché strips over the cardboard, I added one layer of strips and sculpted papier-mâché clay on top. With this method, I'm able to increase the level of detail and sculpt a gradually sloping form.

2. Instead of painting and embellishing the forms, I have created collages using archival and original photographs to transfer onto the surface. Although a couple of the collages are finished, I am still working on building up and smoothing the surface of the forms. This work is still in progress.

Objects, Labor, & Identity: Mom

It's interesting to see how the narrative created by my mom's portraits overlap with grandma's, yet tell a completely different story.

Objects, Labor, & Identity: Grandma

Although this photo series differs a bit from work that I have made in the past there is one theme that is ever-present, references to the sense of touch. Working loosely with narrative, I tried to capture candid (with one exception) images that tell a biography of sorts. I also draw connections with line metaphor I've been working with and the visual theme of capturing and archiving gestures. I've chosen to desaturate the colors to unify the images and reference a not so distant past. This is a work in progress. I plan to incorporate sound and objects to expand the narrative.

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. 

More Stories in the Details from Mom's House

Whether tending their garden, planting and maintaining their planting beds, or just taking their morning coffee on the deck, both of my parents spend a lot of time outdoors. Their yard is almost like a portrait of their lives. In it, one can discern their love of nature, evidence of a strong work ethic, a predilection for spending time together, and a fondness for keeping aquariums and collecting angels, among other things. One can also find mysteries and curiosities in the same place. This leads me to consider the significance of these details. They are fragments. Each with its own story that when assembled together tells an entirely different one. A story of people, place, home and the reciprocal relationship between woman/man and nature.

Stories in the Details

                                      

                                                   Walker Evans, Circus Signboard, 1936

                                 

                                                       Aaron Siskind, Tombstone 3, 1949

I was recently inspired by two photographs, Circus Signboard by Walker Evans and Tombstone 3 by Aaron Siskind. Although I've always been a fan of the narrative qualities of Evan's work, I was not aware of this particular series of wall images. Simple, yet profound in composition, this piece tells stories about people, place, and time, simultaneously. While Siskind may have been more concerned with formal abstraction, the resulting narrative is similar. I am fascinated with the idea of telling a story with a minimal amount of information, allowing the viewer to more actively engage in the storytelling process. It reminds me the what I love most about reading; using tools provided by the author to activate my own imagination.

When photographing my mother's backyard, I kept these two images in mind. When deciding what to shoot, I asked myself what story I was trying to tell and which images would best serve as a catalyst for guiding the viewer into that story.