The Water Knows My Secrets: Update 2

This work, Water Secrets 1 is a companion piece to an earlier work I made this semester. It features a visual and audible shift in tone. I am exploring the possibility of combining the two works into a two-channel video installation. 

In regards to my time-based work in general, some of my primary sources of inspiration include the following works by:

Ann Hamilton - Corpus - Sound and My Love
Janet Cardiff - Jena Walk (Memory Field)
John Akomfrah - Vertigo Sea

List and Inventories Update

I have a new draft of Isaiah's Inventory. I was very unsatisfied with the quality of sound in the original draft, so I re-recorded everything. I also considered tone more with the mixing of this work. My intention is to create a sense of confusion and complexity. My mentor, Cathy, suggested being more thoughtful about the sculptural qualities of sound. Taking her advice, I experimented more with the use of stereo to create sound that is more dimensional and experiential. I'm currently working on the installation for this work.

Although I intentionally overlapped the tracks containing the lists of animals and inanimate objects, I also tried to space out the narration of the names so that the viewer/listener can catch snippets of the contrasting list. In between the names of people and their valuation, one can here things like bay horse mule, or meat, or buggy. I'm not quite convinced that enough of the animal/object list is discernible, making the contrast clear between it and the list of peoples names.

Finally, I added more contextual details in the document's narration, in an attempt to aid in the listener's understanding of the work.

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 Problem with Being Unique

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.

Thoughts on Installation: Water Secrets 3

I'm considering different methods of installation for the Water Secrets video. The first was a performance where I project onto myself, merging body, inner dialogue and place. In this particular installation, I chose to use recorded narration, but I've also considered reciting the narrative live.

In preparation for my third mentor meeting...

Questions I am asking in general with my work are. . .


Does knowing more about the past give one better insight into the present or who they are?

Does the natural world (in our immediate surroundings) have an impact on who we are culturally and individually?

How does nature and what we consume from it influence us culturally and individually?

What is the importance of documenting the existence and personal stories of my family to me as an artist? Why?

Questions regarding specific works. . .

Water Secrets - How can we connect with the past and our ancestors through our interactions with the landscape? Are we connected with others through sensory cues and stories of particular places? What can our experience with nature tell us about ourselves? 

"A landscape should establish bonds between people. . . art also belongs with landscape studies as I interpret them for it is only when we begin to participate emotionally in a landscape that its uniqueness and beauty are revealed to us." - J. B. Jackson

Papier-mâché forms and transfers - How can the tactile qualities of objects and the narrative qualities of images be combined to document changes in a place over time? Can the work create an emotional connection between the viewer and work while also drawing connections between people and place, the enduring and ephemeral, experience and memory?

Hand photos and shells - The woman in my family show love and devotion to family through their work. Can my elders and ancestors be honored through my labor? Can my work connect me through time or space with them? Can the objects we touch and utilize tell as much about who we are as our stories?

Collard Leaves and Food memories audio - Can food and natural sustenance establish bonds in the same way  that a landscape can? Can what we consume connect us to place? Can it connect us to people? How can we be defined by what we consume? Where is the line between cultural and individual identities in regards to diet and traditions? What is the connection between memory, food, and place?

Inventory - What do our belongings say about the lives we live and our values? How do we determine the value of an object or a person? What can be learned from the way we organize and document our lives or our belongings?