Summer AIB - 2011

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Working with Stephanie Cardon, MassArt professor and my artist mentor, images of Lee have become more direct. This is largely due to comments Stephanie has made to me about getting closer and capturing details in a subtle way. The proximity is both physically and emotionally revealing.

Lee's swollen hand and old reconstruction scar on her stomach.

Sleep marks and tattoo.

Lee finds the modeling exhausting. We work in small bursts of intense time together. She has looked at images made by well known photographers who have also made images of family members going through illness. These artists and their work are subjects of one of my papers I was assigned to research by Jane Marshing, MassArt professor and my current faculty advisor. The images include those by Annie Leibovitz of Susan Sontag, Richard Avedon's photographs of his father, and images of Hannah Wilke in her last stages of lymphoma made in collaboration with her husband Donald Goddard in her series of perfomalist self-portraits. 

This photo reveals Lee's reconstructed right breast that was removed 14 years ago. The metastasized breast cancer that occurred four years ago has left her with a tumor in the right armpit that is inoperable. She is currently on the only remaining chemo treatment that has kept hospice at bay. It has caused her to loose the control of her right arm and hand and causes her extreme pain. It is also the source of the lymphedema that results in the extreme swelling. She has learned to use her left hand even though she had been right-handed. She continues to go to work every day as the head of the reference department in her library.

Her once elegant and tiny feet have since fallen victim to the effects of chemotherapy and have distorted her toe nails. This also has caused an increased sensitivity for her feet. The more we work together, the better the photographs seem to get. There are still some options to be considered, some surrounding how the work might be exhibited. I'm thinking of large scale in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 feet wide. Exhibiting is a long way off, but resolution and scale should be accounted for now. 

Technical approaches to the image making process have therefore been modified. I'm using an old portrait strobe system with a high volume of light output. It allows for the use of a longer lens (70-110mm) that affords descent focus all the way through the image.The continuous fluorescent lights and modifiers we used in earlier photo sessions had required longer exposures and severely limited the depth of field. We have also moved to a deeper toned background to add contrast and put more emphasis on the subject.

Lee is lying on her mother's mutton coat from the 1940s. Her mom died 11 years ago. Lee wanted to be photographed in a fetal position. When the digital image came up on the monitor, it was oriented vertically with Lee's head on the bottom, a little more egg shaped like the type of diagram one might find in a "How Babies are Born" book. Stephanie thought it could work in any direction. I prefer this horizontal version as taken. 

We have tried some off-beat ideas that just don't gel with the premise and continuity of these images. They included a large silk covering and Lee wearing a necklace. All seem to detract and serve only as unnecessary props. More work continues as we are always thinking about ways to reveal the emotional and physical  evidence of Lee's 30-year odyssey with cancer.

First Semester at AIB - 2011

There are four sets of photos in this blog. They represent the steps taken in my first semester of independent studio work as an MFA /Visual Arts candidate at The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University.

The first group of images represent scanner work with leaves that I brought to the January residency. I found myself experimenting with this subject maybe as an expression or metaphor of transition. The detail, shallow focus and light fall-off are unique to the process. Tony Apeso commented on their ephemeral quality.

I also photographed and made time-lapse movie sequences of clouds during the months prior to the January residency. These are also subjects of transition, subtle movement, and change of state. I did not bring these to the residency but show them here for review and comment.   

Working with Dominique Bluher during my first AIB residency, we settled on a photographic project that stemmed from a dream I had. It was a vision of Lee, my wife, floating on a ribbon of gauze with a deep blue sky and no visible means of support. She was also wrapped in a sheer gauze material. She looked free of the cancer that she has come accustom to dealing with over 3 decades. I loved the spirit of the imagery as it matches her spirit in the way that puts her medical issues in the deep background of her positive, productive and engaging life.

The artistic direction agreed upon with Dominique was to collaborate with Lee to create "fantasy", or imagined images that we could stage for photographs. The photo elements would then be composited together via PhotoShop software to create the imagined vision.

We worked with a sheer material that didn't photograph well.

Other early photos show Lee posing playfully wearing a red wig. The concept of being miniaturized and posed among household items. One photo shows her with a twig-chair that is about 8 inches high.

 

 

I had also made a few real photos of Lee exposing her hairless head and her swollen, bandaged arm. Both side effects from chemo. I brought sets of the fantasy photos made for compositing, along with a sample of a black and white portrait with me to share for my first critique with Stephanie Cardon, my artist-mentor.

She found the color, fantasy set of photos too populated by props. She loved the black and white portrait. She suggested that Lee and I go in that direction, making black & white photos and using what she considered my strength in lighting. When I shared this with Lee, she was a bit surprised, but took the new direction. Much of the photography is less directed, letting Lee examine herself, especially her hands. It looks as if she's opening a book

Following the second critique with Stephanie (I brought the above non costumed black and white images) she favored and encouraged this direction in the studio work. Since the last critique with Stephanie, I've been working with Lee to make images that are more about Lee, and less about her medical condition. Below: samples of new work that I will be sharing with Stephanie next week.

*Footnote:

While thinking about this project during the residency, my memory was jogged by a photo I had composited specifically for a cancer survivor art show. Lee and I had collaborated in 2006 to make a composite that included an old 3x4 inch Polaroid nude I took of her years before her mastectomy.

The title "My Nude Mural Hangs in the Library", speaks to Lee's self-image in coping with the physical changes caused by her illness.