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.

The Water Knows My Secrets

"But our native country is less an expanse of territory than a substance; it's a rock or a soil or an aridity or a water or a light.

It's the place where our dreams materialize; it's through that place that our dreams take on their proper form. . . .

Dreaming beside the river, I gave my imagination to the water, the green, clear water, the water that makes the meadows green. I cant sit beside a brook without falling deep reverie, without seeing once again my happiness. . . .

The stream doesn't have to be ours; the water doesn't have to be ours. The anonymous water knows all my secrets. And the same memory issues from every spring."  

- Gaston Bachelard

The following video is from a project that I'm working on that combines a field recording from my grandmother's backyard, a bit of narration I wrote last semester, and some video footage I shot. I consider it a rough draft. I would like to make another recording of the narration, continue to play around with the sound mixing, video editing, and timing the footage better.

Mapping Out the Semester: October

Week One:
Complete papier-mâché landscape forms, sand and gesso
Complete editing photos for transfer and design collages for all 4 forms
Experiment with photo transfer techniques on board
Edit and print photos for quilting
Make corrections to Isaiah's inventory transcription
Re-record corrected inventory
Pour new set of collard molds
Shoot video of inventory drawings
Research for 4th paper

Week Two:
Begin photo transfer onto papier-mâché forms
Complete editing photos for transfer and design collages for all 4 forms
Cut photos and create collaged compositions for quilts
Continue work on inventory drawings
Conduct my own (workspace) inventory, record
Begin casting collards (if molds are dry)
Pour mold for Chattahoochee river
Hand casts based on mom and grandma's photos
Research and write paper

Week Three:
Complete photo transfer onto papier-mâché forms
Sew collaged compositions for quilts
Print inventory photos
Complete inventory drawings
Edit inventory recordings
Continue casting collards
Create Chattahoochee river papier-mâché forms
Continue hand casts based on mom and grandma's photos
Write and proof paper

Week Four:
Paint and texture papier-mâché forms
Continue collaged compositions for quilts
Work on installation for residency
Edit inventory recordings
Continue casting collards
Layer paper strips on Chattahoochee river papier-mâché forms
Continue hand casts based on mom and grandma's photos, research and try new material
Rewrite and complete paper

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.

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.