My first magazine editorial!

Just got word that Idaho Family Magazine will be able to complete a June/July issue AND run my editorial on my Teddy Bear Project of COVID-19! It will be a full page and include three images.

This is good news because:
1- With lack of sponsors (thanks to COVID-19 loss of income for many businesses) they were not sure they would have a June/July issue at all.  
2- Even if there was an issue it would likely be smaller than usual and space would be tight- I would be lucky to have half a page and one image.  
3- They were able to include three images AND they included a link to my website.  

https://idahofamilymagazine.com

Even though the Teddy Bear Project may not be the one I submit for my FMP I am still glad for the exposure and to see it leading new audiences to my photography.

The Art of Minerva Teichert

Fig. 1: Teichert 1913. The Miracle of the Gulls.

As artists I think we are all influenced, directly or indirectly but the art that has come before us.  For me, the art work Minerva Teichert is no exception.  

Minerva was born in 1888 and raised on a ranch in Idaho.  Without much else to do, her mother gave her her first set of paints when she was four years old.  At such a young age she would head off on her horse and paint what inspired her (Minerva Teichert Art 2020).  She is well known for her western depictions and also her religious works.  The western legacy is that of my ancestors and I have spent time worshiping in temples where her artwork adorns the walls.  But I am more influenced and connected to Minerva as a person.  What I connect with most in Minerva is that she was quite the advocate for women's rights, but in a unique way because it was not at the expense of her family, or more accurately, the woman's role in the family. She was a mother in the home and an artist and excelled at both. She represented an educated, intelligent, motivated and confident woman.  

At age 14 Minerva took a job as a nanny (then called a nurse maid) to save money to go east to school.  She graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1912. She then went on to study at the Art Students League of New York, under the well know and renowned artist Robert Henri, who deemed Minerva as one of his top three pupils. (Minerva Teichert Art 2020).  

Mineva married Herman Adolph Teichert and raised 5 kids on a family ranch in Cokeville, Wyoming. Minerva didn't sacrifice her family life for her art and found great satisfaction in both.  Painting was in her and she often found herself painting on scraps of wood or paper, often isolated from the art world and without a studio.  Still, she managed over 400 murals in her lifetime, in a variety of buildings and religious churches or temples (Minerva Teichert Art 2020).  Her brushstrokes are ones of emotion, light and hope.  

Fig. 2: Teichert 1939. Queen Esther.

Figure 1. Minerva TEICHERT. 1913. The Miracle of the Gulls. Minerva Teichert Art [online] available at: https://www.minervateichertart.com/about-minerva [accessed 27 May, 2020].

Figure 2. Minerva TEICHERT. 1939. Queen Esther. Minerva Teichert Art [online] available at: https://www.minervateichertart.com/about-minerva [accessed 27 May, 2020].


Minerva Teichert Art. 2020. 'About Minerva Teichert.' MinervaTeichertArt. Available at: https://www.minervateichertart.com/about-minerva [accessed 27 May, 2020].

More Photomontage and Herbert Matter

Herbert Matter did not invent the photomontage, but "he certainly owned it as a means of expression" (Lances 2014).

Fig. 1: Matter 1943. [light drawing] 

Born in Switzerland, Matter originally was a student of painting.  Evolving into a freelance photographer all the way to filmmaker, graphic designer, and professor.  One of his international contributions was his work with photomontage.  

Matter understood photography as a tool for abstraction (Lances 2014).  

"The gesture, the action, the mark, are all there, just made through manipulated mechanical means. Are the resulting images more rigid and geometric in some ways than the pure distillation of action and performance in paintings by artists such as his friends Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning?  Yes, but not in a way that makes them any less liberating and revolutionary" (Landes 2014).


I like the powerful way he uses light in his images.  My tools and methodology are different but the influence is there.  

This isolation time of COVID-19 has been crazy and a trying.  School, working from home, and 'homeschooling' kids, including 2 teenagers and 2 emerging readers.  Careful of the government restrictions we spend our time slipping in and out of each others space, breathing each others air.  We all have our own identities, our own schedules and our own entourage of paraphernalia that trails us. We are a familymontage. 

Fig. 2: Slade 2020.

Fig. 3: Slade 2020.

Fig. 4: Slade 2020.

Fig. 5: Slade 2020.

Figure 1. Herbert MATTER. 1990. [light drawing]. V&A [online] Available at: https://library.stanford.edu/collections/herbert-matter-photograph-collection [accessed 18 May 2020].
Figures 2-5. Bren Slade 2020.

LANDES, Jennifer. 2014. 'Herbert Matter's Photographs.' The East Hampton Star. May [online]. Available at: https://www.easthamptonstar.com/archive/herbert-matters-photographs [accessed 18 May 2020].

The Teddy Bear Project Expands

Still 'exploring new threads' and direction for my project, Dr. Wendy McMurdo mentioned the rainbows happening along the same vein as the Teddy Bears being placed in windows.  I decided to expand the project to accept a variety of images that represent how children and people reached to others during isolation.  Here are some fun additions: 

Fig. 1: Submitted to the project by Melissa Hammar

Hidden rocks, painted and dispersed for others to find.  I received images from both painters and finders.  

 Fig. 2: Submitted to the project by Katie Slade

Other positive and encouraging 'window' messages.

Fig. 3: Submitted to the project by Taylor Bingham.

'Hugs' sent by mail to isolated loved ones.  

Fig. 4: Submitted to the project by Nichole Harvey

Combinations of two or more ideas in the same image.

"A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal." 

(Marabloi 2009)

MARABLOI, Steve. 2009. Life, the Truth, and Being Free. A Better Today Publishing: Port Washington, New York.

Charlotte Cotton

Charlotte Cotton is a curator and writer, with influential work in contextualizing contemporary photography.

Because my images often involve storytelling I am interested on the thoughts of Cotton on the tableau-vivant area of photography.

Tableau photography has a history in pre-photographic era art including the eighteenth and nineteenth century figurative painting.  Today we still share the cultural ability to recognize props and characters and a frozen or 'pregnant' moment of a story being told (Cotton 2014).

I was able to watch the recording of the Living Image Symposium at Falmouth University that happened on March of 2019 with Charlotte herself as she discusses the project; Public, Private, Secret, a work for our era that bring works that discuss how images making and consumption are embedded in a larger scheme of  online behavior and social codes.  

She presents her photo projects like many others that start with a personal curiosity and investment.  She is diverse in form and narrative and also role she takes on but always with a desire to participate.  She has found her place working through curatorialy the issues our collective conscious has to carry- hopefully projecting our prevail.  

It's a new time for technology, and technology is affecting our identity unlike any other time in history.   

Cotton excels at creating spaces and in this project she imagined spaces for people to work out the extent to be both optimistic and skeptical. 

Though looking at her portfolio her work that interests me the most may be her book Photography is Magic.  

Richard Rivera describes it as "a tour de force of all visual media that may stray or touch in the most peripheral way upon any photographic means to create an image" (New Your Journal of Books).  Abstract, conceptual, and digital composites are all interests in my own photography.  And particularly how technology is reshaping photography.
  

Fig. 1: Slade 2020

Figure 1. Bren SLADE. 2020.

COTTON, Charlotte. 2014 The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Third edition. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson.

COTTON, Charlotte. 2015. Photography is Magic. New York, N.Y: Aperture.

Living Image Symposium. 2019. Falmouth University [online] Available at: https://falmouthflexible.instructure.com/courses/249/pages/the-living-image-symposium-charlotte-cotton-march-2019?module_item_id=26307 [accessed 12 May 2020].

Photomontage

Photomontage 

My new images representing the ever-shifting, fluid world of an isolation house for 7. 

My SOOC photos were ok, but since compositing is really my specialty I decided to try something new with it.  These images are different for me, and unlike any other collection I have done.  So far I am liking where they are going.  

A bit like Tom Epperson's abstract photomontages combining overlooked items of everyday life, in a process of decontruction and construction resulting in seamless graphic abstractions 
(Enriquez 2011). 

Fig. 1: SLADE 2020. 

Fig. 2: SLADE 2020. 

FIG. 3 SLADE 2020. 

Fig. 4: SLADE 2020. 

Fig. 5: SLADE 2020. 

Figures 1-5. Bren SLADE. 2020. Isolation House for Seven. 



Choosing black and white to limit the distraction of color and focus instead on shapes, lines and textures.

ENRIQUEZ, Marge C. 2011. 'Tom Epperson's Abstract Photomontage.' Lifestyle Inc. Available at: https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/27015/tom-epperson’s-abstract-photomontage/ [accessed 9 May].

Disappointment

Idaho Family Magazine lost too many sponsors during the quarantine to create a May/June Issue.  So that means my article will not be a part of it.  They are hoping for a July/August issue but nothing is guaranteed.  As my 4 year old niece says, "Stupid CORONAVIRUS."

Image curtesy of EnvatoElements

It's understandable.  This is new territory for all of us.   Nothing to do now but press onward.  

House for Seven

Isolation House for Seven Please
COVID-19 images by Photographer Bren Slade

We are all in each others space.  

Homework on the floor, toys on the computers (toys everywhere).

Spaces created within spaces, 

as everyone navigates a new normal,

 and tries to find their own 'place' in this confined chaos. 

All images ©Bren Slade 2020

New Threads - Traces of Play

I'm still being encouraged to try new things, new lines or 'threads' to see where they will lead.

'Traces of Play'
5 kids in quarantine

"We are at our most curious and adaptable as children, before our worldview becomes rigid with the weight of experience" (Palumbo 2012).

Fig. 1: Slade 2020.

Fig. 2: Slade 2020.

Fig. 3: Slade 2020.

Fig. 4: Slade 2020.

Fig. 5: Slade 2020.

Inspired by photography such as the work of 

Jesse Burke

Fig. 6: Burke 2012.

In his collection Wild and Precious Burke documents the exploration of his daughter, Clover Lee, particularly in nature.  

Instead of exploring a child's complicated relationship with nature I am exploring my children's relationship to their own environment, isolation in close quarters.  What happen's when play is contained in essentially the 'four walls' of the home.  They begin to explore nooks and crannies previously neglected and soon the Traces of Play are everywhere.  

Julie Blackmon is another photographer who's children based work is described as images of "controlled chaos" (Palumbo 2012).

                                                      Fig. 7: Blackmon. New Chair.

When kids rule in every area of the house, Blackmon explores the rituals of family life, like chaos with a conductor- which is Blackmon herself, being her lens. She uses color and theatrical staging in her semi- autobiographical works reflecting domestic life and the often paradoxical expectations of family life (Palumbo 2012).

Figures 1-5. Bren SLADE. 2020. Traces of Play. 

Figure 6. Jesse BURKE. 2012. Wild and Precious [online]. Available at: http://www.wildandprecious.co/about [accessed 4 May 2020].

Figure 7. Julie BLACKMON. New Chair [online]. Available at: https://www.julieblackmon.com/index.cfm [accessed 4 May 2020].

PALUMBO, Jacqui. 2019. '6 Photographers Who Capture Childhood.' Visual Culture. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-6-photographers-making-powerful-work-childhood [accessed 4 May 2020].