My Objects and Objectives

Lauren Harkrader had asked Rirkrit Tiravanija if he would have advice for the current generation of aspiring artists? He responded: “Look for what it is that is important to you, something that you need to make other people think about. Always ask ourselves if what we are doing is really necessary.”

As an aspiring artist this comment by Rirkrit Tiravanija made me analyze why I have been dealing with the same subject matter for over three years now. Domestic objects are normally used without any hesitation in order to help individuals such as myself to accomplish daily tasks. They can be found within our household, and used on a regular basis. Although most people would agree that the functions of these objects are of utmost importance, I disagree. The objects seen in the Boyden gallery are unique, displaying their own certain characteristics that make them distinctive, setting them apart from everyone’s objects that are just merely functional. These objects no longer have a function for they are made out of materials that are completely raw and unfinished. Their purpose is purely visual as well as a personal one. By making my objects and putting them through a lengthy photographic process I am able to investigate parts that make a whole. The images become simplified to shapes, lines, and texture becoming more individualized. There are many issues within my work dealing with domesticity, objects, and process along with perception.

According to The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary, domesticity is “home life.” Home has a certain characteristic I do not see within my college life and this is a family bond that I have made with my parents, but more specifically my mom, my sister and my aunts. My mom is someone who I aspire to be like in dealing with family and domestic life. She has resilience about her, able to keep going and complete tasks that are needed, but in the time spent with her over the many years of growing up, the kitchen has been a place to become emotionally connected with my mom. Her dreams became known as well as who she used to be before she was my mom. I respect the duties that she completes from day to day. Not only has my mom shown me great qualities of being a woman, but also the same qualities appear in my aunts and sister. They diligently work hard within the home, doing domestic tasks, such as cooking, cleaning and being there for their children when called upon. By no means is this a wrong way to live; it is one of the only ways I know to live. Although I am an independent woman, there is this desire for my future to be how I see my mom, my sister and my aunts. This is why I depict these particular objects in my artwork. They are the objects that I will come into contact in my daily life over and over again carrying the strength that women in my life possess.

My love for my objects began when I had to make a book for Professor Sue Johnson’s book arts class. The requirement for this book project was that it needed to document, which was hard because I did not have a subject matter that I was fond of at the time. On a quest to discovering I was interested in I began to read Joanna Drucker’s book titled, The Century of Artists’ Books. Within this book there was an artist, named, Knowle who had created a book entitled Gem Duck. This book was about shoes including Xeroxes of shoes, shoe parts, complete with a glossary of manufacturing terms for the shoe. I thought to myself shoes? Why shoes? After really analyzing what the significance of the shoe was I finally came to conclude that the reason a shoe could be so important was for the mere fact that it was and still is an object that almost every individual comes in contact with, but rarely thinks about in depth. So in pursuit of documenting, I followed in Knowle’s footsteps, by choosing a fork, which is a domestic object used on a regular basis by myself along with other. The book was titled, The Life of the Fork, including pages explaining what a fork is, how it is made, tools that are used to make it, the history of the fork along with its own glossary of manufacturing terms. This piece was crucial to me because finally I found a subject matter that was visually interesting as well as informative about my life. The fork that chosen had little intricate designs on the handle as well as a reflection that was visually stimulating. It allowed me to see the fork for more than just its function.

As I continued my college, career Picasso became an influence because of how he was able to abstract ordinary life, such as still lifes. There were a few still lifes that I had looked at such as Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 and Green Still Life, 1914. These two still life paintings struck me because they were completed during the cubist period. He has this way of seeing things in a synthetic or analytic method. By synthetic, I mean Picasso was very interested in creating an illusion, playing with what was painted and what was real. He would use collaged pieces and paint on or around those pieces, to create a false impression. For example, in Still Life with Chair Caning, Picasso included real rope around the painting, but the painted collaged image is very abstracted and the viewer has to piece together in their mind what is actually happening. One can assume that there is a cup, a napkin and a newspaper within this painting.

I am more interested in the analytic method that Picasso practiced during his cubist period. Picasso would break down and analyze an object in the way that we would see it. For instance, when we look at a chair we don’t just see the whole chair; our eyes see the parts of the chair and our brain brings it together to create the image of the whole chair. The object is seen at different views and this is what Picasso cleverly depicted in numerous paintings such as Still Life “Cort,” 1912. I found these analytic paintings to be highly appealing to look at because there were so many different perspectives of the objects to look at. There was an ambiguity to these paintings not recognized by me before. So in response to Picasso, I created a 5 feet by 5 feet charcoal drawing depicting a still life, which was broken into parts. These parts were of a whole, meaning the parts were abstract, but came together as whole to create a representational drawing of a still life. This drawing was another evolving moment because it allowed me to think about still lifes and the possibilities they have to offer in the terms of composition. It made me think about shape and form, really focusing on positive and negative shapes, creating more visually stimulating compositions.

This brings me to my SMP work. After summer I was really analyzing life and artwork produced by myself. Originally I felt compelled to think about gendered activities and the stereotypes found to be true within my own family. Creating a kitchen representing who I was became my first SMP ambition. The first piece that completed at the time was a charcoal drawing of an oven/stove. This was the first of many appliances I was going to make, but then I quickly moved to printmaking. The printmaking process made me into a factory, creating multiples of objects that could be found in this kitchen of mine. This included plates, cups all made with linoleum block printing, which are very hard to create little detail. The objects were not very specific, meaning they were highly generalized making them impersonal.

At the time of making these objects that would be placed into my artificial kitchen, I was looking at a few different artists, such as Elizabeth Murray and Jim Dine. Both artists drew from personal experiences. Elizabeth Murray’s use of bright colors as well as simplified forms/shapes within her paintings create abstraction and representation. Her abstraction is exaggerated through the cutting of her canvases to help with creating these abnormal shapes forming representational objects. This can be viewed in her painting titled, Sail Baby, 1983. The canvas was cut in a few places creating these really interesting shapes, but in the end the final image was a cup. The vague titles were also very helpful when looking at Elizabeth Murray’s paintings because they were somewhat unclear, but association really helps to clarify what Murray may be depicting. As for Jim Dine, he was very autobiographical, using objects that had some kind of personal resonance with him. He would express his emotions through the mark making within the paintings, or even prints. At times he would incorporate the real objects into the paintings to help further convey his emotions towards these objects. The actual three-dimensional object within the painting made it feel even more personal, in the sense that it was his actual green suit being manipulated to express an idea, which can be seen in his painting titled, Green Suit, 1959.

After really analyzing these artists, I created a series of saucepan prints, trying to elaborate on mark making and color to express possible different uses of the same pan. Experience of the pan was important, but when the prints were completed, the image seemed to be just about numbers, I personally did not feel an emotion towards the pans. There were just four prints of pans. Which brings me to my 730 toothbrushes. Through all this searching of trying to find a connection with objects and what they meant in my life, I began down the path that these objects were supposed to be about uses. How many times do I use the object in a specific time? I turned myself into a factory creating 730 toothbrushes representing how many times I brush my teeth in a year if brushed twice a day. The prints were complimentary colors, purple and yellow, keeping the form of the toothbrush restricted to contour lines. They were very simplified so the viewer would be able to see that they were toothbrushes, but not highly specific. When I was making these prints I became very involved in the action of making them. It became more about process than what the final image was. In actuality, it was no longer about the toothbrush. When I displayed these 730 toothbrush prints in the hall walls during my mid-term critique, it felt very much about op art, where there is a play on the eyes. If you stare at the toothbrushes long enough and then look at a blank wall you will get the opposite colors. This was not what I wanted at all. The critique really fleshed out my ideas, making me think that color was not what was significant. The object was supposed to be the focus, but that clearly was not what happened. The amount of time that it took me to make the prints and hang them was longer than the time I wanted to spend looking at them. This was not my intent at all. I wanted the viewers to really take the time to notice the specificity that can be found in the simplest objects that we use on such a regular basis.

By this point I needed to desperately reevaluate my position. A realization came over me, I wanted people to really focus on the object, and their uniqueness, what exactly makes one object different from another. It was significant for the objects depicted to feel like they were distinctive from other objects. A class called Alternative Photo Processes allowed me to use a more elaborate process and begin to really hone in on detail. I was focusing more on light and placement of the objects rather than just looking at the object for the shape and not really trying to create interesting compositions. The objects before were always in the middle of the paper, using lots of mark making, but not really focusing in on light and interesting aspects of the objects, such as how the handle of one cup is different from the other. So with my alternative photo processes class the new method helped me become aware of what was important about these objects. I chose manufactured objects that had shiny, reflective surfaces so that when portrayed the images would have contrasting elements drawing the viewers into the pieces. I also tried to create shadows that were interesting shapes. With these images, the main focus was to create compositions taking the objects out of the ordinary. When the film was developed, I realized that my negatives had a wide range of contrast as well as an up close look, creating this ambiguousness, where the viewer is not really sure what the objects are, which was a quality that I really liked. After noticing this effect, I began to scan in my negatives, printing out an image and then drawing from them.

Jan Groover was an artist who I became familiar with at the time of my alternative photo processes class. Jan Groover is a photographer who uses cropping as I do. She is interested in still lifes, creating intriguing spaces where reflection is highly critical to her pieces. Shapes are also very important, creating positive and negative shapes. The images are zoomed in as my images were, taking the ordinary knife or spoon out of its elements creating these beautiful images. I began to get fascinated with the cropped image, leaving out specific information, making the space feel cramped as well as creating a vagueness of what these objects are. Groover took the opportunity to use the viewfinder within the camera to crop out elements that did not help convey her ideas. She wanted to make these objects into compositions focusing specifically on light and reflections of objects within objects. Placement was crucial for she would spend days upon days trying to find the right position for the objects along with lighting.

Chardin was also an influential artist in the sense of how he was just as meticulous as Jan Groover, when placing ordinary objects in a still life. Chardin is a painter, not a photographer, so Groover and Chardin do have differences. Chardin would use a still life in front of him for inspiration, but he would make the choice to leave something out and the viewer would never really know the object was missing. Groover, as a photographer does not have this choice, what was in the still life would be viewed unless she chose to zoom in and crop out something. They both spend hours trying to find the best spot for a particular object. I became precise about how I wanted my still lifes to be set up, placing similar objects next to one another so the viewer would be able to find differences between them. For instance, there were 5 teapots in my still life and I would place three next to each other so the diverse handles and spouts became noticeable.

My fall semester series of drawings were all driven from my negatives or from digital pictures that I had taken of this elaborate still life that was probably 4 feet long. There were reflections displayed on objects creating shapes within, positive and negative shapes appeared within these drawings as well, but my drawings did not do them justice. All my objects still looked very flat. At my critique this was a major problem, because I did want these domestic objects to be recognizable. I wanted them to feel as though they were real, but instead they were flat, and lost character quickly. Specificity was lacking with these mass produced objects.

During winter break I went to a place called The Vermont Studio Center, ending one phase and moving onto my next phase of creating art. While at the Vermont Studio Center, I began to create charcoal drawings that looked very much like the charcoal drawings from my fall semester show using computer print outs of still life images taken before leaving school for winter break. Again with these images were of manufactured objects, where there were reflective surfaces such as glass and metal. I became very disengaged with this process as well as with the objects. The objects were no longer mine, as if they were distant and I had no connection to them. They were just digital photographs that I was working from and were already in a two dimensional form. In Vermont I met numerous artists and one particular guy, Andrew Mowbray presented slides the third night there, showing how he made his own objects. He was particularly interested in masculine objects, since he is male. His hobby was fishing, so he generated his own invented objects to go along with his fishing equipment. For example, he made a fishing pole bag, which reminded me of a golfing bag. He also made a basket to place fish caught along with a fishing suit to wear. In return these particular pieces made me think about my objects and how they need to become more specific. They needed to become about who I am, just as Andrew Mowbray had done.

Morandi an artist who I have loved since the summer became extremely dominant at this time, for he manipulated his objects to the point that none of the objects that he worked with had reflective surfaces. Meaning he would paint over the objects that were made out of glass. He would also make boxes, wood shapes to accompany the manipulated objects. Morandi is highly interested in form, shape and placement of the same objects. He didn’t want the viewers to be distracted with surfaces that had reflections, which was not what he was concerned with. His still lifes that he created over the years were highly complicated, but yet looked so simple. Morandi would create a still life, reproduce it in a painting and then he would rearrange the same objects, taking one object out or moving the same objects around, painting a whole new painting. This became my method, but instead I made my own objects with my own two hands. I was not interested in appropriating found objects.

Process for me became highly crucial. I needed everything to be made by me because these objects needed to be about me and be my own. By making my own objects out of raw materials, I am bringing something new to the viewer to look at, whereas manufactured objects can be seen anywhere. People can see the manufactured objects in stores, homes around the world, there are so many duplicates, making me feel that when I depicted them they had already been seen by so many. They were so familiar. Why would anyone want to look at them? So this brought me to making my own three-dimensional objects that can be seen in my cyanotypes. The objects are ideal; I created through my memory of these domestic objects. I thought back to my mom’s kitchen thinking about what kind of objects I had found within that domestic space and I tried to recreate them. With these domestic objects, such as spoons, bowls, vases, forks and even a plate, I was attempting to make marks that would make them visually appealing, but also leaving my hand within the piece made them my own. There is a specific identity. Because I am not perfect, the spoons, bowls, forks, and vases, have this unique aura to them. This also can be seen through the materials used such as clay and wood, keeping these objects as natural as possible. I didn’t want them to be made out of manufactured materials such as plastic and glass.

Since process was so important to me, I have chosen to photograph these objects in still life form. I used an old fashioned technique, using an 8x10 pinhole camera with 8x10 film. Each photograph took approximately about 30 minutes to take, giving me time to contemplate on my objects and still life compositions. When I put my objects together in a still life, I focused in on shadows, shapes formed between the objects and the objects themselves. The pinhole camera did not have a viewfinder for me to look through, so I had to estimate what the picture would look like. Most times the images were a surprise when I developed the film. After developing the film, I would coat my paper with gelatin and then with cyanotype. Cyanotype is half solution A and half solution B put together equally. I chose the cyanotype because to expose the negative you have to use contact printing and this can be done with natural sunlight. The exposure times were anywhere between 20 minutes to 5 hours. It all depends on how dense the negative is.

Through all of this process I was able to take time to really contemplate on my still lifes, my objects, and my life as a woman. I became reflective when creating the objects, setting up the still lifes and even making the actual photographs, always thinking about what comes next. The end product of all of this is these really beautiful images that feel very much like drawings. I have always had this pre-notion that an artist is a painter and so drawings was my way to create artwork. When I turned to photography, I was unsure of what the results would be, but since I have made my own objects that have my own hand marks within them they feel very much like drawings.

My objects are the marks within the photographs. It is important that these photographs are intimate, beautiful because they are representative of me and who I am as a woman and artist.

 

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