Thank you!!

I just wanted to say thanks, Pipo, for a fantastic semester. I have enjoyed your class so much- the challenge of learning photography as well as the engaging ideas and material presented in class. I've also had fun keeping a blog (I think I'll keep it up, esp. while I'm in Beijing next semester!). See you in September!

Frames

This was the final result of my second sculpture project this semester- I was very inerested in old, ornate picture frames (http://theorangefedora.blogspot.com/search/label/frames) that you see in museums. The frames are so intricate and were all handcarved, yet the maker is never given credit. I left my frames empty to draw attention to the handiwork that goes into this craft, and also to question why, in our society, whatever is put in a frame is instantly elevated to the status of 'art'. Made from plaster using the blanket-mold process, the multiplicity and apparent mass-production (hah!) of my frames is also in contradiction to the uniqueness of the original handcarved pieces.

This project was an unbelievable amount of work- after creating a model of each piece from clay and making a rubber mold, each section of the frames had to be cast, baked, sanded, shellac-ed, painted brown, painted gold and then rubbed over with shoe polish for the aged look.

Yours truly (for staffage).

Loretta Lux

Little children and oh, so very creepy. http://www.lorettalux.de/

Elizabeth Peyton and Egon Schiele

Above, Elizabeth Peyton: Contemporary figure painter (mostly male model-y figures in lush paint). Below, Egon Schiele (1890-1918): Austrian figure painter of mostly female nudes and self-portraits (often twisted or sexual or about death). The two painter's work seem correlated to me- a similar emotion or connection to the viewer, I guess.

10 Classical Paintings (However you wish to interpret "classical")

First and foremost- the most influential painter to me/my work/my life. Before I decided that I'm not a painter I tried really, really hard to paint like him- Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec.

The above is one of my favorite paintings- Lamé by John Currin.
The above two are also by John Currin, a contemporary painter who often references classical painting or traditional portraiture but gives it a cynical modern twist.

Above and below are paintings by Eric Fischl, another contemporary figure painter who works in a more classical realism style.

Below are three paintings by Edward Hopper, another "classic" (at least, to me, and in the contemporary painting world). His paintings convey incredible loneliness and emptiness in such a beautiful way.

Fourth Project: Luck

(these scans are really horrible, sorry- it was my first time scanning negs.)

(project statement)
For this final piece I combined a process I have been working on in my sculpture class (2-part molds) with a photographic narrative. The little shapes I photographed are cast from glycerin and are duplicates of this incredible stone I found on the beach in Mexico when I was twelve. I held on to this stone, as I have held on to many other small, visually interesting or meaningful objects, because I thought maybe they were lucky. I am not superstitious nor do I rely on these objects to bring me good fortune, but I have always enjoyed the imaginative nature of luck. In this work the stones serve as a visual symbol for good and bad happenings. The stones “traveled” to these different locations and were documented there, just as my own thoughts have traveled to or lingered in these same locations. The stones can denote not only the things we discover about ourselves, or what we leave behind, but also the aspects of ourselves and events in our lives that we cannot see. This idea is just beginning to take shape and in the future I plan to work more with these stones as well as the idea of luck in general.

Third Project: Persona

(apologies for the dust. I can't make myself be a perfectionist about dust on negatives. I think it must be a form of rebellion for me.)(project statement)
I created an installation in my room that suggested an environment. I asked two friends who are dancers and have known each other for a long time to be my models. I dressed them up in clothing that I thought fit well with the installation and then asked them to pretend that they lived in this space: to create the persona that they thought would inhabit this environment. I didn't give them much direction and just worked with the poses they created, occasionally giving them suggestions about where to look or what emotion they might be feeling. They worked really well together and gave me a great deal of material to chose from when printing my photos, allowing me to hone in on the exact look I wanted to create. I hung the photos with some of the original installation that I created for the photo shoot.

(I was frustrated with this project largely because of how dark the negatives turned out- I was working without a lightmeter- a very stupid idea. )