--CENSORED--

Well they've finally done it. After much discussion and unnecessary drama I've officially been censored by Goshen College via the art department. I can't say I didn't see it coming, but there was a small, small part of me that hoped they would pull through. Alas, graduation weekend and the infamous constituency ultimately posed too great of a problem when my nude silhouettes got involved.





Ironically enough, the underlying theme of my final project was the fact that women throughout history (especially biblical women, my chosen subject matter) have been silenced and have been unable to tell their own stories. I attempted to explain this in my meeting, and I think they understood it well enough, but apparently it still doesn't overshadow the fact that someone's grandmother walking through the Leaf Raker (where the show would have been) might be offended by a naked woman holding a sword (or what have you). I was initially frustrated mainly with the art department, with the people that were supposed to support my creative endeavors and help me grow, but my anger has since shifted to the general fact that this is even happening. After a long discussion with one of my profs, I'm not really holding it against the art department, because I think they would honestly like me to be able to do whatever I want. It's just another brilliant example of how far we still have to go (we=the Mennonite church, people in general, etc etc etc) before we reach a place where we are truly comfortable with ourselves and others.

My first impulse was to say fuck you and put up empty frames with quotes about censorship, but upon a bit more thought I decided this was more a creative speed bump, a beautiful illustration of what I'm trying to make a point about, and a good opportunity to further my message. So, I matted quotes about censorship and women and silence and any number of things that would get people thinking but that also still fit with the project in terms of display. They did so graciously allow me to put up the one image that is clothed, so the quotes are surrounding that piece, and there's a note alluding to the rest of the series in the art building (their alternative space option). I'm still fairly frustrated but I suppose this is a good lesson in picking your battles and being aware of who you're working with.

I guess this is just a good reminder that it's time to get out of here, that wasting my energy on conservative Mennonites is fairly unproductive, and that all of this is really neither here nor there because the first nude silhouette I did (gold background, crazy halo) got accepted into the juried student show that goes in the actual gallery, so really I win in the end.

a lovely day in the neighborhood

yesterday i only had one class and the day was perfect. Me and the big brown Turd went for a short run down to the park, well i got pulled on my longboard. I had my friends camera, a HOLGA, and a roll of Velia 100. i under exposed by my best estimate by a stop. the Holga doesn't have a meter system and only f/11 Cloudy, and f/16 Sunny and a shutter speed of 1/125 or bulb. i shot at f/11 and 1/125 on a sunny day. When i got them developed i did whats called a cross processing which is doing a E-6 process film with c-41 chemistry. it adds contrast and super saturated colors. these photos are straight off a scan and i have done nothing with them yet so any input would be great.
hope things are good with everyone.

Installation part deux

So, after my first installation, I got real excited about getting onto a bigger scale and effecting more people at once so I started looking for ideas.  The perfect place was right in front of our studios in a large concrete open space with a building on one side, and a bunch of light wells on the other.  Nobody ever used the space, and I always liked it and wanted to sit there so it was on.

What was missing was a roof, and a sense of enclosure for people to think that they should go there and actually stay there.  So after lots of ideas came and went, we finally settled on balloons.  We would create a roof out of balloons some how.  It could have been helium and a big net or lots of strings on the ground forming a grid, and all sorts of other things.  I finally came up with the idea of rigging a structure of fishing line from the building on one side and the light wells on the other and having it touch down on the ground on specific spots as to denote where people should congregate.  Then after the structure was set, we would infill it with balloons.

You can see the fish line there just barely.

So we set about doing it and there was lots of climbing on buildings and scaling things to tie the line to random places.  All the lines connected to eachother and made a very complex and spontaneous 3d spider web.  We had no specific plan for where each line went, but as we went along and were stringing them up, we could pull the whole thing in the directions we wanted and such.  

Then we got an air compressor and blew up 2,000 balloons and tied them as long strings together on pieces of fishing line, which could then be put up between the facets created by the spider web structure.  many hours and lots of balloons and air later, we had gotten most of them up, and realized we needed more balloons, so we went back and bought 1,000 more to finish off the whole thing.  

Then we set up lots of spotlights above the floating mass to light them up and create as surreal of an environment as possible.  The variations in brightness and shadow was great, and made it feel like you were under water or something.  People called them fish eggs, clouds, cotton balls, and all sorts of other things.

To top it all off, a bunch of our friends played jazz for us and we brought a bunch of food and booze for everyone to enjoy while existing in our newly created world.  It took 3,000 balloons, about 30 people, one night and one day, and only one wild idea to make it work.