first mentor meeting

On Monday I met with Laura Blacklow for the first time. The meeting was great it was nice to connect with her and have both my work from the residency and new contact sheets from the work I have been shooting over the summer to look and talk about. We looked through my new contact sheets talked about ideas and questions I have about my own work.
She spoke to the ideas of cropping, disorientation, scale, loss of horizon line, a visual memory, folding time, sequence. I talked about light and shadow in my work, and she asked "What does light and shadow say to me in the 21st century?"
Another question was "Why is this working for me?" The new work I have been shooting, imagery that for me also questions why am I photographing this?
Laura recommended looking at Alice Wells work and to read the first chapter of John Berger's Ways of Seeing before I read Walter Benjamin Illuminations. We looked at Robert Frank's Lines of My Hand and a Lee Friedlander book while I was at her house.
I felt good about the meeting and challenged at the same time. I'm looking forward to printing this new work. I'm struggling a little with the first thought piece but I know I will get there. Meetings at my teaching job start this week so I'm feeling a little stress from all around.

getting there

I'm back from Michigan it was a great trip, lots of photographing and relaxing. My family had a service for my grandfather and it was wonderful to have some closure after he passed away in January. While I was there I was thinking more about my work for this semester and my idea of place. What is my sense of place? and how do I photograph that? Even if I do photograph my personal sense of place how does the viewer determine that? How does the viewer know that it has to do about my ideas of place? Does that matter? I feel that's an important idea to keep in mind. Something that was discussed in critiques during my first residency that the work should be able to speak for itself.
Perhaps what I need to consider more is my story. What am I trying to say I seem to be using the landscape so far. I'm hoping to start making some prints. I just ordered a new lap top and an Epson printer for my space.

Completed

I finished my task to see all the shows that are ending soon, before I leave this morning for my trip. Yesterday I saw the Edward Hopper show at the MFA. His paintings are beautiful, however, I have not seen that much of his work besides some of his most famous pieces such as Nighthawks. I had never seen his etchings and was intrigued by his understanding of light which is evident as well in his paintings. One etching in particular A Corner 1919, an image of a street corner with strong sense of light in the small print. I was really attracted to the warm light in the painting Sun in an Empty Room 1963 which was towards the end of the show. . Something I try to translate into my color photographs a strong sense of light and color. The show Jewelry by Artists: The Daphne Farago Collection was a striking show of such different types of jewelry. The last show I viewed was a Contemporary Outlook on German Photography. I enjoyed looking at Thomas Struth's image, Galleria dell'Academia 1 Venice. The show was a mix of German photographers I would expect to see in a show of that nature the Becher's, Ruff, and Gursky to name a few.
It was a good trip and I'm glad I saw all the shows before heading out of town. I'm looking forward to some more vacation before teaching starts. As well as some time to photograph and work on more reading.

one more to go

Well the past week has been busy but I've almost completed my goal one more museum to go. Thursday I met Alison and Melissa and saw a few galleries on Newbury street, many are closed for August good to know. Some interesting work and some not that interesting. That evening I went to the ICA to see the Philip-Lorca diCorcia show which was larger than I expected. I enjoyed seeing all that work especially the portraits capturing people on the street; where the background disappears allowing you to focus right in on the person. I was also interested in his experimental narrative sequence a Storybook Life.
Continuing on my journey to visit shows that will end soon or while I'm away. I visited the DeCordova Museum to see there Annual Exhibition coming into the space and seeing Sandra Allen's enormous drawing of a tree was incredible, the detail it was so beautiful. I was attracted to the large prints by Sarah Amos and I look forward to doing more research on her work. The kinetic sculptures by Anne Lilly were very impressive just watching the smooth movement of each piece was amazing. I decided I had some more time so I was off to Winchester to the Griffin Museum. I wanted to spend a little more time looking at Joyce Tenneson's photographs since I didn't see all of them after the lecture.
This morning I went up to the Peabody Essex Museum which is a wonderful space, I had never been to that museum. The Joseph Cornell show was amazing and worth the visit. I spent the majority of my time there at that show looking through all his images and boxes.
Monday I'm off to the MFA to see the Hopper exhibit the last on my list before I leave on Tuesday.

shows

Well for the past couple of days I have been resting from having my wisdom teeth out and working on my reading. I spent some time scanning negatives in the other day and printed out some contact sheets. I like some of the images, I need to start making some larger prints. Yesterday I liked the light in my apartment so I set up my medium format camera to take some pictures. Here is a new image from the shooting I have been doing.
Last Friday I went to the Mills Gallery which I had not been to before and saw photographs by Oscar Palacio it was a small exhibit but I enjoyed his large landscape images. There was another show (un)building which had a mix of work I was most interested in the photographs and small scale sculptures by Sally Moore. This week I plan to see a lot of shows that are ending in August. The MFA, ICA, The Joseph Cornell show, The DeCordova and The Griffin Museum, it's going to be a busy week. Then I'm headed to northern Michigan for 10 days where I plan to do a lot of shooting and reading. I'm excited about my new work I think things will be even better when I make some prints. I'm working on getting a new printer for my studio space at the moment.

Joyce Tenneson Lecture 7/12

I went to the Joyce Tenneson lecture at the Griffin Museum last Thursday. I was a little late so I missed the very beginning of her talk or so I thought I had just missed some of the earlier slides to music of her work. The rest of the talk consisted of a PowerPoint to music and then a long and interesting question and answer period. I have always found her work to be interesting and looked at it in undergraduate when I was photographing the female form. This was the first time I have heard her talk and she spoke a lot about herself and what she had been through which was interesting. However, it made me think back to discussions in the residency about thesis and talking about "when I was 5...." Overall it was interesting I would like to go back to look at the work more thoroughly as some things had been moved for the lecture.

I am looking forward to visiting some more shows in the next week. I am currently working on my first paper and thinking a lot about my work. I have been photographing a lot and I look forward to printing some work out and beginning to make connections. Last night I had a dream about my work and it was very different, I was setting small scale images up in my studio. Interesting since I have thought about that but I'm not sure that's where my work is headed right now.

back to work

I'm back from Colorado it was a nice break did some rock climbing. Saw Patrick and went the the Cherry Creek Arts Festival and checked out the outside of the Denver Art museum, got there a little to late to get in.
Just trying to photograph now, I have some new film to be developed. Get through my first book and I need to start writing my first paper. My mind is still filled with so many ideas and questions, still searching for answers. Headed to the Joyce Tenneson lecture this evening.
I'm trying to get my new studio space organized, it's all coming together.