We are all creatures of our past and present. Influenced and affected by what has come before us, as well as our current experiences, our future selves a hybrid of what was and is. In her latest portraiture, Australian photographer Jacqui Stockdale weaves fantastical tales of identity inherited and identity discovered.
Her work has a vintage, tin-type feel, yet the figures we see are utterly contemporary. Modern masks mimic ancient ritualistic garb and figures pose rigidly as if sitting for a daguerrotype. But there seems to be a defiance in each face, a fight against a past, perhaps an assertion of the future.
Some people are urbanites. And I used to think I might be one. But then we lived in Seattle for three months ( and not even in a super-urban neighborhood! ), and I quickly confirmed that while I love and occasionally need a visit to a concrete jungle, the city just isn’t me. Give me trees and an unobstructed view across the landscape and my heart is at peace. In her series, Marjory’s World, New York photographer Rebecca Reeve captures the experience of our loss of connection to the natural world.
Taking inspiration from the 1800s Dutch practice of covering mirrors, landscape paintings and portraits, Reeve chose to point her lens toward the disappearing landscape of the Florida Everglades. Using household drapery to frame each scene, the photographer reminds us of our continuing forsaking and consumption of the natural world.
To see more of Rebecca Reeve‘s work, please visit her website. Happy weekend, Artsies! Mr. F and I are planning to immerse ourselves in the magnificence of the Redwoods a bit this weekend. Hope you can get out and enjoy the beauty around you.
Remember the old days, when all your photographs were on paper and were precious and fragile? If you’ve ever had a photo destroyed by heat or liquid, you know what I’m talking about. The once familiar image becomes distorted, a face we knew now obliterated. The work of Venezuelan photographer Angelica Garcia reminds us that though our photographs can now be “backed up” and last forever, their subjects are still fragile and fading.
The photographer manipulates each photograph, not with digital software, but hand manipulates each one post printing. Purposefully distorting and abstracting each figure, we are left with ghostly apparitions of what was once. The plainclothes style of each figure makes them universal and relatable, someone we might have known.
It’s been a stressful few weeks, ya’ll. Whenever we get toward the end of Mr. Forager’s contract and we start looking at new places to go, the stress just piles on. The whole process is definitely not for the faint of heart! But everything has fallen into place and while things are still crazy while we get packed up and plan our road trip to Eureka, we’ve gone from stressed out to excited. I discovered the work of photographer Zack Seckler in the midst of a particularly stressful day and the quiet humor calmed my soul. Perfect way to end the week!
I love the ironic juxtaposition and obliviousness of Seckler’s subjects. They reminded me that the joy and fun in life is still all around, even in the midst of trial. You just have to be able to see it! Happy weekend, Artsies!
It’s so easy to take the gift of each day for granted. We move through the paces of everyday living, often forgetting to revel in its beauty. In her polaroid series, artist Marie Chantale Turgeon captures those moments of the everyday that can take our breath away, if only we take the time to notice.
There are so many things in life to distract us from our current view and often, we fall into the trap of thinking that the everyday isn’t so special. Yet, that is what each of our lives is made up of. Those ordinary moments, standing at the kitchen sink or sitting down for a meal, those are where we define who we are. If we can’t see the beauty in the ordinary, how will we ever recognize the exceptional?
To see more of Marie Chantale Turgeon‘s work, please visit her website. Have a happy weekend, Artsies! Enjoy some everyday moments.
It seems such a shame that we hardly write letters anymore. Especially love letters. There was once a time when a couple’s main source of communication before marriage was the exchange of letters. Putting thoughts and feelings into words, on paper, give them an importance and a permanence– and something to pour over when our love is far away. But then there is something even sweeter about expressing your feelings in a non-verbal way. Brooklyn photographer Graeme Mitchell created a beautiful book of drawings and photographs for his wife-to-be, Molly, presented to her on their wedding day.
The juxtaposition of those little abstract drawings ( perhaps they are a secret short-hand? ) and tender scenes from their life together speak so much love. It’s true that it is in those small moments that our hearts swell most, the every day glimpses of a life built together with the person you love most in the world that fortify us when things get tough.
I imagine that when Mitchell’s wife Molly looks back at this collection of images, she doesn’t think of the spectacle of a wedding day, but of the constant, every moment of every day love her husband expressed without saying a word. Perhaps his gift might inspire you to find ways to express the tenderness you feel to your own loved ones.
Do you truly remember what it was like to be a completely innocent child? Free from guile and not yet succumbed to the pressures of the adult world? For so many, that innocence is taken away at a younger and younger age. This series of photographs by French artist Isabelle Chapuis illustrates the striking juxtaposition between the push and pull of childhood innocence and the lurking aggression of adulthood beneath the surface.
When left to their own devices and free from outside pressure, kids will be kids. All they want to do is play games, eat candy, enjoy and revel in a world without responsibility. But in so many cultures, including our own, children are being raised with the expectation of becoming tiny versions of the adults by whom they are surrounded. The overachieving mom expects her daughter to excel in every way, the young boy growing up around gang culture finds it hard to buck against those influences.
There is a sadness about these photographs, even when the boy is taking a more “aggressive” stance, it seems to be a putting on of an act– there is a true feeling of reluctance and hesitation in each photo. He seems to be a boy who is being coerced into a world in which he doesn’t belong, a child who only wants to enjoy the sweetness of life while it is still possible to do so. Adulthood comes calling soon enough, unfortunately sooner for some than others.
If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you might have caught on that Mr. F and I are hikers. Not quite in the super long distance-backpackers way ( though Mr. F could do it and has! ), but when the weather is good, most of our weekends are spent winding our way through the woods. We love winter time, the cold and the snow, but the chillier season means that we go for long stretches without out woodsy walking. And that can make us a mite antsy. In these in-camera(!!) multiple exposure portraits, UK photographer Christoffer Relander reminds us that even in dormant seasons, there is a wilderness in each of us.
It only had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rock, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets.
— Cheryl Strayed, Wild
I’ve been reading the book quoted above lately and so much of it rings true for me. How we start out on each journey with so much baggage, slowly stripping ourselves of what isn’t necessary, how much nature welcomes us and takes care of us. And once we spend time in her presence, how every other place no matter how welcome, feels foreign and cold.
I’m hoping Mr. F and I are able to get out into the woods a little this weekend, my soul needs a bit of a recharge. Hope you have a wonderful restful weekend, too! Perhaps you’ll be able to embrace a bit of your own inner wilderness.
Edward Hopper‘s body of work is one revered and admired by many artists and art lovers, including this Forager. New York photographer Richard Tuschman found himself drawn to the painter’s method of visual storytelling, saying so much with so very little. He created the series Hopper Meditations as an homage to the renowned artist’s work, yet these are not exact recreations, Tuschman tells Hopper’s stories in much of his own language.
The paintings of Edward Hopper focus on scenes from the stories that unfold in everyday life and just as minutia takes center stage, Tuschman methodically recreates Hopper’s compositions creating dioramas into which figures are painstakingly photoshopped. It isn’t surprising that a photographer should find such inspiration in the work of Hopper, his paintings having an almost photographic, slice-of-life style of composition. Yet, in Tuschman’s images, there is a softness to the light and a warmth to the palette that yields a sense of intimacy to the scenes, whereas Hopper’s originals seem much more cooly detached.
Mr. Forager and I are without a home. We have a roof over our heads always, but as we move from furnished rental to furnished rental, none of them are actually home. A place that is ours, filled with our own tastes and personalities. In a way, it is incredibly freeing– if we had a home to decorate, believe me, I would spend waaay too much time doing so! This idea of creating a beautiful, comfortable home has been around for centuries and continues to be perpetuated and heightened today by magazines, blogs, and social media. The burden of home-making, often self-inflicted, usually falls to women. In her Anonymous Women: Draped series, photographer Patty Carroll explores the idea that we become so obsessed with creating a perfect space that we lose ourselves in the process.
From the artist’s website, “I am addressing the double edge of domesticity; the home as a place of comfort, or conversely, a place where decoration camouflages one’s individuality to the point of claustrophobia“. Or to the point of invisibility. If, like me, you’re a reader of interior design blogs, think about the homes you see– don’t they all kind of look a bit alike? We follow trends and take hold of popular styles, never really considering whether or not it truly reflects who we are. I look back on some of my own choices and wonder, who was I? The answer– I had no clue who I was, so my choices reflected that lost sense of self.
And its not only in decorating our homes that we lose ourselves, but in fashion, work, tradition, emotion, even as members of larger groups, we immerse ourselves, taking on characteristics that may not otherwise have been a part of who we are. Then, its only when we separate ourselves that we realize that the entire time we felt that sense of belonging, we, as individuals, were actually lost.
