Working Title: Funeral

detail, Funeral

For the past few months I’ve been feeling very discontent with photography. I haven’t enjoyed taking photos, or even altering them in Photoshop.
I’m sick of cameras.
I want to make things with my hands.
This has thrown me into a sort of artistic standstill. I’ve been working regularly but…really not producing anything that I like, or even feel connected to. Then I started this last series, the beginnings of which mark the start of this post.

I’ve been taking a lot of Art History courses at PSU, and have been drawn to a number of paintings that depict people dealing in some way with death and mortality. I’m using these images and combining them with memories of my own to make imagery that I’m hoping will transcend my individual experience and be universal.

Funeral at Ornans, Gustave Courbet

Previously, much of my work was fictional. I generally shot photos during the day, then painted on lights and darks in Photoshop using lots of curve layers. I used Photoshop extensively in Funeral, but didn’t start with a photo. Almost every element in the photo has been handmade, shot separately, then collaged together in Photoshop. The girl and deer are taken from multiple photos found on Flickr, composites. I’m still working with a lot of the same ideas that I was working with before, particularly in relation to fictional realities and human experience. However, I’m hoping that this is a step towards pushing those old interests in a new direction. As this process is very much in its infancy stage, I’m craving feedback, positive or negative.

neighbors on tempestneucollins.org

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I’m wondering if this one is too contrasty. I really fell for the textures in it, but it loses a certain soft quality that some of my other images have. Input welcome.

My left ear has been clogged for two days. At first, I tried yawning. When that failed, I plugged my nose and blew out. Then I began to alternate between the two.

At the suggestion of a google search for ‘pressure in the ear’, I held a cup with a hot rag in it to my ear for 10 minutes. I took a hot shower and then jumped up and down, shaking my head in an exaggerated ‘no’. I continued to yawn. I tried to walk with a bounce to my step. I dug in my ear with my pinkie. I muttered ‘hello’ under my breath, to see if anything had changed.

My ear remains clogged.

Yesterday I saw some dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs were in poses nodding towards fierce, but as they were deprived of skin and mobility, they failed to scare me. Instead I thought of my own skeleton posed, hundreds of thousands of years from now, for some alien race to observe. Perhaps they will pose me hunting other, smaller skeletons, my hands wringing their necks in an act of dominance. Or perhaps they will re-construct me as I once was, applying clay to flesh out my body, picking out my eye color and plumping my lips.

photo credit: Alex Hunley

I think I am done with this, but am sitting on it for awhile, absorbing comments and critiques.