Residency Summary Spring 2007

Suggestions from critiques:
• Document family and children who have loss.
• Why shoot in black and white and not color.
• Who is seeing this work, audience, how to display it, apple books
• Who do you want to become familiar with this work
• Combination of large images and slideshow
• Is there a way to present the work and get money for it
• Want visual consistency
• You may be editing things out because you have lived it or done it. Where is the boat? Sense of place, what would an outsider want to see.
• What is the story about what are you trying to tell?
• All different angles, zooming in and out a little distracting. Leave your lens set at 50mm, makes you move more give s a different energy to your pictures.
• How many times do you go back? How much do you push?
• Why soft focus
• What is your way of making a connection? You have to make a connection in order for them to reveal more to you.
• What is subject getting out of it? You have to get them to participate in the project or you will lose emotion. When you meet with them. Talk to them what they would get out of it. A set of beautiful prints, book.
• Really analyze what you are shooting and figure out what you are trying to say.
• Schooner shots are much more successful because you feel their relationships because they are letting you into the intimacy. There is a lot more going in these.
• Stronger analytical approach. What does it mean to be running a traditional schooner these days? Tape the conversation; stay only for a little while. Listen to the interview and go back into photographing with a synthesis of what you want to do. I don’t feel as much of the specificity of the family. As you are taking the pictures in subtle ways you can pose them. Portraiture.
• Send blog to Judith.
• Really work with schooner family, if your not being a pest.
• Read, history of documentary photography. Rick Bolton, the contest of meaning, structuralist of photography. Where is your work in straight documentary photography or more art based. Thesis Johnathon Fletcher, Rob Gephart, shalis copy from Louise, Patty Arnold. We now want these to be more subitive in terms of defending the work. Work of Gerskey and Bechers, artists who happen to be working with photography.
• Need to do readings on family and mother and daughter. Barbara Eiright, “nicked and Dimed” living on min. wage. Look at artists whose work inspires you. Read the catalog of the work. Project based element, you need to read about family in general. What do these pictures do, where do they lead you, what are they trying to say. Research and be voiced in your subject matter. Will need to do this for your thesis.
• Read about feminism.
• If you are going for intimacy you have to be with them. You don’t want to fake it. You don’t want to be disingenuous. The kids ones are in a relationship. They don’t have to fake it.
• You have the action but you are not in the right spot to take the picture. I want to see their faces, see what is going on.
• You could do sub series, mother and daughters, sisters.
• Better printing. Show us that you know how to do that. Different papers, you don’t have to print them all like that. At least 11x14, what would the finished prints look like.
• I think the pictures should tell the story. Gallery, you don’t expect to listen to audio when you are looking at photographs.
• Breaks the stereotype, that families who run business are not always so close.
• You have a clear direction. Families that run business. It is a great thing to explore. There is nostalgia. Families in Maine, whether you can frame it in an argument, stuck in the past kind of image, “Maine the way life should be” separates the look from that cliché. How do you separate it? In 2007 if you are not critical about it. The ”should” separate yourself in the tourism cliché. If you stick with this genre, it will come. I don’t want it to be all Norman Rockwell. Non “Maine” families. Ethnic families that are moving into Maine. Get out of your own culture to look at your culture, it will give you subjectivity. One of the ways that is going to be Norman Rockwell, that it is very “white”. Find an ethnic family that runs a business.
• When you have a personal connection, yearning for family atmosphere. Be aware of pitfalls. You have to experience subjectivity when you are creating artwork about your mother. Tear does not make art. Stand back from this subject so you can talk about it properly. Red flag, be aware. How do you introduce work about your mother with out it being so sentimental? People are not critiquing relationship with my mother but my work. How are you going to see your personal story in social portraiture on other people?
• Stepping in front of the camera may or may not work for you but it is worth trying.
• I don’t see this happening only in image. In my head along with issue of your personal family, slideshow with voice, your voice. That is the only way you should be presenting. Along with images of visual clues. Make sure the audience understands that this is the artwork. Make sure the audience understands that the slideshow is the work, not a demonstration of the work. Still slides with writing. You will have to work on the voice yourself, intonation, like a slideshow drama. I see this as the most viable and strongest way you can communicate.

Artist suggestions:
• Nicholas Nixon, works with family and death dealing with aids
• Emmet Gowin pictures of his children and wife
• Harry Callahan
• Justine Kurland, show: another girl, another planet 1997. She started out doing these set up photos of events. Pictures of young girls in the woods. Direct slightly, give them a sinero and have them act it out. Girl pic more successful because she is related more, she is now doing communes.
• Anna Gaskell, series, Alice in wonderland
• Sam Seymour
• Nan Goldin, sister’s suicide
• Earl Morris, documentary films, Thin Red Line,
• You are dealing with documentary and it is across many genres Project specific work is often documentary. Andrea Frazier, Hans Hockas,
• Look at history of conceptual art. Frame what you are doing, figure out where you want to fit in the art world.

Overall, I felt this past residency affirmed the work I'm pursing is right for me. Faculty and students alike have helped with synapses of connections that were in my work, but I didn’t bridge. This awakening happened within my first critique.

My photographs of small family businesses had been focused, which I felt was reassuring to faculty. I will be “rocking the boat” in my next residency, because it's my last semester to experiment prior to having to narrow my focus.

What I will attempt is broad and personal, therefore it will be heavily critiqued.

This past residency opened my eyes to how my personal life is intertwined in my art. I believe in strong families, that there are families that are successful (in my definition) in that they live happily together. I came from one of these families; I want to prove to others these families exist.

I want to do this because I have been in relationships, and have had friends, that have not had this upbringing. Because of this, they have had relationship problems or doubts. I realize the notion they can have a loving marriage or relationship after seeing my photography is naïve, but I wish to offer hope, by showing it through a family similar to my upbringing and what I know brought me happiness.

This slice of family life shown through my images appeals to me, but I know it won’t to everyone.

I recognize my work of photographing small family businesses, I was looking for a family that would exemplify mine. This work was about honoring their families, thus honoring the family that I once had.

The business was an interest because it's a clear example of a family working together, not only in private life, but also in their public, which, I thought, would guarantee a strong healthy family. I realize now intact marriages and families take different forms.

Of the family businesses I have photographed, the family I feel most connected to and emulates my family (and therefore I have spent the most time photographing) is the Finger and Mahle family, which owns and operates a schooner on the coast of Maine.

Feedback from the residency that resonates within the family business documentary addressed the globalness of this project, as well as particular families within this project.

“You have a clear direction, families that run business. It is a great thing to explore, there is nostalgia. Families in Maine, whether you can frame it in an argument, stuck in the past kind of image, “Maine the Way Life Should be” separates the look from that cliché. How do you separate it? In 2007 if you are not critical about it. The ”should” separate yourself in the tourism cliché. If you stick with this genre, it will come.

I don’t want it to be all Norman Rockwell. Look for non “Maine” families. Ethnic families that are moving into Maine. Get out of your own culture to look at your culture, it will give you subjectivity. One of the ways that is going to be Norman Rockwell, that it is very “white.” Find an ethnic family that runs a business.”

This advice for this project is crucial, because it will give me the subjectivity I need in my work and hopefully make the project more credible, because it shows a true diversity of Maine family businesses.

Although Maine is one of the most homogeneous states, it is changing and contemporary work in documentary has to show this in order to be respected.

Along with subjectivity, it was also suggested to investigate the background and history of the individual family business I am documenting, to bring an investigative insight to this work.

“There is a need to bring a stronger analytical approach to your work. What does it mean to be running a traditional schooner these days? Tape the conversation; stay only for a little while. Listen to the interview and go back into photographing with a synthesis of what you want to do. I don’t feel as much of the specificity to the family. As you are taking the pictures in subtle ways you can pose them. Portraiture.”

Interviewing the family about their business will give me an insight as to how they see their world, as opposed to how I think they see themselves. Once I find out more about their thoughts and concerns it will allow for further exploration within my work, to show them through the means they see themselves. I feel this will bring more intimacy to the project, because the collaboration will be among the family and I, not just through my eyes alone.

The Finger and Mahle family represents the family I once had. My family changed, because I lost my mom when I was 18 to a three-year battle with cancer. I want to try to put that experience into my next work; I now realize her loss was the catalyst to the small family business photo essays.

I want to explore this time, and produce intimate meaningful work while discovering more about myself.

This next work is daunting, because I have heard this can hardly be done successfully. This attempt might be a train wreck, but one that I need to experience because it has been prodding me for sometime now. If not successful visually, hopefully it will be successful emotionally and help in my next endeavor as a photographer.

“When you have a personal connection, yearning for family atmosphere. Be aware of pitfalls. You have to experience subjectivity when you are creating artwork about your mother. Tear does not make art. Stand back from this subject so you can talk about it properly. Red flag, be aware. How do you introduce work about your mother with out it being so sentimental? People are not critiquing relationship with your mother but your work. How are you going to see your personal story in social portraiture on other people?”

There are several options I have been considering to how I want to address this topic of my mother through photography. Some ingredients I've begun to play with are: family photographs, journals of both my own and my mother, letters, family interpretations, memories and present-day emotions. The question remains of bringing these together to produce successful work. Using an audio slideshow as a means of conveying some of these ideas was suggested at the residency.

“I don’t see this happening only in image. In my head along with issue of your personal family, slideshow with voice, your voice. That is the only way you should be presenting. Along with images of visual clues. Make sure the audience understands that this is the artwork. Make sure the audience understands that the slideshow is the work, not a demonstration of the work. Still slides with writing. You will have to work on the voice yourself, intonation, like a slideshow drama. I see this as the most viable and strongest way you can communicate.“

I felt the residency opened my eyes to what's obvious in my work. Sometimes you become so involved in your work, that you miss the obvious. I feel fortunate to have this veil lifted; it has enabled me to talk about my work and communicate these connections, now that I understand them better.

And after I show my work from this semester at my next residency, I am sure I will have the veil lifted again.