Notes

Mixed Media
.more than one media must be used
.Lori Anderson, Maria Ballasko, carrie Ann Carter, Rodger Schimormura
.what does it mean to be equal?
.topic
.search source
.personal interview
.how am I influenced?
.understanding and evaluating
.what do I want to do with this topic?
.What is the weight of consumption?


Mandala: A symbol representing the effort to reunify the self?


Proposal Due Thursday
.1st draft
.approach
.how will I carry it out?
.what media will I use?
.justification
.other than it looks cool
.timeline
.does it require travel, is it doable
.due before DEC. 12

www.unitedstatesartist.org

Martha Rosler

November 4 :: Notes

.What am I learning?
.Be more introspective before you before you shoot.
.Break away from quantitative measures.
.is it enough?
.what are you going to sacrifice?
.what reasons do you have for learning?
.will what I have learned comfort or distress me?
.who am I?
.see beyond
.How do I translate a philosophy, that is not necessarily visually oriented?
.Tank paintings, they tell stories, all about the flow of time and the universe.

Rice Meditation

Before I taste the rice, I take a couple really long breaths through my nose and out through my mouth and smell the grainy earthy scent of the small amount of rice in my cup. It smells stronger than I imagined it would. I think about the rice before I taste it too. I place with it on the spoon and on my lips before I let it pass into my mouth. The rice is luke warm and sticks to the spoon and my lips. I slowly grains of rice in to my mouth and I can feel a certain excitement or apprehension about doing so, I have taken the last few minutes just feeling out my spoonful and now that I have observed it so, actually tasting it has sort of an excitement about it. I know what rice tastes like, and yet I am excited to try it again now, as if I will discover something new, that I have been missing all these years. As I let the grains of rice past my lips, I taste something very familiar, but it seems more potent now. Usually rice is served with other dishes and so it takes on most of the flavor of the dish you are serving it with, so just tasting the rice, while it feels very familiar, it just seems so potent. The flavor isn't sweet, or sour, spicy, just really earthy and grainy. The rice is cold now, and it feels sticky to touch, even more so than it was before. As I eat a little more rice, I can feel it now sticking to my teeth and getting stuck in the back of my throat as I swallow it. I'm trying to eat it as slow as possible to make my rice last. I am eating grain by grain and each one appears to be a different size, shape and texture even.
I start thinking about the rices' past. Where did this rice come from. I try and think about where rice is grown. I immediately think of China, but who knows in this day and age. For all I know they could be growing rice in Montana. I ignore my cynicism and think instead that my rice was grown in China and that it traveled all the way here to me, my crappy uncle Ben's microwave in a bag rice. It is sort of disturbing to think about that aspect of it. Either way I try and think about how rice is grown and the seasons it saw before it was harvested.
Time is moving slower now and I feel less restless than at the beginning of my meditation on the rice. l think about how present I feel now. I notice that for 20 minutes now I haven't thought about how much homework I have to do, how little sleep I got last night, and how my boyfriend hasn't called or that my friend was being moody tonight. I just feel silent and calm, and glad for all the noise to be stopping. Not just the physical noise but the emotional noise that is constantly going through my head. I finnish the rest of my rice in one last big bite. I feel its cold sticky texture and how each grain sort of resists slightly to my teeth before giving way to my chewing. Each grain has as little life and a little journey to make it here, and I feel grateful for it.

Still Life Inspiration Research

Your Shot Inspiration

Books and Artists to Look at

"The American West" : Richard Avadon

Bruce Davison

Bill Owens: "Suburbia"

Larry Clark: "Tussle", "Teenage Lust"

Robert Frank

Diane Arbus

Notes

What are your strengths?
What are your weaknesses?
What are you will to give up?


Sensual sense to a global sense. What am I capable of expressing?
[HW]

Paper: Eat one tsp. of rice for half an hour in the dark. By yourself, no distractions. How I consume it is up to me.

Begin from the carbon foot print and the crisis.
Start thinking! Study!

How do we study a photography book vs. a photograph?

Photo Style

I have been browsing flickr while I have been in class... It really depresses me. I feel like at this age I should be so much better at photography than I am. I am still searching for my style, and I still feel like a stupid photo student who is just doing sub par work. My stuff is getting better, but it has yet to go past the level of amateur student. I need to find my voice, and stop comparing myself to others. Everytime I look at others work, I just feel discouraged, especially some of my peers work. Not so much in my classes, but Melissa and Kassia, they are so talented and don't really have any formal training. I need to start seeing better... I just don't know how...