WE FUCKING FORGOT (AGAIN)

I am currently showing work at the Venture Compound! The opening reception is come and gone, but there will still be several chances to come check it out.

The show ends October 19.

WE FUCKING FORGOT (AGAIN)

Return

It has been about a year since I have posted here. I am so sorry! I am not sure if I ever had any "regular visitors", per se, but I still feel bad for leaving this to sit untended to for so long.

So, basically, the rundown. I was required to keep up a blog for a couple of my courses in the last semester, which also happened to coincide with my thesis and graduation. I had every intention of adapting over the more relevent parts over to this blog as soon as I had the chance but just got caught up in post-graduation life. There has been some big changes of course, which I plan to write out... well, nowish.

My first plan is to adapt some of those post from my other blog. After that I will try to play catch up to where I am at now, and maybe I'll even get to some of those link posts I am oh so fond of. I am still considering if I want to back-date these posts to reflect when they would have happened. So... be on the look out for new-old posts as well. Also, look forward to posts in a potentially more informal tone than I usually use. I know some of you have requested that in the past.

It's good to be back.

International Street Photographer

So for the past few months I have been working as a writer for International Street Photographer Magazine, which is headquartered right in St. Petersburg. It's a very exciting project, and I am incredibly happy to be involved with it. Its creator, Billy Joe Hoyle, is endeavoring to make it the "National Geographic of Street Photography".

The magazine is brand new, and just released its first issue last month (featuring three of my articles). We plan to have bi-monthly releases, and are currently in gear for our November release, which will coincide with the Miami Street Photography Festival. We plan to have writers out there at the event, and, schedule granted, I hope to be one of them.

You can check out one of my articles on ISP's website or order a copy and read all of them.

So check out our work and tell me what you think!

Dream-Eater

This is the story of a project that sort of came, was, and fizzled out. I have a finished result, but I am not exactly happy with it, so feel.... disinclined to share.

The original idea for Dream-Eater was as follows:

The project would take place in two parts. The first would be in which I place papers around well trafficked areas and perhaps create posts on online sites in which I would ask, anonymously, for people to send me their wishes in one or two sentences. To this end I would print out fliers with my request and large blank spaces in which to write. I would gather these wishes up at the end of a pre-determined time span.

The second part would involve me hand writing these wishes onto an edible rice paper (or similar) and placing them into a decorative box. I would then film myself taking out each with, one by one, reading them and then devouring them and taking them into myself. I would most likely use some sort of costumery to “deify” myself.

I started posting fliers around the USF area. I got responses within hours of posting them, so things were already looking well.

I also had some conversations with my friend (a painter and performing artist who does costuming similar to the kind I want to feature) about the makeup, and it led to discussing camera angles and the personification of western and eastern type gods and how they are shown and "read" as deities.

(Shanna Martin)

I also posted to various online outlets and wait for people to give me their dreams.

So of course all of my fliers got taken down for reasons unknown. Cleaning staff? Zealous students? Hard to say. Similar posters had stayed much longer. That put me in a bit of tough spot of course... all of my material had vanished into thin air. After a bit of panicking, I considered my options. I could solicit the internet some more, though that'd had very little success before, or I could ask random pedestrians, or find some other source of wishes. I asked some of my classmates, but realized this was the long slow way of doing things and not exactly the best use of my time.

So what was a girl to do? I started searching the phrase "I wish" in Google, but only ended up with song lyrics and websites. So, in a stroke of genius, tried the same search on Tumblr and Twitter. Tumblr was a little too image heavy, but twitter was a gold mine. Over a couple hours I had a treasure trove of shallow, vacant desires. This of course drastically changed the feel of the piece, but I was not opposed to this new direction. Besides, we used to burn our wishes to send them away to the gods, and aren't tweets a little like that?

Some sample tweets:

I wish I had all the weed I have ever smoked in a huge pile sitting in front of me. So I could smoke it again.

I wish I didn't get attached because this is killing me.

I wish Susan Rice would just blame this whole thing on Saddam Hussein so John McCain could feel safe again.

I wish halo gave out double xp codes for buying unsweetened tea or water or something. Anything but Mountain Dew

I wish I could press select and delete all of your clothes.

I wish I had a younger brother who was cool and came to me for girls advice and that. But no, mine showers annually

I wish I was in Egypt now.

I wish people would be more thankful for what they have....most seem so grumpy nowadays.....try living in a third world country!

i wish it was falling nuggs of weed instead of snow

I wish I was born in the 50's or 60's

I wish my eyes could take photos!

I wish Warren Buffett would stop writing op-eds and just write a check to Treasury to assuage his guilty conscience.

I wish I had a window seat with lots of pillows that I could sit by whilst I drank tea and read books.

I wish I had a theme song that played whenever I did something awesome.

I wish I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles. I just have a lot of feelings.

I wish I could record my dreams and watch them later.

I wish I knew the people from twitter in real life... The majority of people I know in real life should be drowned at birth...

I wish I was a twitter whore :(

I wish all commercials were just fat guys talking about sandwiches

At this point I wondered if I should include wishes I got from before they removed all of my fliers, and contemplated what sort of costuming I should wear, what sort of setting I should use. In the meantime, my conversations with friends had wandered into what evokes goddess or spirit, and what kind of god I would be if I were the sort to eat Twitter wishes. The latter actually affects the look quite a bit. I can't help but be reminded of ravens, who like to collect shiny things, and how a god like that might resemble one, covered in discarded bits of knick knacks, feathers, and cloth. I may still opt for a more traditional route.

I spent time making hair extensions and designing face paint. I chose a simple color scheme - blue on the top part of my face, red below, with red gradation on my hands, like the Indian women who dip their hands in henna or draw exquisite patterns for their weddings. I wouldn't be able to do anything nearly as elaborate (I would have if I were capable and had the time, and on my face as well), but I do love the idea of that sort of color and reference, since the deity in my head seems more vibrant and almost tribal. The red gradiant actually ended up being one of my favorite parts of the costume. Though, of course, I applied the paint too early during the day of the shoot, making doing anything without trailing red stains difficult.

The hair extensions were made using real human hair of about my color (long story). I've made braids and threaded colored strings and adornments into them. I held them together with superglue. They were designed to be slipped up under a headband for easy use during the day of the shoot. Elaborate costumes are great, but spending hours doing my hair... not so much. Especially when I can use glue and similar when its not actually attached to my head.

I ended up using printable cake paper to record the wishes culled from twitter. There were hundreds of them. I cut them up then spent an afternoon in my Goddess get-up devouring paper. I had some help, and switched up the camera angles for variation. Unfortunately, I had not vetted the set-up well enough and the final video ended up quite a bit darker than I had foreseen. I attempted to pull it out in post, but with dubious results. I don't even have any good pictures of me in costume!

Moral of the story? Art is full of little failures, some of which you can run with... some of which spoil the soup. You win some, lose some, and make more art.

SOON

So my thesis show happened.

(I am writing this in retrospect, so it is a bit less hot on the burner, so to speak. But here goes.)

The group consensus was toward a title/theme that reflected renewal, or the transition between school and the "real world". We settled on the word "Soon", written with an infinity.

We each took up parts in an effort to have a great show (though everyone took part in installation and breakdown). These included finding sponsors, arranging catering, designing the floor layout, making pamphlets and ads. I made the website and created a map of the final layout for the on site flier.

Overall it was a huge success, and tons of work. We had food, wine, and even a doughnut truck out front. The show took place at The Vault, a space in downtown Tampa.

I had my own room on the upper floor, and had to repaint it out of pocket, which reeaaally sucked, but I couldn't have been happier with the end result. It was one of the busiest rooms all night, however, which really puffed up my feathers.

My room had three walls of work, featuring the photos and poetry of Return Inside on  two walls, and Vis-Ability on the third. You can read more about both of those series on my Flickr page or website.

Here are some photos from the event:

Distortion in the Studio

So most of the feedback I got for my mask suggested I should just focus on the material, rather than trying to mix it with the things I had been doing before. I didn't actually mind this, it had been awhile since I'd done a very formalist studio shoot and I wanted to explore the qualities of the mask.

I arranged for my model to come back over and we arranged for a simple black backdrop and lighting set up. A flashlight was the final key that really brought it to life - the way I shown it on the surface and under it really changed the way it acted and interacted with his form below. I did my best to hide the seams, uncertain whether the construction would be an issue, by making use of his lovely hair. I also liked the pure aesthetic qualities of it as well. It played well with the light.

Should I care that I've abandoned my original concept? Or that it may not even mean anything anymore?

Here are some rough shots from the shoot:

Distortion Mask

So I got my first images out of the distortion mask, as I have been calling it. I made it from a polarizing material and a bit of fishing wire. The plastic is normally used on the inside of computer monitors, and creates some fantastic effects when held in front of things - sort of like a lens. It took way too long to make, and looks a little shoddy, but it was severely trying to get it to not bend on my model's face weirdly. When we finally finished the model was honestly a bit frustrated and we were both a bit grumpy so we post-poned shooting for another day.

When it did come time to shoot we snuck into a public park in the middle of the night, but honestly it was drastically too dark. Before, when shooting the plague doctor, the full moon and city lights were on my side. This time I felt I had nothing. I experimented with a few things and arrived at several different points, but honestly I am not sure how well they are working.

Here are a few: