This isn't in much order and it is just my thinking of how to rewrite my thesis proposal, what to include, so a lot of this will end up in that paper, however much more cleaner and it will make more sense. But for now I wanted to write it down and try it out.
What am I trying to say with this work?
I don’t really try to say anything with my work. I never have. I started out as a painter and even now the choices I make are for visual stimulation, visual preference. With this work I am not trying to find a deep routed reason as to why I should be showing it. I have always documented our relationship and I want to present my findings. I am very much drawn to the fact that I will never look this way again, this moment will never happen again, this time will never happen again, these circumstances, etc. Because we have access to photography we have the opportunity to capture something that will never be again. I read once in an article that since the camera has become something anyone and everyone can have/use we as a generation have become extremely attached to it, so much so that memories are worthless, if it doesn’t have a picture to go along with it then that moment never happened. I constantly think of that quote because it is beyond belief true. It is something I keep as a backbone to my photography. Images in the head deteriorate rapidly. The intensity of color is lost in words. For this project I have picked my relationship because like I said earlier it is something I have been constantly documenting. It is something that interests me greatly, for obvious reasons; it involves my life, my future, my present. I have been dating since I was 13, in fact the longest I have been single is about 6 months straight. This relationship is my best so far. I have never been so comfortable with someone and he is incredibly cliché and I am very drawn to this. He is very different from anyone I have dated and he is a tremendous model. He doesn’t care that I photograph him constantly; he is very willing and very supportive. It is very natural photographing him. I said that this project will be a triple portrait, including myself, however I won’t physically be in many of the photos. I feel like with any form of art the artist is automatically in it. I am picking the subject; I am picking the spots of him, the composition of the image so immediately it is mirroring my interests and myself. I am automatically in the photo. I also believe that in relationships I am his and he is mine, not as property but as selves. If he does something it is as if I am doing it, and vice versa. Because of this I have also mentioned that I will be included images of our sexual relationship, which is a huge part of romantic relationships. If you don’t have that connection then you are simply friends, that is what separates the two. But because of our history it plays a particularly large role. In the final crit the conversation came up about the presentation of our genitals. I understand that this is a large part of sex however it isn’t all of it and because I want to be able to show this to a non-art audience I will not be showing our genitals. To non-art educated groups they will just see the images as a penis and vagina. Also because Pat isn’t aware of the images being shown/taken for a project and because of my feeling of him being mine and me being his I will not show it as a courtesy to him. I don’t think I am censoring my art. I don’t feel it is entirely necessary to be shown. I also have to think of this as a non-artist and as a girlfriend. His nudity is for me and mine for him, him being completely unaware of the situation it would be unfair to show something without his consent. And I would not ask him the night before I hang it because then he will be aware. I don’t want that. I would feel that by asking him and therefore revealing to him my project I would be censoring it.
I can’t help but feel like I am on the cusp of something greater. Like this project isn’t going to be the final outcome. But that I am presenting it in a stage of its existence. I think it will feel more and more complete as the years and our relationship progress. As with Leigh Ledare’s work about his mother, they are presented at different stages of her life which make it feel more complete, more rounded, you get a better understanding of their relationship and of her as a person. Whereas you wouldn’t understand that at all if it was a work done with just one year of her life. Me and Pat have been together on and off for four years. But I began taking photo only 3 years ago. And even then I wasn’t sure if I would pursue it. It wasn’t until last year that I came to realize that I was committed to photography as my form of art. So I don’t have a complete history of documentation of our relationship. Sally Mann is another artist who has said that there is no reason for her to photograph outside of her family. She has been documenting them since her children where little and she is now documenting the debilitating disease her husband has. I watched the documentary “What Remains” where she touches on the subject and she immediately becomes a wife rather than this big time famous photographer, she gets all teary eyed and it’s touching to see her or even just an artist in general become civilian for a moment, it is obvious that her husband and her family come first before her art and that is why she photographs them. They are too much a part of her to ignore. This is how I feel about my relationship, it is so much a part of me and my life and my priorities that I cannot ignore it. It would be a tremendous blow to my work and my life as an artist if I tried to portray something different.
I forgot to mention but when I said that I wanted my work to be accepted by non-art educated audiences I think I misspoke. I didn’t mean that I want everyone to like and accept my work, I just meant I want to try and have non-artists appreciate my work as a piece of art, feel connected to it, but accept it as more than merely something out of a family album. I think many photographers try to achieve this since photography comes under a lot questioning on what makes a photograph art and what doesn’t. When is it an “anyone can do that” compared to a “wow I wish I could do that”. I am not trying to get people to say they wish they could be as good as me, I am not that conceded yet, but I want people who don’t know the history of photography or art to be able to feel what I am trying to get across which is a relationship in its whole; something that the photographer (I) have an extreme care in, I want the viewer to walk away feeling they looked at/into a personal experience.
