Burning Down the House

I thought I'd celebrate Memorial Day with a house burning.

Now the much longer exposure Pin-hole version.

Making Mistakes on Purpose

I liked my "mistakes" from last time so much I thought I'd try experimenting with the layering that occurs with pin-hole double exposures.  I am pleased with the results from my initial experimentation, so I think I will try to push this idea further.

Mentor Meeting May 11th

     Jesseca agreed with Ben that I had been scratching at the surface of things.  But she also said I haven't just been scratching, I've been digging.  She said one part of me has been writing another part of me a letter, and by going back continually to the same place I've been forced to uncover the letter's meaning.  Last time I met with her she suggested me researching the family histories of the places I've been photographing.  Yesterday she said that was no longer necessary, because the history I've been researching is my own.  She said it's interesting that I am  looking at the fact that my family is broken, but I am also in a way fixing it.  She said in family situations we don't really have individual control, but in art we do.  She said I have been using art as a transformative method,  and I've been transforming myself as well.
     Jesseca said my pinhole images were really getting strong.  Last time I met with her I brought a few large pinhole prints, and she said next time she really wants to see some more images printed large.  She said I have created my own language with pinhole.  I told her that at the last residency, starting with Deb Davidson, I had heard a lot about the different languages spoken by my sculptures and photographs, so I have been thinking a lot about my visual language.  She said that's been a good thing to think about, because she feels I've "been launched".
     Jesseca particularly liked my "mistakes", like this one:

She said I should try to do more images like this on purpose.  I told her that I hadn't developed this one until a week ago, and since then I have been experimenting.  But I usually wait until a have a few dozen negatives before I develop them, so I'll have to wait and see how they turn out.  I said I also liked the accidental scratches on the negative in this image.  I have collected some rusty nails that I've pulled from salvaged siding from the barn and I have thought of purposely scratching the surface of my negatives with these nails.  Jesseca liked that idea.  She said this image in particular is getting at the heart of what I've been thinking about.

     Jesseca also loved my copper house and my idea of burning it and documenting it:

She said it's like 'trial by fire'.  It's funny she said that, because the next thing she said was that I am getting less literal in my sculpture.  She said I have to really think carefully about where I put my copper house when I burn it, so the resulting photographs of the event will mystify the viewer and take them into my world.  She also said I have to videotape the burning as well.  This sculpture is just        12 1/2" X 12 1/2" square by 16" tall, but Jesseca said she would love to see it really large, like a public work or something.  (Oh, and I saw Shellburne Thurber afterwards, and she told me she was very happy to see I had paid close attention to all my construction details in this sculpture, unlike my sculptures last fall.  I told her that her voice was in my head while I was constructing it, and I tried to slow down and make a proper finished product.)

     Jesseca said I need to think about how I'm going to present my work at the June residency.  She said I need to look hard at the juxtapositions, because my work is very much about order and disorder.  She paired these two images:

She said I didn't have to keep them together, but she said she it was interesting to look at how they speak to each other.  I never thought of looking at them this way, but it's true that they speak to one another on a few levels.

     So now it's back to work.  Like Shellburne said, "Oh, you have plenty of time to experiment before the June residency."  I meet with Jesseca for the last time on June 1st. 

More of the Same, for Definition's Sake

In thinking about what I want to bring to the next residency, beyond images of my sculptures, I obviously want to bring images of the structures I've been photographing.  But I want enough images to choose from so I can pick things that hopefully define a whole.  I am also constructing sculptures of the barn and the cabin from materials I've scavenged from them.  I think my copper house, whatever it becomes by June, will accompany my Waterboro House.  So here are more pinhole images of my same subjects: 

Waterboro House

Old Cabin

Barn

Mistakes

 

I think I like these "mistakes" the best.  I think I'm going to experiment with making "mistakes".

Copper House

I have built a copper house.  The reason I have built this house is so I may photograph a life-span, if you will.   I built the house out of copper so it may be burned, and yet exist in its new form after the fire.  I will stack birch logs inside the house, like a birch forest growing from within, and this will be the fuel that will burn.  I got the idea from my brother-in-law, who constructs sculptures to burn at the winter solstice, and he likes to use copper because it makes the flames turn different colors.  I constructed a house with walls you can look through.  This will give the fire plenty of air and visibility.  I also tried to give the house surface plenty of texture so that the pinhole camera would photograph it well.

And because I am so late on posting my copper house I also have pinhole camera images to post of it.

On World-Wide Pinhole Day (April 28th) I made a self-portrait.

This is an image for a special group-3 project called "Frockumenta".  Our group is supposed to all make a work symbolizing marriage, to celebrate one of our class-mate's upcoming nuptials.

Why More Barn?

     I thought I should get closer to the barn, on a day when the wind wasn't trying to pry it apart.  And as I photographed the internal topsy-turvy wreck behind the facade of the barn I felt pain and incredible sorrow.  I wondered why, particularly when I showed the photographs to my husband and he said "They're beginning to get a little redundant."  So why did they hurt so much for me?

     Then I spend four days with my Mother.  She pulled one of her classic bait & switch emotional manipulation soul crushing song and dances, and I remembered my Dad saying while he was dying, "Our family is broken, and it's all my fault!"  At the time I told him "no", and calmed him down.  But I have come to realize he is right.  I have a dysfunctional family, and my father allowed my mother to emotionally abuse her kids by choosing not to see it.

     To the outside world my family always looked fine, like the facade of this old barn.  But meanwhile the barn's insides were crumbling, and now the rest is starting to go.  I understand this place, although it also frightens me.  But I need to see what happens when it all falls to the ground.

     I left home when I was 19.  I love my parents, because they're my parents.  But my true family has to exist on the outside, because the inside is not safe.  I think that's why in my sculptures I've been putting the outside in.  And I think this is also why, as Ben said, I seem to be just "scratching the surface."  I mean, who wants to go into true-confession mode; it sounds all full of self pity whiney, and I that is not how I want to see it.  But I guess since it seems to be coming out in my art I have to name it, and like the barn, see where it takes me.