Use of photography…we can’t remember everything. We can only really remember very few things - so many of our experiences become a distant memory – fuzzy in our mind’s eye, my art is about a particular moment in time, an interaction with a specific space or time – a struggle/growth – a moment that I want to remember…how do I make these images not arbitrary? Why would someone else be interested?
Idea: A series of crowds highlighting different people in the mass – see how that changes the content and composition.
These artworks need to make the transition from being specific portraits, to a collective experience – (idea: use collage to incorporate a specific time or place, i.e. today’s newspaper or the brochure to a specific art opening or concert…)
Do I want to capture the specific culture of boarding schools? Yes, but the contract and consent forms make me crazy. Chapel, convocation, dining hall (seated meals or buffet), art openings, classes, games. Then what? Find the figures who seem out of place, awkward…
WAIT! I am McKenzie’s parent. I ought to use her. I certainly don’t want to loose these memories. It is so true; I am absolutely scared of forgetting. Interesting... I could even have them take photographs of her at daycare. I want to “remember” these moments too – even though I am not there. I hate that I am not there – I can just change my memories, make memories of being there. If we know anything it is that we can create our own memories through making up stories to go with the photographs of our childhood. What is that called? Unreliable – creating a memory to fill a void with pictures and stories, fabrication, fuzzy… Hummm, interesting. I am trying to do what it seems like everyone in the world is telling me, “enjoy these times while you can…”
SAVE MOMENTS
I can use photos I already have of our wedding, birthdays, McKenzie’s growth: pregnancy, labor, hospital, birth, rock to sleep, bottle, sleeping, rolling over, crawl, stand, reach, stroll, play, grab, observe, interact. Using McKenzie is a good idea – she is small and strangely shaped (which interestingly enough are the ones in my series that are formally working). Have the figure holding McKenzie be the negative space; this way her figure will start interacting with the background. Hummm, archive, journal pages, newspaper, assignment sheet, to do list…because there is always a meanwhile…
I resonate with the idea of my figure becoming the background because I do – I am now insignificant, all except my trace. I am trying to make these moments of McKenzie permanent/archival.
As I get excited about my kids at Asheville School, I get really excited about my own child. Surely others will be affected, touched. The silhouette strips away any specific identity, so I can begin to use Asheville School faculty families. I can even start to use pregnant women on the streets, or strollers, or anybody that is “younger” than us because I am chronologically recording. Otherwise, it starts to get sloppy – “remembering” events that have not even happened yet - almost like I am trying to create the future.
There is an irony in all of this that cannot be ignored and that is by existing behind the camera – I am, by the nature of photography, not being here now. There is not only literally something in between me and my baby (the camera), but also a strange mindset of being in the future. Before the capture button is pushed – “I hope this is a good one that I can use later” or “Oh shit, I missed that moment”. There is a perpetual then or later – too soon or too late – passing or going.
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