project description

Project Description Form

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Project Name:

Grey Room

Project Description:

This is a continuation of my midterm project about feelings of lose or absence and trying to find a way to represent that in a space. I want to create energy in an environment, but also focus on the absence of an individual from my life.

Conceptual Concerns:

I want to create a presence or energy in an empty space. I have been struggling with the idea of a person or persons being physically gone from my life but still they have a presence in it. I want to charge this space with these people that are no longer a part of my everyday, but are still a large part of me. Their energy is still all around. I want to find a way for this space and the items that I place in the room to convey that energy.

Technical Skills Covered

This is the first time I have attempted a photographic project with a digital camera and digital printing. It is important for me to learn how to properly photograph in RAW format and become comfortable with the technical aspects of digital shooting. I also want to find a way to use photoshop to emphasize or assist my visual delivery so that it accurately represents my conceptual idea of a charged space/room; possibly helping my light situation or compositing other images into the original photograph. Finally, I would like to learn how to use the printers in our lab in order to fully understand how to make a quality image when printing digitally. The transfer of what I see on the screen to what prints out is something that seems difficult and I would like to become more knowledgeable in that process. With this project I am continuing to further my knowledge about the digital process and feeling comfortable with it.

Formal Guidelines:

The medium is going to be a digital print made from a digital photograph. I wanted the images to be a little larger then last time, and so I’ve made them 11x14 with slight borders.

Artistic References

Sylvia Plath

Elinor Carucci

Julia Fullerton-Batten

Readings

Sylvia Plath

Grade

I would say a B+. I feel like these images are going in the right direction, but I still don’t feel that they are complete in matching my conceptual idea with my visual delivery.

Goals List

- Shooting successful digital images

- Using photoshop to assist with enhances the photos

- Printing in the digital lab

- Conveying the energy that I want to create within the space

Sally Verrall

I saw some of her other photographs on i heartphotograph, but i liked these better.. probably because it has to do with the body and organic forms. She is a graduate from the Royal College of Art in London. http://www.rca-photography.org/sally/sally05.html

dear semester, please end

I'm so overwhelmed with the end of semester right now.. so many papers, exams, and finals crits. I'm everyone else is feeling the same.

So please semester, end.

Thanks,

Beth

Claes Oldenburg

I've been writing a paper for my art history class about The Store, but Claes Oldenburg. It's been a really interesting piece for me to write about and it's made me think a lot about space and ways of displaying work other than the gallery setting. I just wanted to share a few images of this piece in case anyone hadn't heard of it before.

progress

So i've been thinking a lot about how to visually represent my desire for the presence of my sister in my life..she moved to the east coast about six months ago and it's the first time we have been away from each other for so long. I also wanted to find a way to create an energy in a space or room. This semester has been a bounce around of different ideas and ways of thinking about these emotions that I'm having. In the last few shoots i've started to feel a lot more connected to the images and I feel like they are heading in the right direction for what I was to represent.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions I'd love to hear them :)

Images by Barry Underwood

In my work for this class I've been really interesting in finding ways to alter a space, and while in my work I am focusing on a single room and a few rooms, which are relatively small, I was really drawn to these photographs by Barry Underwood. I like that he takes a landscape and find a way to alter and add to it. He makes the space his own. He has a number of other really interesting images on his site that are worth a look.

http://www.barryunderwood.com/

Paul Graves - "BABY"

I came across Paul Graves on iheartphotograph and I found this series in the archive from his site.. I just thought it was really funny. I think my favorite is the tall gray wig.. i reminds me of Don King.

He has some other pretty interesting images on his site..

http://www.paulgravescreative.com/

Sleep In The Mohave Desert

Out here there are no hearthstones,

Hot grains, simply. It is dry, dry.

And the air dangerous. Noonday acts queerly

On the mind's eye, erecting a line

Of poplars in the middle distance, the only

Object besides the mad, straight road

One can remember men and houses by.

A cool wind should inhabit those leaves

And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,

In the blue hour before sunup.

Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,

Or those glittery fictions of split water

That glide ahead of the very thirsty.

I think of the lizards airing their tongues

In the crevice of an extremely small shadow

And the toad guarding his heart's droplet.

The desert is white as a blind man's eye,

Comfortless as salt. Snake and bird

Doze behind the old masks of fury.

We swelter like firedogs in the wind.

The sun puts its cinder out. Where we lie

The heat-cracked crickets congregate

In their black armourplate and cry.

The day-moon lights up like a sorry mother,

And the crickets come creeping into our hair

To fiddle the short night away.

new photos

These are the most recent images that I have been working on. I decided to try and go back to the room and work with the space... I'm still thinking that I might photograph empty bedrooms as well and see which is more successful.

sylvia plath

I've been reading some of Sylvia Plath's poetry lately, from Crossing The Water and Selected Poem 1956-1963. This is one that I particularly like..

I Am Vertical

But I would rather be horizontal.

I am not a tree with my root in the soil

Sucking up minerals and motherly love

So that each March I may gleam into leaf,

Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed

Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,

Unknowing I must soon unpetal.

Compared with me, a tree is immortal

And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,

And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,

The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odours.

I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.

Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping

I must most perfectly resemble them --

Thoughts gone dim.

It is more natural to me, lying down.

Then the sky and I are in open conversation,

And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:

Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have

time for me.

Ross Sawyers

I've been thinking a lot about my images and how to visualize my ideas. I have decided to try and go back to the start and use a space to try and convey my desire for physical presence. I came across Ross Sawyers on iheartphotograph and his images of rooms really intrigue me. Unfortunately the images were too small to transfer from his site onto my blog but really encourage anyone to check his work out. There is a kind of magic to the light in the rooms.

http://www.rossawyers.com/

Gallery Intern

I've been working as an intern for the Sam Lee Gallery this semester at the PDC and I'm really excited about this weeks event. There is a new exhibition opening on thursday the 19th 5pm-8pm and almost all of the galleries featured at the PDC will be showing new work. I'm excited to be helping with the deinstallation of the last show and installing of the new. I think that learning about these behind the scene aspects is really beneficial to my education of the art world and industry. I wish I could go to the opening, but it is the same time as a class.

If anyone is interested than you should definitely check it out! Pacific Design Center on Melrose, this thursday 5-8pm.

final project

I have been thinking a lot about my midterm project and whether I want to continue with it for the final. I feel the need to because I don't think that this body of work is complete or has been visually resolved. I know what I want to accomplish in my visual, but I am struggling with the execution. I think I might go back to where I started with the empty room or space and trying to find a way to represent that want for a persons presence in the space.

Jessica Todd Harper

Throughout this semester I've been looking at a lot of artists who photograph their families and people close to them. I have been focusing on those subjects and themes in my work and it helps me to look at the ways that other artists use personal relationships in their work. These are a few examples of Harper's work.

A little bit about Jessica Todd Harper:

Education: Rochester Institute of Technology : MFA, Photography. 2001
		Bryn Mawr College: BA, cum laude, History of Art. 1997 Teaches at Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA Visiting Assistant Professor: 2004-present http://www.jessicatoddharper.com/

Lucas Blalock

I found this artist while I was looking through iheartphotograph.. he has some interesting images. I like the portrait work the best, but he has a wide range of work.

His site is lucasblalock.com

Caroline Burghardt

I came across Caroline Burghardt's work and I really like the way that she works with her family as her subjects. She uses natural light as a way to work with the space and I think that is a large part of why I felt drawn to these images. I always prefer to photograph in natural light and I like seeing how other artists work with it as well.

http://www.carolineburghardt.com/