Charlotte Cotton

I have studied Charlotte Cotton previously as her narration on the Tableau and Tableau-vivant as well as her storytelling in a single frame has direct correlation to my own artworks and their narratives.  But I also love what she has to say about the "most prominent and probably most frequently used" image style; the 'deadpan' aesthetic (2014:81).

Fig. 1:Van Mene Untitled (#0390)

The  cool and detached look of the deadpan takes photography outside of the sentimental and the subjective with seeming neutrality.  The image is now outside the hyperbolic, and may still engage us with emotion based subjects, but the sense of the photographers emotions on the subject are less clear (Cotton, 2014).

The deadpan well done, can be both rich and commanding, and frequents the gallery walls, such as with the works of Andreas Gursky (Cotton 2014:83).

Fig. 2: Gursky 1999. 99 Cent

In my photography, the deadpan is far removed from my intent and processes.  I love the land of hyperbolic images.  My art strives to increase sentiments and open up the subjective. I absolutely avoid the catatonic and expressionless.  My images are the antithesis of static, but instead are engaged, responsive, alive and animated.

In images regarding young people I see the 'most frequent' comment from Cotton come to life.  MANY photographers represent these youth in this detached way.  And while deadpan is certainly intriguing and can be amazing, it is surely not the only way to be represented or to represent. I feel like the deadpan has been done to death (pun and all). I am ready for something new, and I believe others are as well. The audience that appreciates my animated illustrations will be a different sort perhaps, but I do believe there is an audience for it.


Figure 1. VAN MENE, Helen. V&A [online] available at: http://hellenvanmeene.com/photos [accessed March 26 2019]
Figure 2. GURSKY, Andreas. V&A [online] available at:https://www.artsy.net/artwork/andreas-gursky-99-cent
COTTON, C. 2014. The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Third edn. Thames & Hudson, New York, NY.

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Week 9- Is Photography Art?

Fig. 1: Slade 2019 The Rehearsal

"Photography is not Art.  It is not even an Art. Art is the expression of the conception of the idea. Photography is the plastic verification of a fact" (De Zayas, 1913, p125)

Baudelaire chastises photography and likens it to shorthand or print, which replicates only but neither creates nor supplements literature (1859).

Print and short hand are created by humans, using characterized symbols, the very same symbols with which the very same humans do supplement and create literature (sorry-not-sorry Baudelaire).

Photography may be a plastic replica (if shot with a very unbiased photographer, er... maybe a robot?) but otherwise the human element creates the conception.  Words are both replicas and literature.  Photography is both a trace and an ART.

The definition of ART mentions something about the creation of beauty, and the requirements of fine skill (Merriam-Webster 2019).  If photography is not art, then ice-cream is not a food.

If some one stops to look a little further, if they are distracted or engrossed even for a moment- then the piece of art has done its job.  In this way, photography is as much art as any other medium.





Figure 1. SLADE, Bren. 2019. The Rehearsal. Available at: www.brenslade.com
BAUDELAIR, Charles. 1859. On Photography- From the Salon of 1859. V&A [online] available at: https://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art109/readings/11%20baudelaire%20photography.htm accessed [March 26 2019].
DE ZAYAS, Marius. 1913. 'Photography' in Trachtenburg in Alan 1980. Classic Essays on Photography. New Haven. Leete's Island Books.
MERRIAM-WEBSTER 2019. Definition of Fine Art. Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fine%20arts [accessed March 26 2019].

Diane Arbus

Historically, disability has been portrayed in a variety of ways, though typically, “in specialized forms" (Morris 1991: 85). Diane Arbus in the 1960’s was not afraid to capture her subjects “with no pity,” with a straight, head-on view (Palumbo 2018).

    Arbus was both criticized and celebrated for her bold gaze and made no distinction between her subjects (Palumbo 2018).  

Fig.     Arbus 1970-71. Untitled

“What is normal, anyway? Arbus asked that question through each of her photographs” (Palumbo 2018)

    Fig.  Slade 2019. Tiny Dancer

    Some of the children I feature could have easily been one of Arbus’ ‘freaks’ of her time. The tiny ballerina (featured above) most likely would have lived life-long as institutionalized and medicated. Today she continues to defy many medical diagnosis, and her mother declares, “The only person that can give me a glimpse into Aspyn’s future, is her.”   

    Luckily society today has made great progress in understanding and including both children and adults with physical or mental irregularities.  

MORRIS, Jenny. 1991.  Pride Against Prejudice London: Women's Press.

PALUMBO, Jacqui 2018. Revisiting Diane Arbus’s Final and Most Controversial Series. Visual Culture.  Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-revisiting-diane-arbuss-final-controversial-series. [accessed 20 March 2019].

Week 8: Do We Have to Change the World?

Fig. 1: Salgado 1944.

After this weeks studies I am left wondering.  Do we have to change the world?  Or can we create beauty just for its existence alone.


I am reminded of this quote in, A Room With A View, by E. M. Forster:

"We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm — yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine" (1955).

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• Figure 1. Sebastiao SALGADO. 1944. V&A [online] Available at: http://www.cornettedesaintcyr.fr/html/fiche.jsp?id=6470554&np=&lng=en&npp=150&ordre=&aff=&r= 
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• FORSTER, E.M. 1955, A room with a view, Penguin, London.

Welcome to Holland

Fig. 1: Slade 2019.  Dandeflying.

Kathy Goff, a liaison between me and local hospital who is in the process of potentially acquiring some of my images sent me this:

She said, "Your project reminds me of this essay.  Your photos are Holland and there's something exciting to discover there, unexpected."

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
"I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland."


Kathy Goff is also the mother of three critically ill children.  





About this image: this image was completed this semester but was done for a friend and technically not part of my project with children facing opposition. Although it will be available to hospitals as part of my collection. 

Figure 1. Bren SLADE. 2019. Dandeflying. Private Collection Bren Slade. 
KINGSLEY, Emily Pearl. 1987. Welcome to Holland. V&A [online] March 2019. Available at:http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html 

The Ballerina

Fig. 1: Slade 2019. Tiny Dancer

When I asked Aspyn's mother what kind of image she was interested in she replied that Aspyn (who is growing up with cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus) always wants to be a ballerina and maybe this could be her chance. Thanks to a local Ballet Studio we were able to give her more than just this piece of art- but a complete ballet workshop with costume and mini performance! 

Fig. 2: Slade 2019 Aspyn's Class

The moment Aspen reached the dance floor she completely ditched her walker and shouted as she twirled "Wahoo! I'm a ballerina!"   

This is why I do what I do.  

See more about the project and additional images at :www.brenslade.com


Figure 1. Bren SLADE. 2019. Tiny Dancer. Available at: www.brenslade.com
Figure 2. Bren SLADE. 2019. Aspyn's Class. Private Collection: Bren Slade.

Leon Borensztein

Fig. 1: Borensztein 2016. Sharon. [book]

Leon Borensztein focuses on documentary and psychological portraiture.  His subjects, per instruction, don't smile.  One of his life's work revolves around images of his daughter with disabilities.  His focus is giving a voice to the 'unseen' (Borensztein [online]).

It's interesting as I looked at the interviews he had with such well known entities as Life Magazine, New York Times, and Huffington Post with most the articles titled about his project revolving around the love and devotion of his daughter (as featured in his book "Sharon" 2016). Then one article from an Austria newspaper called their article: "Sharon: Disturbing Family Album." That is quite a view shift from the other media interpretations.

Fig. 2 Slade 2018

I also want to give voice to the unseen struggles of parents raising children facing opposition, but I relate more to Micheal Oliver who said, "Disabled people continue to be portrayed as more than or less than human, rarely as ordinary people doing ordinary things" (1990:61).  I hope to portray these children in a state of ordinary childhood imagination.

Ordinary children, doing ordinary children things.



Figure 1. Leon BORENSZTEIN. 2016. Sharon. Kehrer Verlag. Available at: www.amazon.com [accessed March 2019]
Figure 2. Bren SLADE. 2018. Available at www.brenslade.com
BORENSZTEIN, Leon. [online]. Available online at: https://www.leonborensztein.com/ [accessed March 2019]
OLIVER, Michael. 1990. The Politics of Disablement. London: MacMillan Press.

The Result of 3 Weeks Work!! Project Update!

It began by reading the lovely write-ups the parents were posting me about their children.  Then, I had a chance to review a shoot where I had the opportunity to do a live interview with one mother -and I just loved the passion in her voice.  An idea began to form and I sent the write-ups back to the parents and asked them to record their voices instead.

I also got permission to filter through their social media profiles and images to create a collection for the project.

Three weeks and MANY hours later this is the result:

https://www.brenslade.com/introductoryvideo


I posted it on social media today- we will see what the response is.

Margaret Olin

“Marking Time: Photographs from Dheisheh refugee Camp,” is part of the project, “Conversations on the Periphery,” a study of the evolving conversation through murals on the walls of the camp. This selection of eight photographs was first featured in the exhibit, Waiting Rooms of History, at the Kunstverein Paderborn, May-June, 2016. An expanded version was shown in Woodbridge, Connecticut in 2018. Another exhibition is planned for 2020." (Olin 2014-18)

Margaret Olin introduces what she calls the “performative index” where the photograph performs a relation that may or may not depend on actual resemblance (2012). When families view my whimsical photos of these children facing opposition they may find a figurative resemblance to their own struggling child, OR at the same time make a connection to a ‘normal’ healthy, well adjusted child because of the nature in which the children in the project are illustrated in the home and final images; happy, hopeful, playful. Childhood and children’s imagination have cultural consistencies and because the children are presented in both lights, as struggling yet playing in ‘normal’ childhood ways, a broader connection can be made to a larger scope of people.

OLIN, Margaret. 2012.Touching Photographs. University of Chicago Press.

OLIN, Margaret. 2019-2018. Links to Ongoing and Past Projects [online]. Available at: https://touchingphotographs.com/photography/

Week 6

Weak people are often seen gazing back at us, people of power look away.  This is something that caught my attention, in this weeks discussion, in relation to my own photography.  If my children are gazing back into the camera will they be perceived in weakness?  Is looking away more powerful?  Here are two of my images:

Figure 1: Slade 2018. Livvy 1

Figure 2: Slade 2017. Brave

Is Livvy perceived as more vulnerable than Kimball? Livvy and Kimball have similar background stories.  Both were removed from their biological parents for drug use.  For Livvy is was opioids, for Kimball, meth. Both were adopted in to loving and stable families.

What is my intended representation of these children?  Is Livvy also more vulnerable because she is wearing a dress and interacting with animals?  Vs. Kimball's and his more dominant (and male) role. 

The girls featured in my images often wear dresses intentionally, purposefully (and voluntarily).  I strongly disagree with the idea that a girl must be presented in a more male-dominant role or attire to envelop power.  Presenting the idea of girl power in the form of male imitation intrinsically demeans femininity at its core and underlies that there is not power in womanhood in its own right.  So I will continue to allow the girls to be represented in dresses if they choose (or otherwise if they so desire).

But how they are gazing is an interesting phenomenon and something I will take a closer examination to in my images and project.  

On the other hand, I wonder if the expression impacts the interpretation:  for example here is Livvy's face up close:

Figure 3: Slade 2018. Livvy 1 (cropped by photographer)

Happy and confidently meeting our gaze.  And here is an image I used in a past post where the figure is looking away, but not in power, but perhaps to avoid our own gaze or meet our eyes:

Figure 4: Advert found on www.carsforvetrans.org

So it appears that perhaps it is not a hard and fast rule, but can effect how an image is consumed combined with other elements.  

  

Figure 1: Brenda SLADE 2018. Livvy 1. [photography]. V&A [online]. Available at www.brenslade.com

Figure 2: Brenda SLADE 2017. Brave. [photography]. V&A [online]. Available at www.brenslade.com
Figure 3: Brenda SLADE 2018. Livvy 1. [photography]. V&A [online]. Available at www.brenslade.com
Figure 4: Advert V&A [online]. Available at www.carsforvetrans.org