Final Project: Poetry

Kentifrica Artist Visit

Kenyatta presented a very interesting performance piece. I was intrigued by the panel of "experts," but was admittedly very confused throughout the whole performance. I wasn't sure if Kentifrica was an actual, physical place or not, and I know that many of my peers felt the same way; quite dumbstruck. While the panelists presented their material effectively, I felt that the performance would have been much stronger with an explanatory introduction. I understand that Kenyatta was trying to make a point about the culture of her people, (or blended cultures, rather) but to be honest...even after doing background research on Kentifrica following the performance...I'm still confused. And I'm really still not sure if it is a physical place or not.

I believe that the conversation that Kenyatta tried to conduct could have been more lively and productive had she not shrouded the whole project in mystery. I left feeling unsatisfied and frustrated; unable to truly take anything out of the experience. I believe that Kenyatta may be on the verge of sparking some very important conversations that may be progressive for our society, but I think her piece is still just too raw. She needs to work on developing it more fully, workshop what is effective with audiences and what isn't.

I was very excited about the visit of a performing artist, but I was ultimately disappointed. 

Arist Talk: Brian Chu and Rick Fox

Brian Chu:

I was very moved by Brian Chu's use of the pallet knife to paint. Having taken introductory painting, and been forced to use the pallet knife to paint on occasion, I know how unbelievably time-consuming and restricting it can be as a tool. With that in mind, I have an entirely new appreciation for Chu's work. His use of multiple ranging colors to create one greater, cohesive element is impressively successful. His focus on the larger image, rather than nitty-gritty details, give his paintings more emotion.

I was especially interested in his comment about time as an element, and how shadows shape a terrain over time, such as with his painting of Mt. Washington. I have always paid attention to shadows in a landscape, but never considered them as an entity to actually SHAPE the landscape and image before me. Using time and shadows as a tool is not a method I had previously considered, but it's an incredibly engaging approach.

Rick Fox:

Having had Professor Fox as a teacher for both Introductory Drawing and Introductory Painting, I feel that I understand his methods more clearly, as he teaches them in his classes. I have always looked up to his emphasis on how important the process of creating is. His drawings of personal iconography were raw in a way that allowed genuine human connection. There were hints of the process behind the work - smudges and erase lines. But they did not seem unfinished.

I was deeply moved by Professor Fox's discussion of poetry, and the connection between writing poetry, and creating visual art. Talking about his poet friend, and how she needs to scale back on "virtuousness," as he gave us a definition, "conforming to a known standard of right and wrong," is something I wholeheartedly believe in. Poetry and art are not meant to exist within the walls of conformity - their creation should involve chaos and confusion and above all else, push the boundaries. They should be raw and human, not bound by rules, restrictions or regulations. I found these sentiments within Professor Fox's drawings. I found it both within the dark sweeping lines, and the masses of negative space shapes that enveloped them.

Final Project Proposal: The Bridge Between Poetry and Photography

For my final project, I’d like to focus on creating a connection between my poetry and photography. Poetry has come to be a very big part of my life in the past few years, as photography has been for a long time. However, I have never bridged the gap between the two to create unification. I want to intertwine my literary art and visual art to create a more wholesome, completed project. I’ve thought about a number of different ways to do this. I considered writing poems inspired by photographs, but I think that would almost be like working backwards. So I have selected a few poems, written in the past three years, that I want to focus on to create visual representation for. Many of the poems I plan to focus my attention on are among the group that I read at the Undergraduate Research Conference last spring.

    I can’t say exactly how the final project will turn out right now - whether it will be a cohesive project that branches across multiple poems, separated groups of photos for each individual poem, or simply just come to focus on one single poem. It will require a lot of time and exploration. I plan to bounce between literal and figurative/symbolic depictions of the poems, but will eventually narrow it down to one approach in order to have a unified group of photos. I want to play with focus - don’t be surprised if the final photos are all blurred abstractions. These photos may or may not involve use of the figure. I don’t think it will be all of either side - the final group will most likely have a mix of some photos with and without figures.

My primary goal is to capture the essence of the poem, the heart of its tone and emotion that inspired me to write it in the first place. Visually and accurately portraying the imagery within the poems is not as important to me. That being said, as mentioned before, I still intend to play with the exploration of literal visual depictions for at least some of the poems that do focus more on visuals. I think it’s a necessary path I need to take in order to come at this project from all angles before settling on one final approach.

Light will of course play a huge roll in the creation of these photos. I plan to use different lighting situations as one of the primary methods to portray emotion and tone in the photographs. Once again, this will require some exploration both with artificial studio lights, and the utilization and manipulation of natural light. But all photos will be very conscious and decisive in the use of light within the frame.

Persona: Of Sea and Mountains

Window Still Life: At The Edge of Public and Private

We spend our lives staring out of windows. They are arguably the most important feature of a house. Nobody wants to live in a home without windows; it would be depressing, enclosed and oppressive.  We arrange each room in a house around them, accent them with various curtains and drapery. They are the connection between our internal lives and the world outside. They are the edge of two realms; where private meets public. For this project, I tried to capture both sides of the window; the internal and external. When someone looks out their window, they see the same landscape everyday, with regards to variation of season and the general activities of the population. They look through their window and see the outside world. However, on the other side of the window, people are left with endless mysteries. Behind closed doors, the lives of people within their homes are relatively private. We have curtains to close out the general public, so nobody can see inside our homes if we don't want them to. These photos capture the perspective of a person looking at the outside world from the within the safety of their private homes. There are hints of private life revealed within the interior spaces of the window, while outside exists almost as a completely separate world.

This project was largely inspired by the painter Ben Aronson, specifically his painting "Manhattan, 2am" which I viewed and fell in love with for the first time last year at a gallery in Boston.

Still Life Contact Sheets

Still Life Silhouette Project

Group Project

Something Borrowed: Portraits

Something Borrowed

Chosen card: The Narrative Impulse: Portraits and Their Stories

The image on the card is black and white; a torso shot of a woman who stands with her shoulders facing the camera, her head turned slightly to the left. Her eyes are looking into the camera lens, the whites of her eyes are incredibly vibrant. The camera is focused only on her face and the top portion of her head; the rest of her - the sides of her head, her hair, her neck, her shoulders, her chest - is out of focus. There is a good amount of vignetting around the corners of the photograph. The focusing of the photograph, and the prominence of the eyes captures me as a photographer and a person. Her eyes speak for her expressionless face. I can't help but wonder what this woman was thinking when the photograph was taken. She doesn't appear to be uncomfortable or out of her element. I want to know what is behind her eyes; who is this person? What has she been through? Where is she going? I look at the photograph of this woman, and while the portrait is strong standing alone, I wonder if it is part of a larger set of photographs, all meant to document and profile her and her life. Her essence.

As an artist and a writer, I'm currently studying the exploration of storytelling. I am trying to branch out of internal exploration and learn how to uncover external stories; stories of other people. What do I notice in these stories that may be overlooked by someone else? What does the world gain through storytelling? How do you capture and portray the essence of someone both in words and in a portrait? How can you do one without the other?

Last year, my most personally prized project was a profile piece I did on a close friend of mine. I took a series of photographs of him in his house, as well as photographing his bedroom. The project was criticized as being solely a subjective portrayal of him, as opposed to an objective portrayal. I wasn't even sure how I would capture the opposing portrayal differently, and I still don't know today. But what I am realizing is that all portrayals or profiles of a person, especially with photographs are, in some small way or another, subjective. That does not necessarily make them weak. I really want to explore these concepts further - storytelling through portraits; how can I capture the essence of a person? And how might my openly subjective portrayal of them bring more to the table, the world, the art of photography and storytelling, than someone who tries so hard to maintain an objective eye? I'm not a journalist, I'm a storyteller, and stories have emotions and passion in them. I want to try and fill my portraits with those elements.

Studio Lighting Setups

 Broad Lighting: Subject's face is slightly turned away from the center, and the side of the face that is turned towards the camera (is broader) is in the light. Used to make the face look wider.

 Butterfly Lighting (with a bounce): Comes directly above and in front of the subject's face. Creates shadows that come directly below the subject's facial features. The lighting set up gets its name from the butterfly shaped shadows underneath the nose.

 Rembrandt Lighting: Using one light and a reflector to create an illuminated triangle under the eye of the subject on the less illuminated side of the face.

 Short Light: A main light that illumates the side of the face that is turned away from the camera.

 Silhouette: The view of the subject consists of an outline and a featureless interior, usually with the silhouetted subject being black. 

Split Lighting: Splits the face exactly into equal halves with one side being in the light and the other in shadow. Tends to be a more masculine pattern and is often used with portraits of artists or musicians.