assignment: photograph a reflective object.

By and far the biggest project I did at the end of last year was a photo project for my Image & Idea class. I struggled with concepts and changed my mind a million times only to settle on something personal. I did a portrait series of friends, all women in their early 30′s. But the big thing for me beyond just the image was finding a way to share their thoughts and emotions on the topic. I had each woman complete the statement “In my 30′s…” and then arranged these hand written notes into the installation. I received a wonderful response from men and women of all ages and I am excited to see what we have to say “in my 40′s…”

Below are some shots from the installation, with the larger project ahead of scanning each hand written note and making an electronic home for the project.

(with geek apologies to the internets, as I didn’t convert the profiles and the colors are a tad off)

illustrate a personal pet peeve (mouse over for mine!):

re-illustrate an illustration:

illustrate and assigned phrase (mouse over for mine!):

after the jump I break down each project…

From l-r:
wire frame project: make a wire frame of an everyday object…I chose a cast iron kettle I had. It was hard at first working with the wire, but once I got into my groove with it, I actually liked it. I could see doing something similar again if I ever had the time (never?)
cardboard chair project: we were to make a chair out of cardboard that could support weight. I admit that this project did not get me that excited. Some people made awesome chairs. I made one that worked. Done and done.
low value sculpture project: use a low value item en mass to make a abstract and organic sculpture. I really struggled with the concept for this one, but knew I wanted to use bobby pins. I ordered a POUND of them online and got to grouping them together (thanks to my binding skills from the wire frame project and assistance from ms. hunter). Then from there those groups formed groups and so on. In the end it is looks and feels like a sea urchin or tumbleweed. Proud of my craftsmanship I bragged how it would not fall apart and it was tossed around during critique. It did not fall apart, but did take a beating. IF I were to do this again, I would double (or triple!) the amount of bobby pins and do tighter bindings.

dollar store project: buy an item from the dollar/ 99 cent store and make two plaster molds of it. Do your best to recreate/paint it…but seeing how a cast is not perfect and bumpy, the painted version can’t help but look janky and homemade. Then return to the store and place yours amongst the originals. Take a photo. Leave there.  Guerrilla art!

So far, the favorite subject I have shot for my studio class is food…In my dreams, I will have time this summer to produce more food shots.

Now that school is officially over, I guess I can officially share my projects. This was the final project (but not the final) for my digital video class. Many people made movies with real video cameras, but I am low tech and opted for stop motion. And black and white film. It is a funny story really, how this all came together. But I won’t bore you with the details. I can’t help but note thought that the second screens of text are somehow wonky when uploaded online but play fine on quicktime. I have tried many times to fix it even though it has/had no bearing on my grade, as it was not a online presentation. But still, I must note that as anal as I am, it is driving me nuts enough that I have still been trying to fix it almost a month after it was turned in, just so I could put it online. But alas, f-it. I’m cleaning the hard drive for the next year and off it goes to the external.