Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

What is a photograph? According to Roland Barthes, it "mechanically repeats what could never be reproduced existentially" (4).  The photograph has no desire to change, transcend or tire of its own contingency.
Who am I when photographed? It's an interesting phenomenon that when the lens is upon a person, that person is no longer his or herself but a person merely imitating a person who does not exist. The subject may or may not be aware of this "pose" but Barthes likens the sensations to feelings of merely unauthentic to nightmarish. "A subject who feels he is becoming an object" (14).
Why does this photo touch me? The emotion or pity the spectator feels is called the "punctum" or "prick" and it is inarticulable in a linguistic sense. Barthes also calls this the "obtuse" (as opposed to "obvious") or "third" meanings.
Barthes makes in inevitable connection between a photograph and death with the photograph serving as the  "proof" or to eulogize the subject. He makes the connection to his mother, citing a childhood photo of her where he feels he has "discovered" her. This image is not reproduced as Barthes assures us readers that the photo would be uninteresting to anyone but himself. The Winter Garden photo emanates a punctum to Barthes that no one else would capture. The photograph is a passage through time and a repetitive resurrection of the subject.
Image from page 50 - Lewis H. Hine, Idiot Children in an Institution, 1924      

Artist Profile: Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) was born to a family of artists in Denver, Colorado. She discovered a passion for black and white photography at the young age of 13. Woodman spent a year in Rome under scholarship from the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated from a public high school in Boulder, Colorado. After moving to New York City to become a photo artist, she became an artist-in-residence in the MacDowell Artist Colony in New Hampshire. She died jumping out of a loft window on January 19th, 1981 at the age of 22 after struggling with depression and a rocky relationship.
Woodman usually depicted herself or doppelganger figures as the subject but they would not be considered portraits in a traditional sense. She experimented with setting, using dark, empty and decrepit rooms and exposure times, both of which she mastered in her short years. Art historically, she was inspired by the Baroque, Surrealism, Classicism and Futurism.
Her work is celebrated post-humously being critiqued as haunting, sexual, vulnerable and slightly disturbing. The only show held during her lifetime was at the Maldoror Bookstore from 1977-78 in Rome during her aforementioned stint in the Rhode Island School of Design's honor program. Some Disordered Interior Geometries was the only written work published during her lifetime. The Fancy was an experimental film is 2000 about Woodman's life and work. She has had several successful posthumous exhibitions.
Her work generally evokes curiosity within the viewer and is incredibly interesting compositionally. Clearly, she had a sexually attractive figure and frequently used nudity as part of her progression. However, it is not interpreted (by myself) as aesthetically pleasing but instead disturbing and violating much like the nudes portrayed by Egon Schiele.      

Sense of Time

This project was the most difficult by far in terms of coming up with a theme or subject. Therefore, this series focuses on my love of art, in this case sculpture, that I wanted to make come alive somehow. I wanted the statues to convey either movement, emotion or both. To have one of those attributes does in fact convey a sense of time. View the rest of the series here.

Artist Profile: W. Eugene Smith

Eugene Smith (1918-1978) was a photojournalist, later recognized as a master of photography, documenting with tragic vivacity events such as World War II. He has photographed for several magazines including Newsweek, Life and Parade. He refused to use traditional methods of photography and that led to several conflicts with media employers.  
He created photo essays with various individuals as his subject. He photographed U.S. Marines on the front lines in Japan, even suffering a war injury (by mortar fire) in the process. His first official "photo story" centered around a country doctor in late the 1940's shot in Kremmling, Colorado. He covered the 1950 general election in the UK, which included photos of working class British citizens including the famous portrait of three generations of coal miners. Other stories take place in Spain, Africa, several places in the United States including Pennsylvania, California and South Carolina as well as returning to Japan to document the devastating effects of mercury poisoning.
Eugene Smith is thought of as the originator of photo stories. He most poignant series are titled Pittsburg, Nurse Midwife, Minamata, Country Doctor and Albert Schweitzer - A Man of Mercy.
Eugene Smith passed away in 1978 from a stroke as a result of drug and alcoholic tendencies.  
 

Cultural Event #2

Space Gallery on Sante Fe Drive has been a primary catalyst for the era of abstraction in the Denver art scene. Galileo's Garden, Space's latest abstract incarnation, features husband-wife duo Monica and Tyler Aiello. Monica is the painter, using mostly acrylic, ink and fiber on panel in organic designs similar to amoebas or possibly different types of flora. To complement her work, Tyler is the sculptor doing floor and wall installations in hand-forged steel. Recurring circular patterns add depth, texture and color to the space. The floor installations seem to give a sense of functionality, as if the pieces are furniture and decor for an alien creature. The show was enjoyable, the gallery is very spacious unlike some of the surrounding galleries. I always found Space Gallery to be tasteful, current and very reflective of Colorado taste.
 

Painted Failure (Final Project)

This is my final project aptly titled "Painted Failure". See more pictures here. The intention of this project as to explore the reverse process of art imitating life. Through editing, I capitalized on the graininess of the original shots and attempted to give them a "painted" look with texture and exaggerated proportions, colors and compositions to further emphasize the distorted quality. Some of the final photos were a success and some, as the title suggests, were failures.  

Cultural Event #1

Cities of Splendor: A Journey through Renaissance Italy at the Denver Art Museum travels through Florence, Milan, Mantua, Siena, Venice and even explores the cultural impact Across the Alps in countries such as Germany and Spain. It was a great way to show off the Denver Art Museum’s Samuel H. Kress Foundation collection, which is truly breathtaking. The show is meant to be the viewer’s “passport” through 15^th and 16^th century Italy. The associate curator is Angelica Daneo, who also teaches a Renaissance art history class at the University of Denver. She provided her class with private access to the exhibition and to the head conservator James Squires, who talked about some of the stabilizing and conservation efforts he and his team went through to prepare the pieces for display. It begins with stabilizing the relative humidity in the downstairs gallery where the exhibition would take place. Stable relative humidity for the show is 50% +/- 5%. The most important thing is to keep the humidity stable and not fluctuate by more than 2% in one day. Some of the pieces, including Albrecht Dürer’s engravings Prodigal Son and Madonna and Child are in microclimates, which look like small clear plastic boxes. They provide a very important purpose though, to further stabilize the environments of the incredibly delicate materials. The conservation of the pieces is what I found most intriguing during my visit to the exhibition. I especially loved the aforementioned Dürer engravings, Prodigal Son and Madonna and Child.