ARTIST LECTURE A selbe, Annie Leibovitz

If everyone has not seen this dvd yet, you must rent it and watch it. netflix baby.

I watched this "lecture", ok really it is a documentary, but anyways i watched this DVD called Life through a lens. It is able the famously accomplished photographer Annie Leibovitz. It was published in 2008 and follows Annie through some of her shoots of Kirsten Dunst for her movie and it shows Annie as they are compiling picture for a book.

Narrator: "What is a photographer's life?"

Annie : "Well, . . .It is a life living through a lens."

Annie's life was truly dedicated to photography. As a child she described moving around with her family often and seeing life through a frame ( the car window) . She started with art classes and she went on to work for Rolling Stone magazine for some time. She followed musicians and rock bands on tour becoming apart of their environment and photographing them. Annie really is one of those people who see in compositions naturally. Shooting seems to come so easily for her. She was very active and motivated and made a BIG name for herself photographing for this magazine. But she also fell into addiction of drugs after traveling with the rock bands.

She went to rehab and moved to vanity fair magazine. Her life was her work and the work she does is so amazing. Her shoots for vanity fair are wildly expensive, lavish and totally worth every penny because her shots are perfect. Annie shows photographers that with passion and a lifetime of work you can create a world for yourself.

In this documentary you get to see how she interacts with people, she is incredible engaging and is able to show the subjects vulnerability in her photographs. She is amazing a true inspiration!

ARTIST LECTURE a selbe, Simen Johan

Simen Johan was an artist who visited here within the last year and I must say I am most puzzled by his work. I listened carefully to his lecture but I found it very difficult the mental understand the ideas he was trying to describe.

Simen's work really started out working with children. He was searching to show the children creating order in chaos and trying to discover things. There are two examples of this at the top. the most amazing thing about this work is that it is collaged together. In the image of the girl she was originally a girl on a beach and the background, cigs and pig were all added together separately; I cannot image the amount of editing times these images could have needed.

He work changed to be about animals and he is trying to show the natural world has it hovered between "reality, fantasy and nightmare." This work is really just odd but one image i fell in love with is the tree at the top. In his lecture he describes it as being a monster shrouded by the heavy fog.

The three images above I picked out because they are just beautiful and they demonstrate the innocent side of Simen's work, other images show pain, and nightmare but i was more drawn to the innocence of these three images.

ARTIST LECTURE A selbe, Larry Sultan

Canal District San Rafael
2006
chromogenic print
53 x 62 inches

Larry Sultan was a visiting artist during the 2006- 2007 school year and i viewed this lecture via the VCU photography and Film online resources. I was intrigued by this artist because he didn't start out as an artist going to an art school but her was actual a political science major. He never really viewed art except what was seen in the popular culture. Starting as an artist he was interested in the ideas of the accessibility of art. Made seems to be made for art galleries to be shown in art galleries. And billboards are made to be show on the side of the road, and only on the side of the road. Sultan then started to use billboards as his canvas. He thought that he made art on a billboard that puzzled the viewer that they would take more time than the average 6 seconds to look at the board.

Using art students and free billboard space in broad daylight they would change existing advertisements. The image above of the man painting on the billboard is the favorite of mine of the ones that i saw. I think is is so funny and clever to simply erase the subject out the billboard that passersbys will be forced to look at this and wonder. His billboard art evolved and changed from this as time went on.

Sultan artwork shifted in meanings and ideas greatly. The middle image above is from a few years were Sultan was asked to photograph porn shoots. It is interested the stance he takes on this odd subject. He foucuses on the space that is being used as the set. Most of the time it is a rented house that they use to shoot in and you realize the falsity of the situation. He photographs the structure or the interesting details of the building and careful covers the necessary bodyparts so that the viewer knows what they are seeing but can't quite figure it out. The porn stars become the background and setting for the house to exist.

The top image above is from Sultan's most recent work. He works with the illegal immigrants who stand outside the hardware stores as his subjects. He pays them to be the models of this narrative that he is creating about their odd presence in the suburban world they are trying to call home. The images are really beautiful but have a sad weight to them.

I am most intrigued by his billboard work because i think that it is so accessible to the public that it has to make an impact on people who do not look or pay attention to the art world.

ARTIST LECTURE A selbe, Todd Hido

Untitled # 2690, Todd Hido, 48 x 38 inches, 2000

I watched the Todd Hido lecture from the VCU resources on the photography and film webiste. This lecture was from 2007-2008 series.

Todd Hido's education was inspired as a child by using cameras to take pictures of his toys and as a teenager BMX racer he enjoyed taking picture of his friends doing stunts and such. His first photographic education after high school was at The Art Institute of Pittsburg; the education he received there was very technical and was based mostly on learning the ins and outs of the equipment before advancing to use it artistically. I feel that this is very evident in his traditional formal compositions that are seen in his work.

Todd Hido spend a lot of time on shooting houses at night. These seemingly vacant neighborhoods show evidence of human life by the one or two lights on within a house. I really like this photography because Hido uses all natural light in an amazing way. Through long exposures he captures the sterile vacant environment that is suburbia at nighttime. The only evidences of life are the glowing windows and the horizon glow that come from light pollution. We know there are people there but it seems so empty and vacant; almost emotionless. Emotionless is the wrong word. The darkness in the images is so thick and the surreal appearance becomes heavy on the viewer, making them numb to observe the evidence of life and suggested emotion.

I connect with this work because it is beautiful to look at and the colors of the images are deep and saturated when there is color in these nighttime images. They are reminiscent of sneaking out of the house as a teenager and experiencing the true silence of a suburban neighborhood completely asleep with the fear of being caught by the one person that is still awake with the light one.

Thursday THoughts A Selbe, 11.12.09 ideas post

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Thursday 11.12.09 ideas post

My latest creation/disaster... I'm a definitely hitting a wall with this concept visually. I really like photographs that have more color and beauty behind them and I am really missing it in this work. I was doing some research of artists and a lot of them were funny and engaging and their work reflected these same values. Artists like Miranda July and Penelope Umbrico are colorful and interesting visually.

I am scared to change the visuals of my project more than half way through this semester but it seems necessary for production to keep happening. In my mid term crit, my pieces were overwhelming with the amount of images and the information in it. I wanted to simplify this. The image above is my first attempt of this but I am making myself try and this is not the kind of thing that i want to make.

My concept is about: Through this work I am striving to communicate the circular life we live and the need to appreciate every moment. I hope to express the beauty in the everyday cycle by creating images that represent the flow of our lives. The objects in my images represent the fragile days that go by so fast. A few of those little images could be the great days where goals where accomplished but that day could not exist without the days that lead to it. I will use my work to spread the idea that each day is important because there will always be challenges in life but it is important to enjoy each day as much as we enjoy conquering challenges and completing goals.

This is the artist statement from my midterm presentation. This is the idea that i think about on a daily basis, and the struggle i face to motivate myself everyday. What makes the day? The sun and the moon and the earth.

The next step that i was going to take with my work was to make a long strip of these eggs or balls bouncing and falling up and down to represent life and the daily ups, down, successes and disasters of it all. I want to try the same visual composition with something that is in direct relationship to the daily experience. The sun and the moon . I don't know how this will work but i have a picture in my head that is similar to Penelope Umbrico's door piece. I think i am going to try to take pictures of the sun and moon at all different times and use the sliver of the photograph that shows the moon or the sun. I will try to connect horizon lines and leading lines photographs. This will force me to do daily shooting.

Even though the visuals in the image are changing i think it will only help me to translate my ideas of appreciating the day and life as a whole and not getting totally caught up being miserable for one goal.

This is scary and different but I have a renewed excitement that I haven't felt for this project yet.

CONTEST # 4, A Selbe, Student Photo Contest 2010

This contest is Finished entries

Contest: series - Fine Art/Personal Work
Submissions: Submission Completed

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CONTEST # 3, A Selbe, The emerson gallery

5. Registration for myartspace Gallery Submission Program GALLERIES SUBMISSION SUCCESSFUL!!! You have successfully submitted your galleries for myartspace Gallery Submission Program! If you wish to review the Rules and Guidelines for the myartspace Gallery Submission Program, please go tohttp://www.myartspace.com/nyaxegallery/rules.html I entered 5 images I created during locations studio class.

CONTEST # 2, A Selbe, The Print Room Annual International Photography Competiton

I entered the Print Center's Call for entry. It is for the 84th annual international competition: photography. The juror is Ingrid Schaffner from the Institute of Contemporary Art.

CONTEST # 1, A Selbe, VMFA!!!! Application

The recipe to win... hopefully :)

Sunday Artist, A Selbe, 11.15.09 Miranda July

Miranda July!! Tom told me to look her up and I don't know why I waited so long to do it! She has so much stuff on her website that it is throughly overwhelming to get a grasp on what she is all about. The first thing you see when you enter the site is it asks you for a password... any word works but it is so compelling to wonder why is there a password space, is it just to grab my attention?

Miranda July is a filmmaker, a writer, a performance artist from Berkley California. As a teenager she started off directing and writing plays. She is know for her feature film, Me and You and Everyone We know, that she directed, wrote and starred in. She is also a co-creator of the website, Learning to Love you More.

I really love this pieces she did for the 53rd International art exhibition at Venice Biennale. It is called Eleven Heavy Things."The cast fiber-glass, steel-lined pieces are designed for interaction: pedestals to stand on, tablets with holes for body parts, and free-standing abstract headdresses." The work give the viewer a chance to become apart of the work and to show something about themselves by participating. Most of them have funny little phrases with them that describes the person interacting with the piece. The bottom one above says "What I look like when I am lying". They are funny and they are in a city where everyone has a camera to document their own adventures with the work. My favorite is one that is a pedestal that says "We don't know each other, we're just hugging for the picture."

My most favorite thing that saw of her work isn't really "work" at all. It is the website that she made to promote her book, Noone belongs here more than you. The website Noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com is made up of photographs of what she has written on her stove with a dry erase marker. It is a hilarious conversation she has with the viewer that she goes off on tangents about things but all the while is trying to get you to buy her work. It is funny and light and i would love to see all the photographs lined up on a gallery wall. This lit up my day...

As for my work I am really inspired by her playfulness. My work right now feel so cold but viewing this work really helps me to think of ways to lighten up my work without changing my concept at all. Thank you Miranda July... and Tom for having me research her.

Sunday Artist, A Selbe, JIll Moser

Jill Moser attended Brown University and Hunter College. She has nothing to do with my work but I love her work. I love this abstract work because it is so fluid and beautiful. She has a solid grasp of composition and the viewer never wonders what is missing or what had been cut off.

The brush marks are so organic and smooth it just seems like something that should be naturally found in nature.

In photography, composition is key, one can have everything perfect but if it is off balance or is lacking that strength, it just won't work the same. This work really inspires my ideas of composition. The colors she uses stands strongly of the white backgrounds. I think i love this work also because of my own love of nature and organic shapes, these painting seem unplanned and made my nature.

I wish i could relate this work to the work i am creating now but it is just not the same at all. Maybe this can inspire what next to do with my own work and taking my made up compositions and replacing them with nature made organic compositions.

Sunday Artist, A Selbe, Sarah Hollis Perry

Well, I had the name Sarah Hollis written in a notebook to look up, but i could not remember what she did that made me want to remember her. I still don't know if this is the woman i wanted to find or not but this is who i discovered. Her name is Sarah Hollis Perry, she earned a BA in art History from Smith College and a diploma from the School of the museum of Fine arts Boston.

The first thing i saw of her work i though was extremely odd. It was Tree Sweaters. Yes sweaters for trees. It seems she was knitting these sweaters for trees from plastic bags and surveyors tape to put around trees that were planned to be cut down for whatever reason. I still see this as a very odd thing to do even though her intentions behind it are quite clear.

I was much more interested in some collaboration pieces that she preformed with her daughter Rachel Perry Welty. I cannot get images up here of the work so here is the link: http://www.sarahhollisperry.com/

Their piece called Erasure was preformed at Lousiana Tech University School of Art. Her daughter Rachel sifts flour over a square composition of Playmobil toys and objects. When done, she picks all of the pieces up and it becomes this sort of drawing or painting of flour. The shapes and pieces remind of me of those childhood books where you had to find one object on a page, like Where's Waldo. It is interesting to see the color difference between the white flour and the black rug beneath. Sarah then comes and vacuums the artwork off the of the floor. For me it really speaks about the play of a child and the motherly instincts to clean. It is interesting how temporary the work is, if the flour wasn't vacuumed up it would have been disturbed by something else.

Another piece that they did together that i find interesting is called Sweet Onions. In this piece Mother and daughter sit next to each other and simultaneously tell a version of the same family recipe. They tell the recipe in different way, words and at different speeds. I can't help but think how challenging it would be to speak at the same time and not get terribly confused, as it is so confusing to hear them talk at the same time. I think this piece really speaks about interpretation and how everyone thinks in different ways.

Sunday Artist, A Selbe, Harrell Fletcher

Harrell Fletcher is one of the creators of the website Learning to Love You More. I was researching his cocreater Miranda July, and wanted to see what he was like. His website is frustrating because everything you click on opens a new page, i looked down and i had like 13 browsers open at once. But thats beside the point. Harrell Fletcher did one piece that i really enjoyed. It is called "More Everyday Sunshine"

From the Series "More Everyday Sunshine", Photography and Light installations, Harrell Fletcher.

It is a piece that was funded by Region Arts and Culture Council in Downtown Portland Oregon. This piece is created by solar spotlights that that light up specific things at night. The lights light up pedestrian walkways. I thought this work was really cool because it does something good for the community and it creates these interesting lighting situations that are completely unexpected. I really think it would be amazing to walk to down this street and to see the odd things that are spotlighted with these solar lights. There are more images on his website, I chose these two because they show just how odd the lighting on the street is.

This really was the only work of his that i really connected with but there is something very interesting on his site. He has a list of ideas, they are bizarre and odd and fun to read.

Here are two examples:

-For sale in gallery undeveloped rolls of film that i shoot.

- Produce a set of my drawings as temporary tattoos.

Some see so silly and they range in all different subjects. I really love the idea of selling undeveloped rolls of film that are already shot. I think it would be totally interesting and i would buy them from photographers that I like. Odd stuff.

MIDTERM CRIT video review A Selbe

Today I watched my mid term critique and i have to say that i need to work on my presentation skills a little bit. Usually we all don't dress up for critiques but seeing myself presenting my work in whatever ratty sweatshirt i put on this morning made me think that it looked like I did not care. I tried not to think too hard about what i was going to say before the critique. I feel that the way I speak about my work is fairly professional, even though I had a few moments in the middle of sentences were I had to figure out what i was going to say next. I am always conscious not to speak too fast but speaking too slowly could also be a fault in presentation. I think next critique I will prepare an outline to help guide myself through speaking and I will have questions for the class about my work.

I said um a lot, fidgeted and rung my hands together a lot. I need to work on my posture and staying calm when in front of the crowd.

One thing that is important for me to improve on is that i speak to quickly when people are critiquing my work, I speak before they even finish speaking sometimes. Otherwise, I feel that i had strong language for my work and fine tuning these small details will help keep people on track with what I am saying and not on what i am doing with my hands.

Sunday Artist, A Selbe,11.01.09 stacy searcy

My work is starting to push towards analyzing time and how it goes by so fast. So searching for new artists and inspiration my goal was to find artists that worked with the concept of "Time."

I was looking at the 1708 Gallery websites and I saw a past exhibition that was held there. It was called RAIN OR SHINE. It featured four artists that created work every single day.

"The artists in the exhibition insist on the daily act of art making. These four artists are adamant about the cyclic habit and its necessity to the context of their work. Moreover, each artist intends their work to be viewed in series or multiples because the form of production demands context. Like journaling, it is a self imposed regiment with no compromise. It is definitive and resolute about the necessity of routine. The limits of the day demand inventiveness. These perpetual devotions universalize the creative habit. These four workaholics are addicted."

This is the description of the exhibition for the 1708 Gallery website.

Stacy Searcy was one of the artists from the exhibition, she uses her "camera to capture the ever changing sky." The idea of taking pictures of the same thing, that appears different everyday seems so interesting to me. In my work, I am currently trying to find ways to represent the everyday. These photographs of the clouds each represent a different day.

I became very frustrated by searching for Stacy Searcy because she doesn't seem to exist on the internet. I relied on other's blogs to figure out more about her work, but unfortunately i got more of people critical critiques than descriptions of the work. But I have a few facts about her. She is from Cincinnati and she has a BFA from College of Mount St. Joesph and an MFA from University of Cincinnati.

In one blog, I found a description of her work, her "photographs search for acknowledgement, a geographical place and a precise time. I really wish i could find more about this artist because I am interested in hearing her reasoning for photographing the sky everyday. She documents the changes in something that is permanent, it is interesting how it changes. It really represents for me the way that life changes everyday. I feel this work relates a lot to the work i am creating now, and i am going to keep searching for this artist. Hopefully she is still creating!

Random thought post. A Selbe

I just wanted to post my plans for my next shoot, since my last post was a little brief. I want to accomplish with this shoot an image that represents time and days passing without the blockiness (made up word) that my critique pieces had.

I am going to shoot on a rectangular table instead of a round one so i can more easily create a never ending horizon line. The lighting will be very important for this because if it uneven it will make it very hard to stitch the images together. I might need to purchases two equal lights... $$.

I am planning on using eggs again and pingpong balls in another shoot. I want to see if the breaking of the egg is an important part to this working.

This shoot will happen on sunday! HURRAY!

Thursday Thoughts A Selbe 10.29.09

At this point of the semester we have just gotten through the mid point. The work that i created and showed for the mid term crit went over well, but in comparison to the idea that i am trying to share, the imagery, i feel, is not providing what i want it to.

So I have some idea for my next steps for this project. I am going to go along that same lines of have the contact sheets from these shoots, but I am going to try to blend it all together into one seamless image. I want to eliminate the problem of the optical illusion that was in the work that i presented as well as the problem of not being able to comprehend the imagery as a whole as at once because there was so much detail.

This will be my first step to work on changing this project for the end of the semester. I don't want to plan ahead too much and have too many different ideas or having a image in my head for the final. I dont want to limit my self.

Thursday Thought A Selbe 10.22.09 Post crit thoughts

2008, 2009, 2010, Each 9x 61 inches, Ashley Selbe, Fall 2009

Where do I go from here ? I had my mid term critique on tuesday and i got a lot of feed back about my work. So right now i am trying to figure out what it all means to my work. These three pieces that i created above feel very much done to me. I do not plan on reshooting this or working with these anymore because i feel i can show this same concept better in different visual ways.

So in my crit people seem to feel that it was overwhelming, busy and like seeing life in fast forward. I never thought that about my work until it was up on the wall. It is impossible to see all the tiny images and it challenges you to look at all of them. This is not what i wanted people to see. I want this work to communicate the idea of days passing by and the challenges that we face everyday become minimal to life as a whole.

I am going to try a different way of manifesting this work. I am going to shoot in the same style of trying to capture an image, but i am going to try this first with a pingpong ball. It is very different because the ball will bounce. so this might be very different from using eggs or water drops. But visually i want to create a long never ending image and photoshop all of these dropping balls as one long panoramic scene. I feel this might communicate the idea of time passes and gliding by in a different way but it will retain the visual rhythm that the pieces above have.

So that is my next step, along with artist research and writing about what i am thinking.

ARTIST LECTURE A Selbe, 10.15.09 Brain Ulrich

"Value City", Photography, Brian Ulrich, 2008

(woman with product) From Series "retail", Photography, Brain Ulrich, 2002

Brian Ulrich is a photographer who was at VCU yesterday giving a lecture about his work. His work revolves around an idea of "consumer- dominated culture." I don't think I truely understand because I don't want to admit that I am one of those "therapy" shoppers. Ulrich talked about how people use shopping as compensation for something or to make themselves feel better. People get so used to this culture of constantly buying things and seeing stores and advertisements telling us to buy things. It seems to become a routine for people to shop whether they need anything or not.

The photography of the woman buying flowers illustrates the idea of going through the "routine" perfectly. It is as if she isn't looking at or thinking about the flowers, but she is buying them because of habit.

He carries out this them of a shopping culture through a few different series of thrift stores, retail spaces and abandoned stores.

Thursday Thoughts, A Selbe 10.15.09 Artist statemen rough draft

Another week has flown by in a wink, and midterm crits are right around the bend! I present on this tuesday, so i am stretching myself a little thin trying to get everything ready for the printers.. and finding a good price for my long prints.

In the past week, I boiled down and defined the reasoning behind the pieces that will be presented on Tuesday. I did a lot of thinking, and questioning of myself and my work trying to figure out all the questions i might be asked and how to answer them clearly.

I hope that my pieces will be visually intriguing, i know that they are to me i just hope that others find some meaning behind them. I wrote a rambling rough draft of an artist statement:

Artist Statement

Rough Draft

Time is a strange thing. We cannot rewind or freeze as much as we may want to. We do not get redo’s in life, there is no pause or erase. Every decision we make is concrete in that second. Children always seem to wish for something different. To be finished with school, to be in college, to get out of their parents house; and their elders are always telling them to slow down and enjoy it because it only gets harder from here. Well I am still that child, wishing to speed up time and be somewhere else.

While creating this project I happened on an idea that reconstructed visually and ideally the concept I am working on. I started out with making comparisons between the “chaos” and “calm” in people’s everyday lives. I had my heart set of taking a picture of an egg just as it is breaking when it hits the hard floor. I wanted to show the chaos of the viewer not being able to stop the breakage and compare it to a similar image that represented calm. As I was working and stressing over getting the perfect image of this egg, I didn’t realize what I had stumbled upon until my teacher Jeff pointed out the visual significance of the contact sheets I had made. This is where the whole project is flipped around.

The contact sheets of the eggs created this greater picture. It is almost the evidence of failure, the visual strive for perfection falling short; each individual image is a failure, not capturing the exact moment I wanted to find in this shoot. Even if I had found that perfect image, no matter how perfect if might be, would it be as compelling and interesting as seeing all 1,000 failures at once. It is a metaphor for the journey in life. You have to fail a million time to get where you want to be and have the things you want to have; so in the long run what is more important, the individual goal or the journey that gets you there. Ultimately it is up to the individual what is more important. Some people might be ok for suffering for 20 years to get to one point. For me, everyday is a blessing and it is important to have goals, but it is more important to me for everyday to important.

This is what is project is, it may have started out trying to achieve something that is almost impossible, the end result…… is the journey. Does it matter that the goal was not accomplished? Maybe, maybe not. But the beauty in it is the journey it created. So it’s not the egg anymore it is the everyday... Some days fly by like nothing happened. Some crash and burn, and others are a perfect moment.

I know this statement is nothing near to perfect but this is how i write to figure things out. I am going to boil this down to a few sentences for an easy to understand explanation for the critique and i will develop this idea into my real artist statement for my power point.

Sunday Artist, A Selbe, Linda Montano and Teching Hsieh

I believe that most people will already know who Linda Montano and Teching Hsieh are. Maybe not from their individual works but for their collaboration piece together.

I am bring up this well know artist because I have know about their work for a while but I have never been able to relate it to my work. Now with the project i am working on now I am focusing on the process and documenting a process and that is what makes up my piece visually.

For Linda Montano and teching Hsieh, these two artist were looking for a partner to collaborate with. In 1983, they started a project in which they were tied together with an 8ft rope for one year. They were combining their lives and art into one. Writing it down in words really makes it seem so simple but when you really think about being tied to another person for 365 days in a row, none stop. There is no alone time, no privacy. They describe how there isn't a point to being private, they had to be honest with each other entirely for this to work.

This work is so relivant to the work that i am trying to create now because it is all about the process, there really is no end product. For my images there will be a final images to go with the processes but the process entirely makes up the final image. For their performance piece there was no goal for a final image or result. It is more the enlightenment that comes with completing the task. it is about the challenge.