Photo Mojo

Photo #1: A photo taken by me that includes someone you know.

Josh and the Kitties 4-15-09

This is one of the first pictures I ever took of my husband, during my first weekend with him down in Livingston. I wanted to always remember that weekend, and this photo is one of my favorites from that day. I love it because of its candidness and how it shows my husband in a very natural way. I also love that it shows two of our kitties, who have become part of our family. Whenever I look at this photo, it brings back memories of the time I spent with my husband, and of our first summer together.

Photo #2: A photo of me taken by someone I know

3-11-10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo was taken by my dear friend, Carlynne Welch, to help her gain some more experience with portrait taking. I was more than happy to help, and we spent the entire day traipsing around the woods. I will always love this photo, both for the memories attached to, and because it is one of my favorite photos of me. I love that it is out in nature, and I can't get over how big and bright my eyes look.  My friend received many comments when this photo appeared on her photography blog, and I felt so proud to have been a part of it.

Photo #3: a photo of a stranger, by a stranger

During the planning stages of my recent wedding ceremony, I came across this photo, and it has been burned into my psyche ever since. And while I adore Hello Kitty, I just can't help but cringe a little everytime I think about this wedding. One only wonders what the rest of the ceremony looked like.

The Madness Is Over

Alas, Modular Madness has come to an end, and though I won't be missing gluing plates to a wall anytime soon, it was a little sad to see everyone's work uninstalled so quickly.

Well, on to the crit!

Ambition:
I feel that I took on a fairly ambitious project, both in scale and in the look that I wanted to achieve. The project climbs the entire wall of the alcove, and comes out from the wall a couple of feet in some places. Yeah, that's A LOT of plates!
Also, I wanted to achieve a very organic look, as if the piece was growing on the wall, which can be difficult to achieve with such geometric modules.

Craft:
Unfortunately, craft was where I faltered with this piece. I left about five paperclips still in place by mistake. (They were used to hold the plates while the glue set up.) and I also had chosen staples to attach some of the plates to the wall. While necessary in some areas, as the actual weight the plate was bearing was pretty significant, this could have been better hidden. In other areas, such as single plates being hung, I should have employed something like double-sided tape.

Form:
I think I achieved my desired form very well. I really wanted to capture the essence of something alive and growing to cover the wall, and everyone seemed very aware of this feeling from the piece. I received a lot of comments about the piece looking like a mold or fungus, red blood cells, or even a tumorous growth.

Presentation:
My presentation could've been better, as there were elements of my craft that weren't well thought out.However, the decision to install my piece in the alcove couldn't have worked out better for me. I really loved the uniqueness of the location and the way the set up of the walls allowed me to build the piece in a closed-in corner.

Overall, I feel that this piece had a lot more potential than I ended up portraying, and mostly due to problems with craft. I really think I'd like to experiment with this technique again and work out the small kinks. I'd also like to make the piece larger, to encompass the entire alcove, so that the viewer feels surrounded by this growth.