Research: Computer Shopping

This morning, my Senior Portfolio project ran into a serious snag: it seems my computer is no longer capable of running Photoshop efficiently. I have a 4-year-old Dell laptop (yes, a PC), and it has been slowly dying for a while now. Today was the last straw when it took over a minute for Photoshop to perform such a basic task as zooming in, and the screen cut off before my image could be saved (a process I had already been waiting over five minutes for.) It's really very pathetic. Since my work this year is Photoshop-heavy, I do not see how I can manage to complete it with the computer I already have. So, my research today was all about which computer to buy. I have absolutely no money to spend on a new computer, but I've been shopping around a bit and I may have to give in and put it on my credit card (eek!) Below are the options I found today.

1.) A desktop PC. Not convenient, stylish, or fun by any means, but practical and the best value. This Acer will run faster and stronger than any laptop in the price range I was looking at, and a huge bonus is the gorgeous monitor it comes with.
2.) An all-in-one desktop PC. This is an interesting option. Closer to a laptop but not portable, and definitely more fun than a regular desktop (it has a touch screen!) And it's cheaper, which helps a lot. Unfortunately, this MSI Wind Top has the disadvantage of being non upgradable, and it has limited memory, which means it would probably run Photoshop a little slow. 3.) A Toshiba laptop. This option is extremely affordable and runs well (my younger brother has one.) The only real drawback I see is that the screen resolution is pretty low, and that is something I am not used to. The one great thing about my Dell is that it has a high res widescreen. I would really miss that feature if I were to buy this Toshiba. Keeping it on the short list, though.4.) This option is my favorite: a certified refurbished (by Apple, so I trust it) MacBook Pro!!! It's several hundred dollars cheaper to buy the refurbished one, and this model fits the specifications that I wanted (including the 13" screen and 4.5 lb weight.) This is the most expensive option on my list, but it is also the only one that excites me. I have been dying to switch to Mac. We will see...Hopefully I will make a decision and purchase one of these soon; then I will be able to start editing images as quickly and easily as I want to. In the meantime, I am going to continue to push my PC as hard as I can and try to make it work. I have so many images to layer on top of each other!

Artist: The White Stripes - Michel Gondry

This week, I thought I'd point out the music video Michel Gondry directed for The White Stripes' song "The Hardest Button to Button." The song itself does not have much to do with my concept (although it is about a child trying to find his place in a family after a new child is born, which could be a metaphor for my work) but the technique used by the director is directly related, as you will see when you watch it.

"The video utilizes pixilation animation to create the effect of dozens of drum kits and guitar amplifiers multiplying to the rhythm of the song as Jack and Meg perform. For example, in one sequence, Meg is seen playing the bass drum at a subway station. At every beat she plays, she appears with a new bass drum while the last becomes vacant. This was achieved by first setting up a trail of bass drums. Then, Meg would be filmed performing a single beat on the last drum in the line, followed by the removal of that drum. Meg would then proceed to the next drum, play another beat, and so on. The final video is edited to include the drum beats with the sequence reversed, making it appear as if the drums are being added to the beat, appearing out of thin air. As many as 80 identical bass drums and Fender guitar amps were used in the video." - Wikipedia

I think that the crazy clutter produced by the performance in this video is a good example of the humor and absurdity that I want to bring to my new images. Besides that, it's a good song. Enjoy!

Research: Another Photoshop Technique

I know I said I was going to write about an article I was reading this week, but I decided to address a technical issue instead. As I've been piecing my images together, I've run into a few Photoshop challenges. The main concern is hair. It is so hard to select and keep realistic-looking!!! So, I found another tutorial that is hopefully going to help me out.

Artist: Sally Mann

During my last meeting with Jeff, he reinforced the fact that I need to surround myself with work by other artists. If you read my post on the class blog, you know that we discussed at length my tendency to separate the artist me from the mother me. It's a bad habit. In order to let the artist show through in my work, Jeff said I needed to be drawing inspiration from other artists all of the time. This is something that I know, but have a hard time accomplishing. When I told him that, Jeff suggested that I first take a look back at artists that I had already discovered and been inspired by in the past. I took this advice to heart.

Sally Mann: we all know who she is, and I even met her once (Griffin did too!) I received my first book of her work, Deep South, from a very dear friend when I was about 16. She has been one of my favorites ever since. I don't know why it never occurred to me to look at her work from the artist-as-mother perspective before, because it seems so obvious to me now. She is a prime example of someone who is both an artist and a mother, and would never compromise on either position - instead, she marries the two. In her book, Immediate Family, published in 1992, Sally Mann displays black and white images of her three young children. The content of the images was controversial (nude children, themes of death and isolation among other more normal childhood circumstances) but she was undeterred. As a mother, she knew she was depicting her children naturally, and as an artist, she knew the best way to present them in a universally and aesthetically appealing manner. She considered the photographs to be "natural through the eyes of a mother, since she has seen her children in every state: happy, sad, playful, sick, bloodied, angry and even naked" (Photographers and photography. "Sally Mann: Mother and American Photographer").

Before becoming a mother myself, I was unsure how I felt towards this body of Mann's work. Now, however, I feel that I can agree with her about the images coming naturally, and I understand that she would not have given them a second thought. I would hesitate to photograph my own child in this manner for display to the world, but I do not think of her negatively for doing so. I love this body of work, and I admire Sally Mann for more than making the best of motherhood. Not only did she create beautiful and lasting images, but she spent time with her children in the process. A few of the images from Immediate Family are posted below.

Jessie at Five, 1987

The Last Time Emmett Modeled Nude, 1987

Fallen Child, 1989

Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia, 1989

Research: Some Numbers

The fact that I needed to blog before 9AM today completely slipped my mind. I'm sorry - I won't let it happen again! I did some very general research on single parent families/single mothers this week. Even though the research I've been doing does not directly play into my images, the hope is that it will eventually begin to inform them, causing them to evolve into their final form. Below are my findings from this week.

I have mentioned several times that I feel alone. Not only do I feel alone in my parenting because I lack a partner, but alone as a single mother in general. I know this is not the case, that there are plenty of other women who share my circumstances in the world, but until now I was not sure what the percentage was. Only 13% of school-aged children live with single mothers that were formerly married (Berger, The Developing Person, Eighth Ed., p. 384).I know that number does not include children that are Henry's age, but I still feel that it relates. On the one hand, that number feels large, but when you are part of it, it seems staggeringly small. 24% of White, non-Hispanic parents with children under the age of twelve are single mothers (Berger, The Developing Person, Eighth Ed., p. 388). This number is larger, but does not separate mothers that were never married from mothers that are estranged/divorced from their husbands. I take comfort in this greater number, but at the same time I find it to be devastating. In fact, according to Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Childhood and Society compiled by Diana and Robert Del Campo, "There are over 7.5 million single mothers raising children in the United States today." This staggering number not only helps to demonstrate that my feelings of being alone are somewhat unfounded, but forces me to ask several questions of myself. What makes me feel like I am so special and unique in my situation? If it is so common, why is there such a stigma against single motherhood? What can I do to connect with the other members of my social minority, and make a difference? How do we overcome the situation? Since single motherhood is occurring everywhere all of the time and often not by choice, why are the single mothers blamed? These are questions that I will use to fuel future research. I am currently reading an article from Taking Sides that answers the question Are Fathers Really Necessary? from opposite ends. Next week, I will post my findings from that. Until then. . .

Image Update

Just for reference and because I realize I haven't spent much time talking about what I'm actually doing on this blog (I use the class blog for that, I guess), I'm posting my first sample image below. It needs refining/reworking, but I think it is a good demonstration of what I have in mind.

Artist: Mary Cassatt

In our first meeting, Tom suggested that I take a closer look at Mary Cassatt's work. I knew that her name was familiar from an art history course I took freshman or sophomore year, but I only vaguely remembered who she was. So, I finally got around to taking Tom's advice this week.

Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker, though she spent most of her adult life in France where she was friends with Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists. The subject matter in a lot of her work involves the private lives of women - particularly their relationships with their children. The content of her work appeals to me and applies to my work for obvious reasons, but a less obvious reason that I am able to relate to her and her work is that Cassatt identified herself with the Impressionists - a group of artists that were considered to be radical and outside of the norm, much as single mothers are viewed in some circles to this day. Of the Impressionists, Cassatt once said "We are carrying on a despairing fight & need all our forces" (Nancy Mowll Matthews, Mary Cassatt: A Life, 1998). That quote reminds me of the feelings I have at the times when I feel completely alone, which are the times that make me want to create this work, to figure out the ways in which I am not alone, to pull together all my forces, and to carry on. See some of Cassatt's work below.

The Child's Bath, 1893

Under the Horse Chestnut Tree, 1898

The Boating Party, 1893

Research: Animal Parenting Styles

During my meeting with Tom yesterday, he mentioned the possibility of researching how various animals cope with single parenting, orphans, and so on. This idea was very appealing to me, especially because it seems that most animals are single parents, and they do just fine. Of course, those animals are completely different from me, but I can relate to them on some base level. So, I took a closer look at a few animals, two of which I will discuss below. For some of the animals I looked at, single parenting is natural, for others it is something that can be overcome, and for a few, it could mean the end.

1. The Emperor Penguin

First of all, I'm a big fan of the film March of the Penguins. If you haven't seen it, you are really missing out. Emperor Penguins are amazing majestic creatures, and the care that they provide to their young is so selfless that it puts some human parents to shame. Here is an excerpt from a Wikipedia article that goes into some detail on the Penguins' breeding/parenting habits: "Emperor Penguins use a particular spot as their breeding ground because it is on ice that is solid year round and there is no danger of the ice becoming too soft to support the colony...At the beginning of Antarctic Summer, the breeding ground is only a few hundred meters away from the open water where the penguins can feed. However, by the end of summer, the breeding ground is over 100 kilometres (62 mi) away from the nearest open water. In order to reach it, all the penguins of breeding age must traverse this great distance. The penguins practice serial monogamy during each breeding season. The female lays a single egg, and the co-operation of the parents is needed if the chick is to survive. After the female lays the egg, she transfers it to the feet of the waiting male with a minimal exposure to the elements, as the intense cold will kill the developing embryo. The male tends to the egg when the female returns to the sea, now even further away, both in order to feed herself and to obtain extra food for feeding her chick when she returns. She has not eaten in two months and by the time she leaves the hatching area, she will have lost a third of her body weight. For an additional two months, the males huddle together for warmth, and incubate their eggs. They endure temperatures approaching (−62 °C (−79.6 °F)), and their only source of water is snow that falls on the breeding ground. When the chicks hatch, the males have only a small meal to feed them, and if the female does not return, they must abandon their chick and return to the sea to feed themselves. By the time they return, they have lost half their weight and have not eaten for four months." If either of the parents were to disappear, the Penguin chick would freeze to death whether it were hatched or not. If the male left before the female could transfer her egg to him, she would be forced to abandon the egg or starve to death. If the female did not return after leaving her egg with the male, she would be faced with the same terrible decision. In the Emperor Penguins' case, parenting as a team is imperative to the survival of the chick.

2. The Bottlenose Dolphin

The female Bottlenose Dolphin is a natural-born single mother. Male and female Bottlenose Dolphins that are sexually mature live seperately - the females live in a group while males tend to live alone or with only one to two other males. Between ages 5 and 13, the female Bottlenose Dolphin becomes sexually mature and may reproduce every two to six years after that. A Bottlenose Dolphin is pregnant for twelve months, and nurses and cares for her offspring for eighteen to twenty months after birth. While she may have assistance from another female or even a male dolphin as she gives birth, it appears that the responsibility of caring for the calf is solely hers from that point on. Though female dolphins generally live in groups with other females - referred to as pods - they are all busy caring for their own young and do not share maternal duties. After weaning their calves, female Bottlenose Dolphins maintain a relationship with them for several years. The dolphin mother is not adversely affected by her status as single mother, in part because it is only natural for her to be that way, but perhaps also because she is not truly alone, but surrounded by a supportive group of others in her exact situation. For more about the Bottlenose Dolphin, see the Wikipedia article here.

Both of these and other animals that I read about related to my situation as a single parent in many ways. The general feeling that I got was that my circumstances could be worse, like the rather desperate predicament the Penguin parent would be in if it suddenly found itself to be single. On the other hand, the Dolphin handles the situation with ease because it comes naturally. At any rate, this research is further confirmation that I am not as alone as I sometimes feel, and I will continue to search for a way to convey that in my work.

Artist: Alyson Belcher

Alyson Belcher has been inspiring/informing me and my work for a couple of years now. Her work is done with a pinhole camera, and combines performance and photography. She often appears multiple times within the frame, and is nearly always interacting with herself in some way. The images appear raw, primitive, emotional, and beautiful. All of her poses draw from her feelings and experiences, and each image tells some part of her story. We all know that I am really into that. . . See her artist statement and work below.

"The Body: My work combines pinhole photography with improvisational performance, and stems from the idea that everything we experience is stored somewhere in our bodies. Movement is one way to access and give visual form to what lies beneath the surface of the skin. The making of these photographs is an exploration of the nature of each movement and where it originates internally.

Because of the unpredictable nature of pinhole photography, there is no way to really know how an image will turn out. I don't usually begin with a clearly defined idea. The images often reveal stories that may or may not have been known to me previously. That doesn't mean that they aren't my stories. Often the body remembers what the mind has forgotten.
The Camera: The pinhole camera is low tech; it is the most basic tool for making a photographic image. There is no lens to interfere with the light as it travels from the subject to the film. Because there is no viewfinder through which to preview the image, it's a relatively blind process.

The element of time in pinhole photography allows something to arise that might never be revealed by modern photographic technology. The long exposure times give me an opportunity to explore the space in front of the camera. I may have the impulse to move, or I may chose to remain still - although the body is never completely still, and even the smallest movements leave traces on the film."

-Alyson Belcher, from her website

Research: Photoshop Technique

I found a new Photoshop technique that I can't wait to try. I want to make myself appear multiple times in one frame, and it's been awhile since I attempted to do that kind of Photoshop work. So, naturally, I searched YouTube for a tutorial, and I found one that I think is going to work really well. It's very simple, but I would not have thought of it on my own. See the video below: