Rebecca Arnold, Artist Blog: Rodney Smith

“A really great photograph, one you return to over and over, is one that isn’t answering any questions.” - Rodney Smith

Rodney Smith, Don Jumping over Hay Roll #1, 1999, size unknown

Rodney Smith was born in 1947 and moved to Germany with his family when he as young. After visiting the MoMA to see the permanent collection (including Minor White, Dorthea Lange and Gene Smith), he discovered then and there his love of photography. He also studied under Walker Evans while attending Yale University (after graduating from UVA!).

Rodney Smith, A.J. on Ladder, Harriman Estate, 1994, size unknown

I've been a huge fan of Rodney Smith's work since my teacher in high school pointed him out to me. His work is accessible not only to the Fashion Photography world, but also to the Conceptual Photography world. While his images all provide a sense of glamour and keen tasteful fashion sense, there is always something peculiar or unexpected happening. I'm obviously obsessed with this sort of work and I'm surprised I haven't written on Rodney Smith before now.

Rodney Smith, Alan Leaping from 515 Madison Ave, 1999, size unknown

I really wanted to use these (second two) images because they're relative to what I'm working with right now. Both models are carefully set to escape, explore, jump, anything! It is the point before breaking that threshold - that same moment I am attempting to capture in my work. I'm very excited to come back to these photographs now, after having done similar work.

Smith’s mainly black and white photography is mostly editorial and fashion related. His work often holds more than just aesthetics. Using self created scenes, Smith produces a different world in which his subjects explore.

http://www.rodneysmith.com/

http://www.artnet.com/artist/3277980/rodney-smith.html

Rebecca Arnold, Research Blog: Narratives

My meeting with Tom went so well on Tuesday! I feel confident that I'm heading in the right direction.

While I tried to take a film production approach in the beginning, I kind of realize that my work is much like what I did last year. The whimsical narrative of an escape of every day is something I can't stop creating and these next few pieces I have for my portfolio will be a little more fantastical than the last two successful ones.

Here's what I brought to show Tom:

Rebecca Arnold, Flight, 2009, 12 x 16

(I'll probably be tweaking it)

Tom noted that this progression is a good thing - that what I'm inspired by doesn't have to stop me dead in my tracks when I want to recreate it. I had a lull where I wasn't producing any work and it's because I spent too much time thinking about how I could make a relationship between cinema and my work. I realize now that certain elements I take from Cinema is all I need to be concentrating on, instead of forcing a composition that one might find in a film still.

That being said, I'm focusing more on the narratives that my photographs recount. A lot of the work I've produced this semester have me at the point before Escape. I am still enclosed in a space with a portal or some sort of escape in view...I want to play more with this with my final pieces, because it speaks as a longing for "other" but not actually being able to break the threshold. (yet?)

From now until the critique, I will be focusing on narratives, scale and spatial awareness to make my work successful and accessible.

Rebecca Arnold, Artist Blog: Anna Gaskell

It's a little amazing that I just rediscovered Anna Gaskell and I just found out that Gregory Crewdson was her former professor (and apparently they dated?). I see my work leaning more towards Gaskell's every day, and Crewdson has been a huge influence from the beginning...interesting.

Anna Gaskell, creates tableaux of preadolescent girls engaging in acts that reference children's literature, games and mentality. When alluding to a specific narrative, she isolates the dramatic moment from the overall plot. Her two series that represent this are Wonder (1996) and Override (1997).

Anna Gaskell, Untitled #26 (override), 1997. 19 3/8 x 23 5/8 inches.

"Apart from the fictional references however there lurks a disquieting sub-text often with sadistic overtones that centres around notions of childhood identity and transformation the transition from innocence to experience naiveté to knowing; suppressed eroticism and sexual awakening on the other hand are expressed through images of the fractured body." (postmedia.net)

Anna Gaskell, Untitled #60 (by proxy), 1999. 60 x 70 inches.

In Gaskell's style of narrative photography, the image is carefully staged, with a scene presenting the artificial set that exists only to be photographed. Her photographs are not linear by any means, but the events seem to take place simultaneously. In her Wonder series, her photograph "Untitled #9" shows a wet bar of soap has been dragged along a wooden floor. Later in "Untitled #17", the bar of soap appears again, as it's forced into a girl's mouth. There is a suspension of time, and a sense of obscurity with her actors' subtle yet suggestive actions, that creates a wondrous ambiguity which evokes a dream-like world.

Anna Gaskell, Untitled #2 (wonder), 1996. 47 5/8 x 39 5/8 inches.

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_works_191_0.html

http://www.utata.org/salon/19597.php

http://www.postmedia.net/999/gaskell.htm

Rebecca Arnold, Artist Lecture: Francis Cape

On Wednesday, November 18, Francis Cape came to lecture at the VCU Student Commons Theater. He was okay - not a terribly good speaker. But his work was pretty interesting.

Originally trained as a woodcarver, Francis Cape received his MFA from Goldsmiths College, University of London. He currently lives in Narrowsburg, NY and has exhibited his work in the United States. Some of the places he has work in include the St. Louis Art Museum; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Queens, NY; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT; Eli Marsh Gallery, Amherst College, Amherst, MA; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH. He also has work in galleries in Germany and the United Kingdom.

Some of the things that Cape talked to us about were his interests in sharing visions with each other. He discussed the posed question of “what an artist does”, which is to see, and share that view with others. This might explain why he does much of his work about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Working as a disaster-relief hand in New Orleans, Cape created the installation Waterline, which features photographs Cape took in the flooded middle-class neighborhoods of St. Roch and Gentilly after Hurricane Katrina’s devastating hit.

Francis Cape, Waterline, 2006, 17 framed C-prints, image size 11 1/4 x16 1/2 inches; frame size 17 x 25 inches each, dimensions variable

The domestic devastation in these photographs hang above a wainscot of painted paneling, carefully measured to where the water line rose in most homes during Katrina.

Another New Orleans related project Francis Cape is noteworthy of is his piece called "London Avenue." This 8-by-13 foot wall, which is also the standard size in the houses in St. Roche and Gentilly, shares room with pieces of a desk, chest, chair and wardrobe. He contrasts this piece with another installation, where Cape pairs similarly inspired, impeccably built sculptures with photographs of wreckage taken in New Orleans, upstate New York and Maine

London Avenue, 2008, 96 x 156 x 36 inches, poplar, text, sandbags (view from gallery entrance)

“He uses the spaces of these installations to consider a host of difficult issues relating not just to New Orleans but to a general cycle of American production and consumption, and to the legacy of modernist debates surrounding utility and ornamentation, social idealism and mass consumerism. With this body of work, Cape poses the question: how can we re-imagine forms and models of production in response both to historical precedent and current disaster?” – FrancisCape.com

Francis Cape, 258 Main Street, 2002, 89 x 89 x 20 inches, wood & paint

This piece was built for Floor to Ceiling at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Francis Cape wanted to create a piece that was a fragment of a putative further history. The window in the work is actually part of the museum.

Overall, I liked viewing Francis Cape’s work. His speaking was hard to follow, as he jumped from one subject to the next, but he at least had some interesting things to say. I must say, however, that I’m guilty of being tired of all the political issues being beat into the ground by photographers. We get it already; you don’t need to show us any more. Thank you

Rebecca Arnold, Research Blog: Escape

es⋅cape

 [i-skeyp] verb, -caped, -cap⋅ing,noun, adjective

as a noun:

12.	an act or instance of escaping.

13.	the fact of having escaped.

14.	a means of escaping: We used the tunnel as an escape.

15.	avoidance of reality: She reads mystery stories as an escape.

I think the last time I wrote, I said I was thinking about the different means of how I escape. After a lot of brainstorming, I came to the conclusion that yes, I can take the literal, realistic route but I can add my own elements of surprise to really get my point of "escape" across. It sounds confusing in type, but all I really want is that mutual feeling from my viewers. I want my work to be accessible in its concept and in its aesthetic.

I've been searching through google photo results for the past 45 minutes or so, after I typed in "Escape Photography". I found a few pretty interesting results, including a British conceptual artist I'm going to write about on Sunday. I've been looking for a good artist with a similar concept for a long time now.

This weekend I'll be shooting in order to have something great printed for Tuesday's meeting. Last weekend was more of a test shoot - it went well and I'm pretty sure which compositions will work the best.

I'm excited to get some one-on-one feedback from Tom. I feel like I'm heading in the right direction and I always appreciate advice on how to make my work more successful. I'll be posting the photos in my Meeting blog next Tuesday, and maybe again on my next Thursday blog. Until then, Ciao.

Rebecca Arnold, Artist Blog: Kent Eanes

Another motion picture still photographer, Kent Eanes is my artist today. While I am shooting these last few shoots, I am really trying to focus on Composition - and this photographer has some really nice ones.

I had a really hard time finding any relevant text about Kent Eanes, and his website says little to nothing about him. Overall, I'm afraid I'm uninformed about the way that he works and thinks - but I like his end product. And unfortunately that's all I can work off of.

In the past, Eanes worked at Style Magazine as the Head Photographer/Creative Director, I can only assume from there he received enough freelance jobs to quit. He shoots for TV, Film, Editorial and Commercial purposes. He has no biography on his website and his resume simply just lists the numerous sets for which he has shot...That being said, we should move onto his imagery.

Kent Eanes, Untitled Image #37 on website, size unknown

(still from John Adams)

The image of this family looks actually pretty natural, even with its too-even framing looming mostly in the foreground. They're all staggered enough in height and position that it creates a nice composition/frame around the girl lying down.

Kent Eanes, Untitled Image #29 on website, size unknown

(still from John Adams)

This is another good composition I liked. The close-up nature makes it almost seem like a bird's eye view, and there's a good use of background and foreground.

Kent Eanes, Untitled Image #28 from website, size unknown

(still from John Adams)

I really enjoy the visual cues Eanes uses in this last photo, with the two gentlemen being shown, but barely, from above. This shot doesn't look awkward in it's framing because of the right crop and composition, plus good timing.

I think browsing through this artist's work is going to help me set up for my next shoots - to make is look as interesting as possible but without being complicated or too close in. I'll try to find more information on this artist, or hopefully he'll revise his website.

http://www.kenteanes.com/index.php#

Rebecca Arnold, Photo Contest Blog: VMFA!

Today I submitted my application for the VMFA Fellowship Award. Here are all the things that went into it:

here's a picture of my form, transcript and postcard:

here's a screenshot of my resume:

and here's what my form essay said:

"Growing up in a household with my father, a self-employed artist, I learned at a young age that it is possible to have a job doing something you really love if you work hard at it. He has always supported my choices to study art and has made sure that I understand the importance and value of hard work – especially in the arts. As I finish my last year of art school, I will have had some great photography experience with all of my classes, my internship with Richmond Magazine and even a great trip to Brazil. I know that finding a job in the Spring may be a struggle, especially as the unemployment rate is at a peak. When I do find a full time job opportunity, I know I will be putting a lot of this money to the new life I begin after college. I have worked hard in the past four years to create a portfolio and a vision. If I were to receive the VMFA Fellowship award, I would use it for new equipment, or lenses that I’ll be expected to have as I start out in the real world of Photography jobs. Thank you for the consideration."