Paul Shambroom

I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this lecture. Before going to hear Shambroom speak, I had looked at some of his work. Honestly it didn't interest me. After hearing him speak about his work, it meant so much more to me. His pictures of nuclear weapons went a lot deeper than I had imagined a project like that could go. I also found it interesting that he mentioned feeling "more patriotic" after shooting this series. He mentioned how amazing it was to be able to have the power and the right to ask his government if he could learn about what they were doing, and take pictures at the same time.
I was also very interested in his series of the small town meeetings. They were so honest and real. All of his subjects looked like characters, they couldn't be more perfect. The way their hair, clothes, facial expressions, and gestures fell together were just right. He did a very good job at documenting this series without adding in his own commentary. I feel that it would be easy to make a certain ststement when taking pictures of these Mid Western people. He didn't do this though. He just showed them as they were.
He actually did a good job at keeping his exact thoughts, ideas, and beliefs out of his work. This leads the viewer to make his/her own statement and comments about the work. He wasn't forcing and ideals, but rather showing us what he found and asking us to make up our minds on our own. This was very impressing. I feel that sometimes I get too caught up in trying to explain my work to everyone. I think it's much better to present your work in a simple way, with a s little talking as possible and let the viewers decide what it all means to them personally.

Change

"Life changes in the instant, the ordinary instant." (Joan Didion)

Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. Vintage Books. New York, New York. 2005

The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir by Joan Didion in which she recounts an especially trying year of her life. Her husband dies unexpectedly, while her only daughter is struggling to live through pneumonia and brain surgery. Throughout this memoir, Didion repeats the events leading up to these traumatice experiences in great detail. The color of a shirt, a note on the kitchen counter, exact words form converations. It seems that trauma heightens one's senses. She seems to be repeating her memories over an dover agian in order to find some meaning in her life and events taking place.
While reading this book I began to think just how precious memories are. Even simple ones, that at the time may not seem so meaningful or important. I also began to think how quickly things can change, for better ot worse. "In an instant, an ordinary instant," life as you know it can be ripped from beneath you. Everything that you love and care about, everything you work for can disappear.
I began to think about how these thoughts related to my photography. As I look through these videos I can see that life is made up of many differnet moments, all tied together. If one thing went differently, history could be rewritten. My life could be totaly different if my grandmother chose to marry a different man, or if someone died. I may ot even be here. Now I have begun to look at these photos and videos not just as the past, but as a direct line to my life in the present. everything moment that has passed could have affected me on some way. These past meories are my connection to the past as well as the present and the future.

Lorie Novak

Website:
http://cvisions.cat.nyu.edu/novak/index.html

Galleries/Shows/Exhibitions:
ArtSway, Hampshire, England; The International Center for Photography, NY; Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Houston Center for Photography; Breda Fotografica, the Netherlands; Jayne Baum Gallery, NY; University Art Museum, Cal. State Univ. Long Beach; Addison Gallery, Andover, MA; Stanford University Art Museum. Her work has been in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.; Art Institute of Chicago; and The Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL.



I was very surprised to find Lorie Novak's work. Her work has a lot of similarities with mine. Even some of her installations were similar to certain ideas I had about installing my work for a final exhibition. She works with old family photographs by incorporating them into new photographs. She seems to do this my combining the old picture with an original of hers or she places the old photograph into a certain environment, her personal space. In some of her pictures there may be a glare on the old photograph. You can see a window, trees, or someones face in the glare. This brings the past (the old family photograph) into the present.
This is something I have been thinking about while working with family films and the television. I was toying with the idea of bringing myself into the old film stills by using the glare from light on the screen. I may feel that this is too readily understood, too obvious for what I am trying to do. Looking at Novak's work made think about this possibility again. Seeing the glare in her images make me take a closer, longer look at the picture. It doesn't seem quite as obvious as I would have imagined. I find myself looking for a figure or some sort of image in the glare. Rather than making the work too obvious, it makes it a bit more mysterious.
I am very pleased with finding this photographer. It is interesting to see someones present day work that so closely resembles mine.

Chronological Time and Psychological Time According to Hindu Ayurvedic Philosophy

"There is chronological time and there is psychological time. Thought takes place in psychological time. Since thought builds on memory, and memory is accumulated past experience, time is the movement of the past into the present and the future. Therefore, thought is the linear movement of time, because of the sequential change of events. Psychological time is the movement of thought. If one enters the inner space beyond thought, one goes beyond psychological time."

M.A.Sc., Lad, Vassant, D. "Textbook of Ayurveda: Fundamental Principles of Ayurveda." The Ayurvedic Press. Albuquerque, New Mexico.

While working with family memories and the past, I have started to think about how these pictures and moving images are viewed in the present. At the time of filming, these memories were the present moment. The only people involved were those in the films and the person behind the camera. As time moved on, there were more viewers with different thoughts, experiences, and perceptions.
Now 70 years later, these memories from the past are being brought to the present. Not only are these pictures being shown in a very different time from when they were captured, but also to a wider variety of people. How a person in 2009 responds to these images may be different from a person viewing them in the 40's, 50's, or 60's. It is also interesting to see how a non-relative responds to these very intimate and familial images.
Another thing that struck me while reading this quote was how the past does move into the present and the future. I am taking images from the past and viewing and using them for my own purpose in the present. What I am doing now will bring the past not only into the present, but also the future.
Another part of the quote that stood out to me, regarding my project was that "thought builds on memory, and memory is accumulated past experience."
My thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and emotions are all affected by memory. My memory is based in passed experiences. Therefore, while I am working with these images of my Grandmother, my perception of them is much different from that of anyone else. I know a deeper and more personal past history of my Grandmother than what people can pick up on from moving images and photographs. What I see in the pictures of her first date or her marriage cannot be seen by most, because of the passing of time both chronologically, and psychologically.
These images are weaving together the past, present, and future. This is one of my goals.

Kathe Kollwitz

Kathe Schmidt Kollwitz (July 8, 1867 – April 22, 1945) was a German painter, print maker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition in the first half of the 20th century. (Wikipedia)

Review of Work:
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2007/05/14/desperation_rage_and_the_ravages_of_war/

Shown In:
National Gallery of Art, D.C.
Portland Museum of Art

Much of Kollwitz's work deals with war, poverty, and political uprising. What struck me most about her work, was the way in which she commented on these subjects. They are not strictly political pieces, there is another element in her work. Her drawings and prints are intimate and personal. She depicts the private moments of desperation between mothers, fathers, and children who were affected by war, poverty, and politics.
Her images are horrifying in that they show humans at their most fearful and dark states. These are images that reach out and have a strong emotional affect on the viewer. One can see the worry and trauma in the faces and body language of the subjects in her drawings, paintings, and prints.
Much of her work was influenced by the expressionist movement. Her quick strokes and sketchy lines provoke a sense of immediacy in getting the image and information down. The emotions present at the time are not only visible in the faces of those in the pictures, but also in the hand of the artist.
I am interested in studying Kollwitz's work because of the real, raw human emotion that she provokes with her style. As with Cassatt, I am also interested in the way she uses expressionism in many of her pieces.