Artist Lecture: Amy Hauft

Amy Hauft's lecture at the Anderson Gallery tonight was very different from what I have become accustomed to. Rather than showing a progression and evolution of her work over the years, Hauft only spoke about her current installation at the Anderson. The result was a brief and focused lecture that provided a lot of insight to one piece.

Amy Hauft is the chair of the Sculpture + Extended Media Department here at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been here for six years, and has exhibited her work internationally. She described herself as "an eccentric magnet," saying that "some things stick, and some things don't." She said that her art comes as a result of what she absorbs or discards throughout life.

Hauft works primarily in large-scale architectural installations. At her lecture tonight, she said that she is always seeking to reference a landscape, creating one indoors. Her installation, Counter Re-formation, was inspired by personal experience and an engraving of a dessert table from the Louis XV period. The sculpture is a somewhat serpentine table, and it is interesting to walk around and through. Hauft said that she was very interested by the fact that viewers could walk to the center and "wear" the piece. The very center is somewhat of a vortex, and it is topped by a spiral staircase made of sugar. Hauft said that the vortex is pulling down, while the staircase lifts up, creating an equal pull and balance at the center of the sculpture. In brief, the installation not only stems from some personal thoughts and desires that Hauft had, but it is supposed to be a metaphor for decadence and reform.

Hauft finished her lecture by stating once again that she always attempts to reference a personal physical experience that she had outdoors, by bringing a landscape inside. She said "My work is really futile, because of course you can't really create a landscape indoors. But it's kind of sweet to try."

See an image of Counter Re-formation below. If you want to see it in person, you can find it upstairs in the Anderson Gallery until February 21.

Research: A few more facts and statistics

This week, I went back to some basic research on single-parenting. It always blows me away to read the statistics and risk factors. It worries me a little bit, but then I think hey, President Obama had a single mom, and he turned out just fine...

On to the facts:
In 2006, nearly 13 million families in the US were headed by a single person, and 80% of those were women. Since 1994, the rate of single-parent families in the US has remained steady, but it has doubled since the 1970s.
Single parent families are at high risk for poverty, particularly if the single parent lacks a college education. Single-parent families are also correlated with negative social, developmental, and physical outcomes for children. However, these effects can be curbed by positive involvement from a supportive friend and family network - but to some parents, this is unavailable. Single-parent families are often the source of social, political, and religious debate. People with non-religious and liberal viewpoints tend to be more welcoming of the changes in family life and structure, while conservatives tend to be more concerned about the decline in marriage and rise in cohabitation. To learn more, read here.

All of these things apply to me, and frankly it looks quite bleak if you only read the statistics. Of course I feel that it is necessary to realize the scope of the situation and have my work informed by it. However, I am really working to bring a sense of lightness and humor to an otherwise overwhelming topic. It is my hope that my collages will be entertaining and fun to look at on the surface, but will provoke deeper thought upon close examination. We will see...

Artist: Michael Swaney

I am really disappointed that Michael Swaney does not have a blog or any kind of statement on his website, because I want to know more about him. He is a Barcelona-based artist who works in collage, drawing, and sculpture. I am drawn to how childish and colorful the majority of his work looks, while still being complex and meaningful. I found the following brief article about him on Cool Hunting:

Michael Swaney collects "the relics of our consumerist society" and uses them to create bright and busy scenes that are delightfully absurd. The found scraps of paper that he uses are often painted and layered. This manipulation of the stained and discolored papers, not only allows the works to maintain their original aesthetic quality, but also transforms each picture into something fresh. I love that in the chaos of the little scenes, you can always find elements of his quirky sense of humor, often reflected in his unusual titles (i.e. "Polish Situation with Sticks").

Read more here. The images below are from his Performance and Museums collage series. I also highly recommend checking out his colorful sculptures which you can find on his website. Enjoy!

Research: Photoshop Technique #3

I think I might have messed up by not blogging on Thursday? It was Thanksgiving... Anyways, I briefly discussed the possibility of making panoramas in my last meeting with Tom. If I shot from the middle of my living room while turning around, I could get the full living room, dining room, and part of my kitchen, which I could then fill with a million of myself and Henry. We will see. I am not sure if I would make the panoramas by physically piecing them together (which would probably make more sense, given the nature of my project), or by putting them together in Photoshop. Just in case I decide to go with the latter, I looked up a tutorial in hopes of making up for the missed post. I'm sure Mathew Farris could tell me how to do this better, but YouTube will just have to do.

Artist: Ana Laura Perez

I found Ana Laura Perez's work this week. Her website wasn't working for me, but you can try it out here. From what I was able to find on her blog, I gathered that she is a fashion/design student in Argentina. Her work that interested me is posted below, and consists of drawing, painting, and collage. The three images below remind me so much of a mother and child that I just had to post about them. I was unable to find anywhere on her blog that she speaks of these images and their meaning, but to me they just feel like the beautiful side of motherhood, childhood, or both. I think they are very pretty, which is a trend I'm noticing among a lot of the work I am posting on my artist entries. I think that must be a response to the feeling that I have about my work and life lacking beauty right now. But anyway, a few of my favorites are posted below. Enjoy!

Artist Lecture: Francis Cape

I attended Francis Cape's lecture this afternoon, and I had mixed feelings about it. I was frustrated that he skipped around in time a lot - most of the artists that come to lecture go through their work chronologically so that we can see an evolution or progression, but Cape skipped from one work to the next and back again. Aside from being picky over the way he spoke, I did think that the lecture was interesting, as was some of his work.

Francis Cape stated that he used to make "art about art," but that has steadily changed for him since the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. Since that time, he has become increasingly concerned with the world we live in. He also spoke of his particular concern with the transience of our culture and possessions - he said that artists are no longer making work that lasts, but transient objects to fit in with our society today.

I found his piece, "Waterline" to be the most moving/interesting. "Waterline" features photographs of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The images are installed in a gallery, framed and hung above wainscoting made from wood paneling taken from one of the flooded houses. The images (some of which are posted below) show the well defined line that marked the depth of the flood waters. In the installation, the wainscoting comes to the height of the interior waterline in the house it was taken from. Cape said that, in his exploration of the devastated neighborhoods of New Orleans, he was struck by the obvious realization that the tragedy did not just happen in the "bad" or poor neighborhoods, but rather to everyone that lived there. The installation of the wainscoting is important to the viewer's understanding of the overwhelming situation. You can see "Waterline" installed at the Anderson Gallery on Friday.

Research: History of Collage

I obviously know what a collage is; I have made them at various times throughout my life. However, as I was pasting a collage together today and thinking about the blog posts I needed to make tonight, it occurred to me that I do not know that much about the history of collage. If I am going to spend the rest of the academic year making collages, I feel that I should be well informed about the medium. I did some research, and my findings are below.

Definition: A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. The term is derived from the French word "coller" meaning glue. The term was coined by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso when collage became a distinctive part of modern art.

History: Collage techniques have been used since the invention of paper in China, around 200 BC. It became more widespread in the 10th century when Japanese calligraphers used glued paper when writing their poems. Collage appeared in medieval Europe in the 13th century to ornament religious icons and images with gold leaf and gemstones. In the 19th century, collage began to be used among hobbyists for such objects as photo albums.

Regardless of the early appearance of collage techniques, some argue that collage in its proper sense did not arrive on the scene until the early 1900s, when it appeared in conjunction with early modernism. In several art texts, it is stated that collage was first used as an artist's technique in the early 20th ccentury.

Collage in the modernist sense began with painters Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. It has been extensively used by surrealist artists, and evolved into other forms such as wood collage, canvas collage, photomontage, decoupage, and most recently, digital collage.

Early Examples:

Kurt Schwitters, Das Undbild, 1919

Hannah Hoch, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919

The history of collage is very interesting and extensive. To learn more, read here.

Artist: Amy Ross

Amy Ross uses a combination of painting and collage to create her beautiful work that is both sophisticated and whimsical. The pieces that she creates depict animals morphing into flowers, people morphing into mushrooms, gorgeous she-wolves, and so on. I admit it is a stretch to relate our work (we are connected through the use of collage only), but her creations are so pretty I wanted to post them anyway. To learn more about Amy Ross, read her blog.

Artist Lecture: Shimon Attie

I absolutely loved Shimon Attie's lecture this afternoon. He was a funny and entertaining speaker, and his work was very interesting and inspiring.

Attie's work seems to commonly deal with themes of past and present, memory and reality, and frequently focuses on the history of various cultures. In his early 1990s project, The Writing on the Wall, Attie projected images of pre-WWII Jewish street life onto the facades of buildings in present day Berlin, Germany. He said he wanted it to be "as if time were burning through the facade of today."

More recently, Attie's work "hovers between photography and the moving image." I was particularly moved by his video installation, The Attraction of Onlookers: Aberfan, an Anatomy of a Welsh Village, in which he sought to help the village of Aberfan move on from its tragic past. I was disappointed that there is no way to access the video online, but I am posting stills and a brief look at the making of the project below. Attie documented the "standard" components of a Welsh village (mayor, singer, bartender, police officer, et cetera) in a way that granted them the anonymity they needed in order to lose their connection to a tragedy they so desperately wanted to forget. Village people were depicted as being able to live in any town free of disaster, yet they were frozen in time, just as Aberfan seemed to be since the avalanche that killed nearly all the town's children in one day (you can read about Aberfan here.) The video plays out very serenely, with the various characters standing in static poses, rotating on a moving set for a minute or so. It is set to very somber music, and I found it to be very powerful. As the figures rotate, perfectly still and expressionless, they almost look fake. However, if you watch closely you will be gently reminded of their humanity by an occasional blink or muscle twitch.

I really wish that I could post the video from The Attraction of Onlookers here, but as I mentioned before I can't find it online. Please see some of my favorite stills and photographs below.

From The Attraction of Onlookers:

From The Writing on the Wall:

Video clip from the making of The Attraction of Onlookers:

Research: Where to Print

I've been putting a lot of thought into how I am going to put my new collages together. The ones I made before were small, and I actually enlarged them when I printed them as photographs. Now that I have gotten enough feedback to know that the photograph route is not the way to go, I want to make my collages bigger. I think they will have a stronger presence and you will be able to see the edges and rawness of them better.

When I was making small collages, I printed them on standard 8.5x11" paper using my own printer. Going larger raises the issue of where to have them printed. I want to print them large (at least poster size) and on regular paper. In researching my options for this, I think I have decided to go with Staples. They can print on a standard weight paper up to 3x100' in full color, and they can do it very quickly. I think that Staples will be a cost- and time-effective choice, however if anyone else has suggestions, I am open to them...

Artist: Javier Piragauta

I came across Javier Piragauta, a Colombia-based artist, this week. He appears to make a lot of commercial collage/photomontage. Unfortunately, I can't understand his writing, so I don't know a lot about him. His work is very polished in comparison to mine, but it's inspiring and beautiful. See his Flickr here.

Research: Are Fathers Really Necessary?

I finally read that article I mentioned earlier in the semester: Are Fathers Really Necessary? from Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Childhood and Society. The article addressed whether or not fathers were necessary in providing children the stability and support they need to grow up "normal" and well-adjusted. Three authors (professors of psychology/sociology) argued that responsible and dependable fathers were in fact necessary, while two other authors (also professors of psychology and sociology) argued that children could receive everything they need from a single parent or "surrogate fathers" in the form of family members and friends.

In reading the two essays from the article, my personal conclusion was that responsible and caring fathers are beneficial, but a child does not necessarily need a parent from each sex to be well adjusted. This makes me feel better about the way I am depicting our situation through my work. I had worried before that people would only see my single-parenthood as a negative, but it doesn't have to be that way. I can be everything for Henry and still expect him to grow up happy and normal, and that is a huge relief to me.

I think the most interesting part of the article for me was the definition of a responsible and reliable father, and what it takes to make one. Ironically, the authors that argued for the need of fathers made it seem almost impossible for a man to be a good father, especially outside of marriage. According to them, it is largely the responsibility of the mother to make sure the father can do his job. At one point in their essay, they say that "in American culture, a woman is a mother all of her life, but a man is a father if he has a wife" (p. 130). I find this claim to be offensive and upsetting. Why is it that fathers are so easily excused from their role, yet mothers are expected to be strong and be there for their children all of their lives? I would personally never think of abandoning my child, but if I did, I know I would be judged much more harshly than any father that did the same.

I found it much easier to agree with the authors that argued against the necessity of fathers. I didn't agree with them because I think that children are better off without fathers (I wish more than anything that Henry could have both parents positively involved), but rather because they did not place ridiculous expectations on mothers. The authors of the "no" side of this article argued that the other authors' "model disproportionately placed responsibility for fathers' involvement with their children on women" (p 147). Instead of doing the same, they ask what responsibility men have for being responsible fathers. I cannot fathom how I am supposed to be a mother to my child while also constantly having to mother his father in order to let them have a relationship. My inability to take care of both of them is one of the many reasons why Henry's father is now absent. There have been times when I have felt guilt over this, but why should I? I do not believe that I should have to be responsible for making someone else responsible.

Anyway, I feel like this is a rambling post, but I am saying all of this to say that I have been reinforced in feeling like I am actually depicting something that can be viewed as a positive in my work. I have made the decision to focus on my child, and I am trying my best to be everything for him. I think that shows in my collages, and I hope everyone agrees. The end.

Extra Post: Midterm Critique Response

Just for my own reference, I am posting my response to midterm critique here as well. It occurred to me that it won't be long before it will be buried under a bunch of other posts on the class blog, and I don't want to have to dig around to find it.

Marion Glass: Midterm Critique

I thought that my midterm critique went much better than I expected it to yesterday. I read a brief statement explaining the evolution of my work so far (you can find that statement here), and everyone seemed to respond to it pretty well. I was given a lot of useful advice, and Christina even offered up a word that I knew but had not yet thought of in terms of my work - facets. She said I appeared to be "fracturing" myself into multiple facets, and none of them were whole. I think that is an extremely effective explanation for how I feel at times - thanks Christina!

The most useful advice came from several people, and that was to present my collages as collage, and not as photographs. Up to this point I have been photographing my collages as I finish them, in the hope that it would make them more cohesive. It seems like everyone thinks that is completely unnecessary and would prefer to see the rough edges, which is actually a relief to me. I think I will enjoy the freedom of leaving my work open-ended and available for alteration at any time. Tom said that it was ridiculous for me to only allow myself a certain period of time before a piece is "finished" because I am a mom and that is almost impossible (which is so true). He suggested that I keep pasting more and more layers, tear stuff off and replace it with something new, and make the work more raw and real in general. He said that it needs to be me - my feelings - on the wall, and I couldn't agree more.

So, that's all. Thanks everyone for all of your helpful comments!!!

Entry: MyArtSpace Scholarship Competition

I was a finalist in the MyArtSpace Scholarship Competition last year as well, so I decided to enter that one again, too. I submitted my gallery, "Subconscious" which contains timed exposures of people interacting with (or ignoring) their ghost. Submission proof below.

Entry: Photographer's Forum

I entered the Photographer's Forum 29h Annual Best of College Photography Contest last year, and am happy to say that I was a finalist and got published in the book. So, of course I entered again this year. Proof:

Artist: Mary Virginia Carmack

During my constant search for inspiring collage artists, I came across Mary Virginia Carmack. She works with painting, drawing, photography, collage/photomontage, and more. I really love some of her collages, and I especially admire their open-ended feel, which is something that was mentioned as lacking in my work. When I view her work I feel like she could add to them at anytime, yet they do not feel unfinished. Some of her beautiful collages are posted below. See her flickr here. To get to know her, read her blog.

Video Self Critique

I think it is always a painful experience to watch myself on video; I can't even stand to hear my own voice on any kind of recording. Somehow, I don't think I'm alone in that feeling. However, watching my critique video was not as bad as I thought, and it was very helpful for absorbing and actually remembering what everyone had to say. In the nervous moment of crit, I have a hard time retaining and processing all of that information.

I noticed some nervous habits that I was not aware of (constant lip biting, for one), and in general I think my body language lacks confidence. I seemed small and defensive, leaning against the wall and crossing my arms a lot. I think that is particularly interesting given that there was no need for defensive behavior - the critique went better than I thought it would.

All in all, I think the process of recording and watching critique is very beneficial, and even though I dreaded it this time I will gladly do it again. I hope to work on controlling my nervous habits the next time around, and take more notes! If it had not been for the recording I think I would have missed a lot of useful advice.

Extra Post: Midterm Critique Statement

Just as a refresher, I'm posting the statement I gave at my midterm critique yesterday:

My work this year is an attempt to deal with, and find humor in, my situation as a single mother. By appearing in my images multiple times, or once surrounded by multiples of my son, I hope to visually communicate that I am his sole caregiver and therefore pulled in a million directions. It is also my hope to convey a sense of liminality through my images, as I believe that I am in a liminal state between where I was, or want to be, and where I have to be.

I started out wanting to document some of the lonely and overwhelming moments I frequently encounter since being left alone in the parenting world. I pieced my images together in Photoshop, but none of the "mes" were interacting with each other. As a result, my first images were lonely and depressing, and almost depicted my child as more of an emotional burden than anything else. In addition, I was over-planning my shoots, separating them from my everyday motherly routines, and they were actually causing me to need a babysitter to keep Henry in the next room, so that he wasn’t part of what I was doing until it was his turn to be in front of the camera. That was not what I wanted at all.

As the semester progressed, I encountered a lot of technical difficulty in piecing my images together, and I was kind of forced by a dead computer to take a different approach. I started making my shoots more organic, taking pictures with a remote while going about my daily routine and interaction with Henry, and I began to physically cut and paste my images together, turning my photographs into collages. This allowed me to truly make my work about motherhood rather than acting for the camera, and I feel that the collages are functioning as a better metaphor for liminality than pristinely Photoshopped images would. They are also better able to communicate that, even though I’m the only parent, I have fun and I love what I’m doing.

I have struggled with this work all semester, and I continue to do so. I would love to make something that is visually beautiful, and these collages certainly aren’t. But they are about my life, and that isn’t exactly beautiful right now either. However, at the end of the day I come home to a person that loves me unconditionally, and I love being his mom, so I’m embracing the situation and embracing this work and I hope that it shows through my finished images.

Research: Multi-Tasking

Everyone has to multi-task to some extent. Not only do I find myself constantly multi-tasking for school (going to class, studying, shooting, image editing, writing papers, etc) but I have to multi-task between my academic career and my role as mother (feeding, cooking, changing diapers, changing clothes, washing clothes, cleaning, picking up toys, playing, putting down for naps, comforting, reading stories, etc). Needless to say, it is extremely difficult.

In my images, I appear multiple times to try to demonstrate the constant activities/tasks I perform in taking care of my son. In the image where Henry appears as multiples and I am only there once, I am trying to demonstrate the energy he puts into everything he does, seemingly effortlessly, and my inability to keep up at times. Thinking about all of this led me to research multi-tasking.

Human multi-tasking or multitasking is the performance by an individual of appearing to handle more than one task at the same time. Some believe that multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching and apparently causing more errors due to insufficient attention. Since the 1990s, experimental psychologists have started experiments on the nature and limits of human multitasking. It has been shown multitasking is not as workable as concentrated times. In general, these studies have disclosed that people show severe interference when even very simple tasks are performed at the same time, if both tasks require selecting and producing action. Multi-tasking has also been shown to have a negative effect on happiness, as it only allows you to skim the surface of activities rather than give them your full attention. (See the article here.)

I feel that the definition and explanation above are pretty accurate for describing the way I feel about my constant juggling of various things. I find it extremely difficult to give my full attention to anything, but more often than not I give it to Henry, ignoring my homework and other daily tasks. I struggle with this because while I want to be a great mom, I want to keep up the grades I have worked so hard for over the last three years, I want to keep my house clean, I want to get enough sleep, and it goes on and on.

Hopefully my collages are depicting this multi-tasking struggle effectively. My midterm critique is this afternoon, so I guess I'll find out...

Image Update

Finally, as promised, here are some of my collages. I'm trying to trust myself that they are what I wanted, but I honestly can't wait for critique to get some feedback...

Artist: Clare Murray Adams

I started looking at Clare Murray Adams because I had heard of her collage work, but found myself more drawn to her fiber pieces. She considers herself to be primarily a fiber artist, but incorporates collage, found objects, and encaustic paints on the surfaces of her fabric works. In viewing her work I detected a lot of themes of femininity, fertility, and domesticity, but here is what she has to say in her artist statement:
"My work is often related in theme to aspects of memory, family history, spirituality, gender, time and space. While the specific occasions of memory are often of a personal nature, the themes and imagery have a universal appeal. My goal in making art is to explore process while allowing intuition to have its say."
I think of her work as being more of an experimental approach to collage, whereas my collages have been very straightforward. I would like to be brave enough to draw/paint on them, but I'm not sure how that relates to my concept unless it looks childish, and I won't know how I feel about that until I do it. Anyway, see a few of Adams' fiber pieces below.

SoulDoll

Four Days in May

Ticklish

Research: Child Art

During Griffin's midterm critique on Tuesday, Tom mentioned the term "Child Art." I was immediately curious as to whether this term applied to my work right now or not, so I did some research on the definition. The definition that I found right away was pretty narrow, as follows: "Child art is the drawings, paintings and other artistic works created by people under the age of 12. It is also referred to as 'children's art' or the 'art of children'. The term 'child art' also has a parallel and different usage in the world of contemporary fine art, where it refers to a sub-genre of artists who depict children in their works" (see article here).

I tried to find more information on this term, but what I found was mostly centered around art therapy in children that have been diagnosed with Autism or come from abusive homes. None of that applies to me.

Even though I could not find much information, this was not a waste. I still feel that I can confidently apply this term to my work - all of my images will contain Henry, and some may actually be manipulated by him - and any language that I can find to help describe what I am doing is helpful. Add this to the list of words I've been compiling for my project and it just might be taking shape...

Artist: Henry Darger

Last week, Tom suggested that I take a look at Henry Darger's work, and I loved it so much I decided to make it my Sunday blog. Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. was a reclusive American writer and artist. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. Darger's work has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art.
In 1968, Darger became interested in tracing some of his frustrations back to his childhood. It was in this year that he wrote The History of My Life, a book that spends 206 pages detailing his early life before veering off into 4,672 pages of fiction about a huge twister called "Sweetie Pie," probably based on memories of the tornado he had witnessed in 1908. He also kept a diary to chronicle the weather and his daily activities. Darger often concerned himself with the plight of abused and neglected children; the institution where he had lived as a boy was brought under investigation in a huge scandal shortly before he left and he might have seen victims of child abuse in the hospital where he worked. (Read more here.)

In looking at Darger's work, I found that it was somewhat related to mine in terms of content (children), and technique. His paintings and drawings immediately remind me of collage, and they are a good source of inspiration for composition. I have been contemplating drawing on my collages, or allowing Henry to have a hand in them, and Darger's work definitely encourages me to at least try it out. Check out some of Darger's work below:

Research: Master Narratives

As I continued to read Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women are Choosing Parenthood Without Marriage and Creating the New American Family by Rosanna Hertz this week, I learned about the concept of what sociologists refer to as a "master narrative."

According to Hertz, "Master narratives describe something that may once have been real but which has, over time, grown beyond its original proportions to become both the stuff of legend and a powerful form of social control. Through repetition, master narratives insinuate themselves into the cultural fabric, even when the ideal is rarely seen in reality" (p. 54). The ideal American family, complete with mother, father, children, and white picket fence, fits the role of a master narrative very well. I do not know anyone that has a perfect family, regardless of the parents' marital status, though it seems to be something that we all strive for.

For me and Henry, the ideal seems unattainable, yet the more I hesitate at this threshold of fully embracing my role as single mother, the more I become aware of the social constructs around me, and the more I long to fit them. According to Hertz, this is not unusual. "Single mothers are not out to change the world. In fact, they work diligently on behalf of their children, patching together a life that resembles the so-called normal middle-class family. Like all mothers, they strive to raise an acceptable child and to organize an acceptable family life" (p. 55).

As I consider my situation both in terms of my work and everyday life, I am constantly reminded of a concept I learned as a child: creating a "new kind of normal." As young children, my older brother and I shared a bedroom for a couple of years, and every night we would listen to "Odyssey" - a Christian radio program we had on CD that told funny stories geared at children and filled with moral values. The one I remember most was about dealing with change, and finding normalcy and happiness in a new situation. This is a challenge we are all faced with from time to time, and for me right now it is proving to be a slow and difficult process. Though I may actually be the happiest I have ever been in some ways - I absolutely adore being a mother! - I struggle to feel "normal," however abstract and subjective that feeling may be.

In the collages I have been working on (and will post soon, I promise!), I think these feelings are definitely coming across. It is not difficult to think of how cutting and pasting is a metaphor for fitting in and feeling normal. The difficult part is finding the language to express these feelings, and I feel like I have been making progress in that area lately. I continue to feel a new surge of inspiration and excitement for this project, and I am looking forward to seeing it through the rest of the year.

Artist Lecture: Brian Ulrich

I was very excited by Brian Ulrich's lecture this afternoon. His images of big box retail stores, abandoned shopping centers and malls, and portraits of consumers are pristine and insightful. Ulrich's subtle commentary on our American consumer culture is savvy and visually interesting. By using film and shooting with a medium format, 4x5, and 8x10 view camera, Ulrich is able to create large and immensely detailed prints that are absolutely gorgeous. As he explained in the lecture, the richness of the film lends a sense of importance to photographs of even the most mundane objects.
My personal favorites were from the Dark Stores project, in which Ulrich explored and documented once thriving businesses that are now desolate. As I was viewing these images, the term liminal (from my research post below) kept coming to my mind. It struck me that I felt an affinity for the places depicted in his imagery because they are stuck in a liminal space just like I am. Once bustling and now forgotten, places such as Circuit City, Value City, and many others can now be found on the threshold between past and future. Other people viewing the work may not have gotten the same feeling at all, but for me, Ulrich's images spoke about the liminal state of being between want and reality. Below are a few of my favorite images from both Retail and Dark Stores.