Here and There: A Documentary of Two Homes

Sharing a home with my father, step mother, two sisters (ages 21 and 7), and three brothers (ages 12, 11 and 9) in Southern California would be a thorough change from the last four years supporting myself, and before that, growing up in Northern Virginia with my mother, step father, and 21 year old sister. I used my digital camera to investigate how my space could become all of our space should I choose complete the crew of eight after I graduate from the University of Arizona. Through documenting our belongings from normal use, habits, collections, and things found within our homes, the photographs compare and contrast how I live with how they live while suggesting how we may live together.

Dip set two

Jon Edwards and Me; Artist Research

In my final project I am exploring my personal space in my apartment in Tucson and comparing/contrasting it with the spaces at my home of seven before me in California. After I graduate in the spring, my father wants me to live with him and the Wells Crew (my last name was changed to match my mother’s after she remarried, Wells is now a part of my middle name), and help his clothing business to grow. All of his money has been invested into his company, Ride Em Wear clothing, leaving my pantry to be a bit fuller. Moreover, after four years of living with one or two others, having nothing but time for myself, I hesitate to dive into a home with my father, step mother, two sisters (ages 21 and 7), and three brothers (ages 12, 11 and 9). The idea of it all made me want to investigate our lifestyle as preparation for my decision soon to come. From this body of work I will be able to see our similarities and our differences through the things we buy, create, and find, how we use them and where we leave them. These will all metaphorically speak to aspects of our lives that relate or not.

I live in a three bedroom apartment with two female roommates, a cat, and tank of turtles and fish. We live a quiet life with not much interaction because we are on different schedules, did not know each other before this year, and do not share the same group of friends. My home in California has my seven family members, two horses, two dogs, and two acres of land. My dad is completely invested in is his business after being a stay at home dad for years, my step mother is supportive and spends much of her time cleaning after the young ones while they run around playing, screaming, fighting, laughing and collecting backyard lizards, snakes and rabbits. Sometimes we are so blessed with a quiet movie session or nap time. My oldest sister is newest to the household, moving in 2008 and struggling with her life’s direction as she hides from the kids and life in her room and at her job. In the end, they all support each other and their pets on a daily basis when I only immediately have to take care of myself and my aquatic tank.

In Jon Edwards, A Way of Life, he photographs people from the coast of Maine both physically and metaphorically in their environment. These people are surviving through harsh economics and isolation from the mainland, making it increasingly difficult to life a traditional lifestyle. They integrate several themes from how technologically advanced humans have come from the organic, the symbiotic relationships between communities and natural conditions, and how humans still connect with the natural world. Beyond that, he tries to create images from a particular place and time that capture moments many can relate to.

Edwards’s compositions tend be asymmetrical and pay particular attention to windows, reflections, light, shadows, and textures. Majority of my photos are symmetrical, pay attention to shadows and depending on the space range from calm and simple to chaotic and unorganized. The photographs in A Way of Life shows relationships built within their community in mysterious, dark, simple, and quiet qualities, which reflect the way of life of his subjects. Though people are not specifically what the series is about, they are included in some of his images to show an aspect of their life that relates back to the community and their struggle. Edwards also includes images of with his reflection, the action of everyday traditional chores in the community, and things found within the space that tell of their lifestyle. I am strictly not including any of my family in the images for my project because I am relying on what is in our homes and how they are found to speak to the personalities of each of us. We are both showing relationships in our images, though I am working with a smaller community of just my immediate family. He also uses varied depth of fields, unlike in my images where most are a long depth of field. This makes me reconsider future compositions to have a greater variety in my series.

He integrates images from two portfolios into a book that display his personal beliefs about honest hard work, of being self-reliant in a world of change, and material wealth. The end result of my project will also be a book like Edwards, but more personal and focused on a single theme while Edward’s book expresses many of his impressions about and the celebration of the lifestyle of his subjects in Maine. In my past projects my concepts have been a rejection against material wealth but I have not brought in many varied themes within the same work, and certainly do not express anything on the matter in my current project. Electronically flipping through his book gave me a better idea of what I want to do for mine and how to sequence the photographs as each page is turned. Although my photographs are very personal, I believe viewers can relate to the images they see of my homes simply because when our lives are stripped down to the essentials, we are all doing the same thing.

I find it interesting that Edwards left the field of civil rights and environmental law to pursue this project and come to celebrate modest, unique individuals within their living spaces. It seems like the perfect influence to push him to where he is now. Although I wasn’t in the major long, I dropped computer engineering for my photography. My early concepts created hybrid forms of the technical and natural. Now, not referring to this specific project but my ideas are now focusing in on the nature of our lives and nature itself. When I stopped studying computer engineering, I stopped making money my primary goal and it pushed me to the concepts I am developing.

Dip set one

FinalShoot 3 unedited

Critique of an Image

In my past projects, I focused on a similar concept as Laura Greenfield but of course handled it completely different to show materialism and consumerism. Her project was much more straight forward and readable, focusing on a single subject within consumerism, kids and money. What makes her stand out more than the other artists is simply that I stumbled into the Getty Center in LA this weekend, and although I did not have time to see the most of the works on display, I stopped in for a peak and Laura Greenfield was a part of the exhibition I saw. This particular image that I enjoyed at the CCP print viewing was not on display at the Getty, where a young girl in a ballerina outfit sits relaxed in a shoe store.

The centered young girl is sitting relaxed on the couch in a relatively suggestive position in a shoe store, waiting as her mom shops. She is at the bottom half while shoes take up the top hovering over her like a thought bubble. Her attention is elsewhere but follows the diagonal lines created by the counter top and couch. This image exemplifies how and why more and more girls are so materialistic these days, and speaks much more than my words. Kids are introduced to materialistic ways as young children and as they grow up, their only concerns are buying clothes and accessories to keep up with our ever changing fashions as seen in the media. I’ve always been a bit frustrated with materialism, and tend to make my photographs say something against it which was very difficult for me communicate, whereas Greenfield documents the issue and makes just as compelling an argument. This image says that girls grow up wanting to spend money to look good, glamorous like the girls in the media. On another level, it communicates that kids in general are growing up wanting to spend money to feel happy, though the things they want are insatiable desires. Laura Greenfield probably created this work to speak about America’s youth that get so caught up in consumerism they do not have a chance to appreciate life’s true pleasures that last forever. It seems to attempt to make a statement that might allow kids to reconsider their values, or at least it is what I want it to do and what I tried to do in my work. The short film with interviews of children from which this is taken is even more provocative. She has such a non-judgmental approach showing the nearly desperate importance of shopping and the superficial traits of style-obsessed teens, making us question what values America is teaching its youth.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

As an illegal immigrant, his safe haven is the home of college girl who has taken him in out of love for him. Being uneducated, unemployed, and in hiding, he is forced to spend much of his time inside her house,sometimes being useful in cleaning, but mostly just wasting time while she is in class or at work.