Upcoming Photo Opportunities

I am in the middle of conceptualizing several different photo sessions specifically working with two different families. I've also had contact with the director of the Eastern Idaho Down Syndrome Family Family Connect organization about creating an image for some families or possibly the organization itself. 

https://www.easternidahodownsyndrome.org/

The beginning of conceptualizing new pieces is always a bit of a photographer's block for me.  I think about new images and feel like my brain is a box of old art supplies and nothing new!  It helps to get to know the families and children and browse similar artworks and eventually inspiration hits.  I hope!

Featured

I was featured by Healing Images in a welcome post. You can see it 

here: http://www.healingimages.org/article/2019/02/11/healing-images-welcomes-bren-blade

Healing images is a not-for-profit that will represent my work to hospitals and other facilities world wide.  This will help my art reach new audiences as well as get my images to those that can benefit most.  

Jorge Cocco Santangelo

I had the opportunity to go to the opening and meet and greet for the gallery show featuring Jorge Cocco Santangelo.  It was one of the largest turn outs I have been a part of thus far at the Jacob Spori Gallery as Mr. Santangelo is very well know for his unique capture of Christian based art.
Santangelo uses shapes and forms to reduce detail and capture the essence of the subjects.  His intent is to get beyond the story to what he calls a 'second interpretation' individual to each viewer.  He also uses the symbolic separation of light and dark. His style is deemed 'Sacrocubism.'

It was fun to see him in person (although he didn't speak english and had a translator).  His show had some interesting interactive elements such as a puzzle station, a video showing his processes, and a magnet board with prints and emotions viewers could physically mix and match.  Everything was presented beautifully (even the magnet prints were professional looking and printed on fine-art paper) and I enjoyed getting some ideas if I decide to do a gallery show. 

You can see more of his work here: https://jorgecocco.com/

Week 11: Video Presentations and Feedback

It always makes me nervous to introduce my work to the others in the program.  But I recognize it is so helpful in my progression so I sort of hold my breath while I hit that 'post' button.  Here is the link to my video presented this week:


Informing Context Video Here

I was pleased with the responses (posted with permission):

I also viewed the work of two different colleagues. I am continually impressed with the scope and variety of talented photographers in the program.  I found Dominic Price's work with stained glass informative and actually quite fascinating.  His end results were beautiful and I recognized the lack of well-done stained glass photography and the recognition of stained glass as an art itself being lost.  I was interesting to see how his project has developed and transformed through out the program.

I also viewed Bekcy Moyce's video and again surprised by the variety and scope of the projects in this program.  Consumerism and the decrease in happiness is an interesting and difficult topic to represent and she had some great ideas.  Loved her work with 'Affluenza.'

All in all I think it was a worthy exercise and should increase the flow and context of my final Critical review. 

Interdisciplinary Gala

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend this even in Southeastern Idaho:

Fig 1. Slade 2019. Gala Advertisement 2019.

It was an excellent display of interdisciplinary arts.  A capstone event where floral designers combined with artists, fashion designers and culinary people to create an event stimulating to variety of senses.
The entire event was filled with over the top floral arrangements, including non-typical accessories that accompanied the runway models and the fashion designs (my personal favorites were the floral umbrellas and oversized head pieces).  Tables were laid out with aesthetically pleasing selections of food for sampling and the walls leading into the event were lined with artists renditions of the fashion designs.  A nice example of collaboration and support between mediums. 

I was also excited to see that I was invited to an opening reception and meet/greet at a nearby gallery featuring the well known Christian artist Orge Cocco Santangelo.

Santangelo is known for capturing the life and events of the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth in a unique modern style.

Fig. 2: Partial screenshot of invitation [screenshot 2019 by author]


I love in Santangelo's work the background becomes a character in the depicted image.  Alive and non-static.  After so many religious artists he was still able to create an amazing style of his own.


You can see his works here:https://jorgecocco.com/

Figure 1. Slade 2019. Gala Advertisement 2019. 
Figure 2. Partial screenshot of invitation [screenshot 2019 by author]

In Which I Simplify

Sometimes my backgrounds are distracting.  That is one of my intents actually.  Some of my intended audience will be people in hospital and one of the strengths of my images is the ability to distract the viewer.  To take them out of their current state of mind for a moment or longer.  But strengths can also be weaknesses. Sometimes my images go too far and the viewer experiences forced exploration, which is much less effective. This is some of the feedback I have received in the webinars. 

So for this image I tried to cut back the background and simplify the image.  It was HARD but I tried to be very selective in its creation. I feel I succeeded and didn't succeed at the same time, as it definitely has less background elements but still has some. I also feel like it is still an escape into the unknown but there is something more mature about it.  It's a refining process that is not complete yet.

Fig. 1: Slade 2019. Pink. 

Figure 1. Slade, Bren. 2019. Pink. Available at www.BrenSlade.com.

Week 10- Fontcuberta Where Have You Been...

Fig. 1: Fontcuberta Sirens [screenshot by author]

Fontcuberta, where have you been all my life?
As my 4 year old would say, "What in the whole wide world?!"
I'm not sure why up until this point I haven't heard of Fontcuberta's work (although I recognize his images of 'Sirens' from social media).  But I love his audacity already.  Who would do such a thing, and with such skill pull it off!  If this was social media I would insert three super heart emoji's here.  Big fan.  Big fan.

I was not surprised to see his background was in advertising (Schwenderner 2013). So he has skills and experience in deceiving and manipulating the general public (that is the skill of successful advertising right?) but this is so much more fun.

Is photography and or photographs just a convention?

Are we willing to suspend our beliefs and enjoy the journey of Fontcuberta?

Fig. 2: Slade 2019. Pink

Fontcuberta and I are kin in the fact that we ask for people to somewhat suspend their beliefs of reality to enjoy the journey of our images, and we both find it important to use text to complete the concept of our work; to unify the perception and interpretation (Bal 1993:379). Fontcuberta, in the Latin names of the creations in his images, and mine with the backstory of the children involved.

What ideas and theories am I exploring in my practice?  What am I trying to say, and how am I trying to say it? How do I want my reader to respond?

Life is beautiful.
ALL life is beautiful.
I try to express that through photographic art whose main elements encourage light, beauty and hope.

"People relate to photographs by looking through them, at what's in them, not at them, as pictures," (Wall 2015).

"Every photograph is the result of a physical imprint transferred by light reflections onto a sensitive surface. The photograph is thus a type of icon, or visual likeness, which bears an indexical relationship to its object," (Krauss 1977:75).

"In photography I can never deny the thing has been there," (Barthes 1993:76).

It has been there, but I like to ask in my images, "Where is it going?"



Figure 1. FONTCUBERTA, Joan. Stranger Than Fiction: Sirens on Vimeo.  Available at: https://vimeo.com/101076313 [accessed April 1 2019]
Figure 2. SLADE, Bren. 2019. Pink. Available at www.BrenSlade.com
BAL, Mieke. 1993. 'His Masters Eye.' in LEVIN, David (ed). 1993. Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision. Berkeley: University of California Press.
KRAUSS, Rosalind. 1977. 'Notes on the Index; Seventies Art in America.' October (vol.3).
SCHWENDERNER, M. 2013. Fontcuberta, Joan, Oxford University Press.
WALL, Jeff. 2015. Pictures Like Poems. Museum of Modern Art. V&A [online] available at: https://vimeo.com/123074890 [accessed April 1, 2019].