My life has become a real balancing act, I mean I knew it would be going in to this and it continues to be. Finishing this residency and going right back to work has been a challenge. I feel in a much better place than I was in the fall. The past two weeks I have been thinking about my work and all the questions I have what will me next leap be? As I go back over my notes and listen to recordings of critiques (glad I got the voice recorder it has been very helpful) and thinking about ideas and different ways to print. I don't have the answers to my questions yet I do know I need to get into the studio and make and keep reading. I'm in the process of updating new information for the semester onto my blog.
Last Friday I went to the Griffin Museum to see the Stephen Wilkes gallery talk. His image of Ellis Island are beautiful and got me thinking both about his scale and the text he put next to his images, both things I have been thinking about in my own work.

As an archive below is my book list that I read and artists from Semester 1:
Else/Where: Mapping. Janet Abrams
Camera Lucida Reflections on Photography. Roland Barthes
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Walter Benjamin
Ways of Seeing. John Berger
The Future of Nostalgia. Svetlana Boym
The Art of Light + Space. Jan Butterfield
You Are Here. Katherine Harmon
Photography: A Critical Introduction. Liz Wells
“Sweet it is to Scan…’: Personal Photographs and Popular Photography.” Patricia Holland
Illuminations Women Writing on Photography from the 1850s to the Present. Liz Heron and Val Williams. “Remembrance” Annette Kuhn and “What Becomes a Legend Most: The Short, Sad Career of Diane Arbus.” Catherine Lord.
On Photography. Susan Sontag
Everything That Rises A Book of Convergences. Lawerence Weschler
Artists:
David Salle, Gary Duehr, Cindy Sherman, Abelardo Morell, William Eggleston, Nikki S. Lee, Bruce Gilden, Azra Aksamija, Lewis Baltz, Light and Space artists of Southern California, Jerry Eisenberg, Gerhard Richter, Georges Braque, James Valerio, Karen Kitchel, John Virtue, John Walker, Anne Appleby, Robert Smithson, Starn twins, Gordon Matta-Clark, Rosemary Laing, Justine Kurland, and Lauren Greenfield.
Aaron Siskind, Dan Eldon, Robert Frank, William Wegman, and Irene Shwachman.

It's been a week and half since the residency ended and it seems like it was a long time ago. Work has been insane since coming back from the residency. I plan on spending this weekend going through all my notes and compiling my thoughts for my first paper. I have been working on processing all the ideas from critiques there was a lot of great information floating in my head! Thinking a lot about my last critique of the residency with Oscar Palacio he had great recommendations and questions for my to tackle. I know I just need to start making work again to push through where I am currently, what am I trying to say about my sense of place? I am looking forward to taking more risks this semester in my work I'm just not sure what those are yet. Lot's of things to think about....

I can't believe it's 2008 and I'm about to start my second residency. It's been a busy year and I'm excited about where my work is headed. I have been starting to think about questions I have about my work for the residency. How can I further incorporate maps into my work? Is a visual narrative coming through in my imagery?
I want to begin further exploring drawing my own maps. When I drove home for the holidays I thought a lot about the space around me and what I was seeing as I was driving. Ways I could translate what I saw into a drawn map of my own. I'm sure I will have more questions and answers over the next 10 days.

I had my last meeting with my mentor last week which was great. This past Saturday my advisor Deb came to my studio, and we were able to discuss my work and I handed in my last papers which was a relief. We further discussed maps and the idea of creating my own maps, and moving away from the set symbols used in maps we see everyday. What makes my map personal? I'm looking forward to spending time next semester experimenting with drawing my own maps, something which makes me a little hesitant but I want the challenge. Pushing my mediums of choice further and allowing myself to explore these current ideas more. Now just the critical theory reading and some more printing before the residency. After speaking with both my mentor and my advisor I am excited about where this new work can go and I can't wait for more feedback from the residency. I spoke with Deb about starting to make my own maps so I plan to try and sketch some before the residency. Since I'm going home for the holidays I plan to photograph at my childhood homes. Lately I've just been thinking about ideas discussed with Deb and Laura around my work and where I want this work to go. How maps fit into my process and project.

I can't believe it's December already where has the time gone. As I continue to think about maps in connection to my work I fine my self looking at the details closer and closer. Last night I spent more time tracing over maps onto transparency paper with sharpies. Taking out all the other information that while I love I'm still challenged with how it will fit with or next to my images. I'm working on where these transparencies can take my work by using just the lines of the maps information to make connections to my imagery. It was interesting as I spent more time analyzing the maps of places where I have lived I began to see small things I may not have realized or noticed before. Things that were different when I was a child like the space and time between towns and cities. I also began to think of tracing the lines as another way to think about travel and the roads/lines I travel to get to family and one place to the next.
How different the roads look when all the other information is removed. There is so much information in maps it's interesting how there is still some sort of information left by the line a crossing or way of making the path I have travelled. How then do these lines look when layered a jumbling of color and line makes me also think about my life currently going in a million different directions. Yet still with some sort of focus or endpoint. As I trace the maps I focused on highways in one color and water on most of the tracings. Just breaking down where the highways interact is so interesting. The other piece was how close I have been to water my whole life perhaps a silly fact but one I think I have taken for granted. Above are two examples I have scanned in with nothing done to them yet.
I found this quote in Real Simple magazine the other night.
"When I speak of home, I speak of the place where–in default of a better–those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should cal it by the same good name notwithstanding." -Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
The quote makes me think of home with my family...then I wonder which home? Regardless it comes back to ideas I currently think of that home is where you make it, where the people you love are around you. Thinking about different places especially as I come into the holidays with lots of travel on my plate before the residency begins.

I've been busy the past couple weeks I had Open Studios on 11/17 & 11/18 which went well I had my newer work out and some old work, it was nice to get different feedback. I went to the Andrea Robbins and Max Becher lecture sponsored by the PRC on 11/15, I had not seen there work before and it as interesting to see there take on the landscape and how they work together as a couple. Last night I went to a lecture at BU of Magdalena Campos Pons work another artist who I did not know that much about. However, I was intrigued by her work. She makes connections to home and memory in her work which is something I'm tackling in my new work.
It was nice to have a break from teaching for Thanksgiving and I was able to spend some time in the studio which was much needed. Still working with maps and thinking about ways I can use them differently in my work. I just scanned some negatives in which I photographed multiple exposures of maps in my studio with my Holga. Last night I thought again about making my own map, and possibly tracing on top of maps the way I travel to work, home, etc and then scanning those lines to create a linear map of my travels then juxtaposing that onto my images. I'm excited about where this work can take me and all the possibilities.
There is a part of me that can't believe it's almost December and my next residency is fast approaching but I'm excited to show the new work I have. I still have reading for Critical Theory to work on but it's all getting there one day at a time I try to keep telling myself.

Sometimes I can't believe where time goes..or my time for that matter I try to plan everything out so well. I had open studios this past weekend which went well and I was able to sell some work. I have a bunch of maps hung up in my studio and it was interesting to see the way people were drawn to them. I'm still thinking about maps a lot and trying to push how to further incorporate them into my work and make it not so obvious. Looking forward to picking up some new negatives this week and I need to shoot more! I'm not going home for thanksgiving so I will have more time to spend in the studio which will be great.
Got some new books and spent time going through some other books I had last week from the library. Aaron Siskind's images on Place where interesting for me to see his close up work again something I touch on in my own work and did more of before. I'm continuing to work on series of images from my travel, path, home. I also want to photograph myself more I am excited about where these pairings can go. I just keep plugging away. Got an email from Laura today with some images which was exciting, one of them from Dan Eldon's book which I have so I'm going to look through that tonight.