Harrell Fletcher and my Family photos

Alright so last week Harrell Fletcher came to WSU for a lecture and studio visits.  At first I wasn't sure how the studio visit would go because of the work he does in comparison to my work.  Harrell Fletcher uses a lot of found objects in his projects and  explores the full story of people or at least informs you of more than meets the eye.  I on the other hand have been primarily working on the Dollhouse which is far more abstracted.  He said he "liked it" but was far more interested by the contact sheets of family photos I had pinned to my "extra" wall.  Honestly for 40 mins we talked about the family photos and maybe 10 mins were dedicated to the dollhouse!  He is great though and helped me start thinking about pushing my comfort zone.

I came into Grad school thinking I was going to work with my family photos but didn't know how to make them my own.  I'm still not sure.  However Fletcher inspired me to take more time investigating the topic.

I have a lot of my grandpa because I got them from his storage but there are also photos of people I don't know, letters and report cards!

So I've been going through my own photos of my family and I'll go back through these and try to figure out how to arrange and display these images in a way that makes it insightful and uniquely my work rather than just a family album.

I am getting all kinds of crazy ideas but I am not ready to share them yet.

For now I'll share the things I'm thinking about for this project...

• Uncovering family history
• Having to pull out info that is not freely given (or just not talked about)
• My family is pretty private so what does it say to make our story public?
• These images would have all but disappeared if I hadn't uncovered them
• What does bringing the past to the present do?
• Speak about the mystery behind these photos
• Use objects too... some that appear in photos and we still have
• The photos were in storage along with many family heirlooms... what does that say that we wont part with them and yet don't put them on display?

Those are just a few things I've been thinking about for this project... issues to be addressed within the work.

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I am reminded to mention I will have a show up April 18-22 in Gallery 2 here at WSU in the Fine Arts Building.  I am showing with Brett Lysne who is a great printmaker.  I will let you know when we line up an opening for that but please keep it in mind so that you can make out here for the show!  Thank you!

Also I now manage the WSU Photography Blog so you can find some interesting things there, student work, visiting artists, resources ect.

My First Opening!

One of my BFA graduation requirements is to exhibit my thesis!  So for the last nine months I have been shooting, editing, selecting, printing, matting and mounting my thesis.

So finally on April 30th I got to hang my show at Art/Not Terminal...

We used 63" as our middle height. 

However when it came to hanging the salon style images measuring this out became a little tough!!

Luckily I had my Fiance, best-friend and teacher to help me arrange the images, hang them and set up the lighting.  Even with all this help it took us three hours to hang 25 images!!!

So finally on May 1st from 7-10pm we had our opening.  (By the way "we" is Yukari Isa and I.  We shared the Sub-T room of Art/Not Terminal)

It went great!!! We had a lot of family and friends come through.  I sold a few images which was a great surprise for my first show!

I had my books out for people to look at and see the full series. (Things I Forgot to Show You and Dream Me Some Meaning)

My first red dot!!!!!

Overall it was a GREAT show.  I was super happy with the turn out.  It will hang for the rest of this month so if you haven't gone to see it yet... don't miss your chance!

Brainstorming in the gallery

I went to Art Not Terminal today with Yukari and my teacher Ramey to start looking at where we might hang things.  Finding out how to allocate space for a group show is harder than I thought... but we'll figure it out.

A few pictures of the SubT room with Jenna Johnson's work up!   It looks great but I'm definitely excited to see my own show up!  

It's time to get cracking on production of my three series.

Getting ready for my Exhibition

In order for me to graduate in June with my BFA in photography I am required to have a gallery exhibition of my photographs and participate in the portfolio day.

So here I am six weeks out from my gallery show starting to feel the full court press to get it all done!  Yukari Isa and I are going to have a joint show in May (opening night May 1st) at Art Not Terminal in the SubT room (downstairs).

I suggest checking out the current show by Jenna Johnson who is going to be the first BFA student to graduate from Ais!

Anyways I am preparing three different series for this exhibition.  Two are fine art photography while the 3rd is a mixed media series with a photography base.

I made two portfolio books through Blurb for my two photo series.

A graphic design student helped me with my first attempt to make one of these portfolios.  I bought the 6"x6" book.  You can see the difference between the small first attempt and my new one at 12"x12".

Most photographers love to see their work bigger and I have to admit I am now one of them.  The larger portfolios are great!  I am really impressed with the quality and am happy that by following the clear guidelines that Blurb provided my first attempt was a success!

The two series that got portfolios are "Dream me some meaning" (left) and "Things I forgot to show you"(right).  You can see more images from these series on my photography website under Fine Art and then the series title.