VISITING ARTIST: Paola Antonelli

This lecture was interesting because most of the audience was an older crowd of men and women. It really made me understand how important this woman must have been. 


Paola Antonelli's lecture was titled The Design Exhibitionist. She came to speak at VCU because of the work she is known for doing at the MOMA in New York. Her lecture was very different because she was showing us elements of design instead of the artists we are usually used to seeing. She has a history in teaching fashion classes but she was trained in architectural design.


She spoke alot about design in today's world. One interesting idea she talked about was called "an organic path" which is basically her way of saying go with the flow, love your work and love what you do. She also emphasized an idea of leaving things open ended to keep the audience wondering about the art and design. She spoke of "lard and honey; " which was her way of expressing the idea of brings odd things together that really shouldnt be together that end up somehow working perfectly together. Lard and Honey was something she said had that effect. 

Contest # 2

These 4 images were submitted to the Photographer's Forum 30th Annual Spring Photography Contest

IDEA POST: 4/8/10 Getting it together!

Here are two images that I have been working on the past few day. I decided it would be best for me to work with what I have before I go shooting even more stuff for this project. I am continuing with the same approach I was before but trying to make the changes and time shifts I am thinking about more apparent.

The one on the top is similar to the one I showed at midterm. It is the same image but I manipulated it in a different way. I choose to try to show a "second" where the sky was still, like a break from the speed of time.
I have a few more images picked out to rework as I did these.

Its definitely crunch time and I have a bit more to shoot this weekend to be prepared for the panel review. I am excited about these two new images I am getting them printed so I can judge how they will look at different sizes, incase the details i choose to use or exaggerate are working at a larger size as well.

NEW ARTIST POST: 4/5/10 Robert and Shana Parkeharrison

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

This couple that makes the art together always wins my vote. Their mixed media creations combine performance art with art that can be hung on the wall. The open ended narratives enacted in each of these images become a new canvas for the viewers imagination to run wild with the story they started for you. These images are romantically tragic. The character in the scenes are attempting impossible feats. The one where he is standing on stills ready to take flight with his man made wings always reminds me of children who are honestly trying to fly like peter pan as they jump off of something just a little too high for safety. He is expressing this same desire as a child would trying to honestly make the impossible happen.

The open narratives within these stories are great as well because I really get to make up my own story to why men are hanging from clouds with giant fish hooks. Its all terribly romantic and i want to look at these images all day  and make up my own fairy tales to go with them. 

IDEA POST: 4/1/10 Revisiting photos

So I have been really lost with my project. I feel pretty defeated and I was thinking I was going to shoot the whole project over again in the next week and a half to have something ready for print. But then i snapped myself out of that mind frame.

No my project is not working the way I want it to. and No I am not sure how to fix it at this point.

But despite all this uncertainty I have a plan. I find it completely ridiculous to discard all of the images I have already taken this semester. So i have been going back through my weekly production and my notes and finding the pictures that appeal to me the most. I am evaluating each one as a raw file, thinking about what my intentions where when I shot the images, and what I can do to turn the image into something new that can speak.

Time is such a complex thing when you get down to the details that I am now focusing on one phrase to move this work along. "In the blink of an eye." I like these words because they are commonly used in all different kinds of language; in books, movies, news television, etc. It is simple and to the point and I want to see if I can revolve my images around this phrase.

Hopefully I can pull this together with approval, shoot a few more images this weekend and have everything ready for printing and get this show on the road!

Here are some of the images I am revisiting:

These are my two images I entered into the anderson juried show

NEW ARTIST POST: 3/29/10 HELEN JONES

Helen Jones is a local Photographer in Norfolk, Virginia with a studio space at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens. I chose to write about her pictures because my fiance always teases me because I take a lot of pictures of trees. For whatever reason i am always drawn to their beauty and complexity. 


Her series is called Norfolk's Urban Forest, she describes the function of trees, what they do and how the benefit us. This is not her reasoning for photographing them. She is inspired by the power that trees possess. "It is, instead, the iconic power trees have always possessed that excites me. When I travel to distant lands, I'm always drawn to photograph this power trees create in a landscape. They comfort or inspire. They conjure up fear or suggest the complexity of age. They also symbolize a land, its people and their stewardship of the specific piece of earth they occupy."


I really appreciated the way she speaks and I feel like she says how I feel about the trees that I photograph. They have some kind of power that draws me to wonder how long it has stood and what worlds it would have seen if it could. 


The photograph on the left is my favorite because the trees are engulfed by this vine that seems to be protecting it.