Photographic Memories.

The childhood memories I chose to convey in this week's assignment are varied and come from different stages of my life. The very first series of photos I did have a theme surrounding potatoes. This seems really strange, but as a child I was a very picky eater and I loved mashed potatoes. I ate potatoes for dinner almost every night. It is a funny fact about myself that I like to share, so it has worked its way into this assignment. The second set of photos I did were about how I cried many times in the shower during my early years of highschool over an abusive relationship I was in. I took these photos in my old prom dress, because when I was young in highschool school dances were considered a very big deal, romantically and socially. The third set is about me discovering my love for fashion in middle school. I took the photos on the grounds of my old middle school, while dressed in the Japanese street fashion "lolita" style that I discovered during that time period, while holding one of my favorite dolls I loved at the time while also holding a "lolita" designer shopping bag from Japan. This fashion style influenced my art and my life so much at the time and even now that I thought it deserved to be part of this assignment. I also took several photos showing memories I had at my grandmother's house, who I spent a lot of time with as a child. I took photos of the books she used to read to me whenever we had sleepovers, of the rocks I would throw into the pond in her backyard, and of her glass figurine collection I loved to stare at and play with when I was little. The very last photo I took was in my bathroom, featuring a cupcake and pill bottles. This represents my battles with extreme anxiety. My anxiety makes me physically sick to the point where I vomit, so many of my mornings before school were spent in the bathroom being sick. When I was 12, my doctor tried to put me on a medication I was too young for, which caused me to have severe mood swings. My parents would ask me why I was lashing out or being mean to my brother or other kids, but because of the medicine my mind was warped so I would have no recollection of doing such things. The pills I was given were always put into some kind of sugary drink or sweet because I had problems swallowing them, so that is why I used the cupcake. It was a very scary and sad time for me that I will never forget.

Emmet Gowin's photography.

              For this week's assignment concerning vantage point and perspective in photography, I chose to research the photographer Emmet Gowin. I took out his photo book "Mariposa Nocturnas - Edith in Panama" from the library, which is a series symbolizing his fascination with insects and nature combined with his life as a parent. His work in this book reminds me of something old and dusty. He photographs silhouettes of dead leaf skeletons and fluttering moth wings. He mixes these very natural things with silhouettes of himself, his wife, and children, making for surreal compositions that combine humans with the natural world.
              Concerning vantage point and perspective, Emmet Gowin does not experiment with the position of his camera much in this photo series. He shoots his human models straight-on--they are either facing the camera or are profile silhouettes. The moths in many photos are the only moving things in the photo, swirling about the human figures in dizzying blurs, making for a dreamy soft texture in the background. Despite not experimenting much in his perspective, Emmet Gowin's photos are still fascinating to look at, and he makes his simple compositions and vantage points very interesting through subject matter, lighting, and texture.

Experimental Photography inspired by the Maternal Hopi

"The radiance".

"Translucence of human flesh".

"Long dark hair".

"Winter moonlight".

"A white supernova reported by alien traveller".

"The light that congeals about vaguely imagined objects".

"A dream of seeing through one eye only". 

"The sensation of sadness at having slept through a shower of meteors".

"Gridded light seen by those born blind".

"An afterimage".

DRAWING: evening.

When I drew my last set of drawings, it was rather late into the evening--around 7:00  or 8:00 at night. The sun had fallen over Boston, and city lights were blinking and twinkling across the horizon. My room was very dark, minus my desk lamp which I tried to muffle to keep the natural light of the dark city from lighting my room. Each of my objects had very dark values at this point. The metallic part of my desk mirror had reflections on the right of it now, possibly from my desk lamp which I tried to hide on my floor...I find it interesting how the reflections in the metal changed throughout the day though.

DRAWING: Mid-day

My drawings around mid-day were actually done a little late--around 1:00 - 4:00 in the afternoon, when the sun was high in the sky, though slightly suffocated by clouds. A bit of a dreary day in Boston, but despite this, a bright glow filled the room--much brighter than the soft light from the early morning sun. This caused for stronger values in all of the objects I chose to draw about my dorm room. The most interesting thing to note is that the reflections in the metallic part of my desk mirror seemed to be shifting more towards the middle--most likely caused by the shifting of the sun in the sky. For the most part, the rest of my objects were being lit in the same direction, though with much stronger lighting.

DRAWING: early morning.

Early morning is an interesting time of day to draw. One would think that everything in the room would be very bright and illuminated, but that wasn't quite the case in my dorm room. The sun was up over Boston, around 10:00 AM, and the glow sifted through the room window, softly hitting the clutter about my floor and my desk. My closet (which I drew the handles of) had very soft shadows across it, and not very strong dark values from the weak early morning sunlight. My TV, which sits just below my window sill, was lit from the back and the side, and had more values because it was farther away from my window light source. My mirror, which sits on my desk, closest to the window, was lit the strongest by the early sunlight from the left side. The amount of values on each object I drew was affected greatly by the position of it within my room.

James Turrell (+a wee introduction)

In our very first class of "TIME: Memory and Myth", we watched a video about the artist James Turrell. Turrell experiments with light and shape and creates exhibits that help his viewers enter another world--whether they be psychodelic or spiritual. He concentrates on how the sun travels across the sky and into his exhibit, using celestial inspiration to create interesting architecture that is subtle but will fascinate those walking through. Other than creating semi-spiritual art instillations involving the beauty of the Earth's sky, he has also done walk-in rooms covered in colored artifical lighting, creating out-of-this-world, "trippy" escapes from the hustling and bustling outside world.
Turrell made some very meaningful points about the passage of time within the film, explaining how when one quiets there soul when looking at the sky, they can feel the power of the Earth and divine forces around them. The Shakers of the Shakers Church that Turrell designed architecture for felt this way too; when they showed Turrell's skylit room in the Shaker Church, with clouds rolling over the Shakers heads, you could feel the divine peace and connection to God the Shakers must have found there. I found this very inspiring and deep. 
I was also very inspired about Turrell's love for immersing his viewers into a different world. His fully-lit rooms (like the one above) were described by visitors as "an escape from the bustling city outside" and a "different world completely from that outside". I found this very beautiful and hope to create that kind of atmosphere in my own work. Watching that short documentary on Turrell has made me think more about how light can be used to create an inviting and intriguing space, and his unique view on the passing in time is something I would like to keep in mind while creating my own artwork.

Anyway, here is a wee introduction about myself: my name is Hannah Smith (though I tend to prefer to go my Hannah Grace...hence my blog URL~) and I'm a fashion design major here at MassArt. I'm excited for this class and I can't wait to see what we end up doing!!