Idea Blog #1

The one word that I would use to describe the topic of this first idea blog would be Decisions. I am at a crossroads right now. I have two bodies of work that I would like to work on this semester.

The first of which is a concept that I first worked on in a documentary class. This involves a documentary study of women who follow spiritual systems or practice that are earth based. This includes all systems such as Wicca or Shinto as well as personal spiritualities that involve the earth. This idea is in line with a lot of my past work where I follow others into the personal spaces as with The Places We’ll Go where I followed my subjects to the places where they go to get away from life, and Earth Based Women in which along with interviewing women about their believes and lives I followed them into the their homes to see their altars and sacred domestic spaces as well as following them in their practices  (These are the first two images).  I would expand to encompass my subjects past and the people in their lives whereas before I was concentrated on their views on certain subjects and just their homes and certain practices.  The place to start would be to revisit the people who helped me before and expand the questions and locations from before because of how limited my frame was before. From there I would look at organizations and other opportunities to network.

The second idea is way more personal than most of other bodies of work where I usually projects my emotions, views and ideas onto others. I am attempting to visually capture and explore the tunnels or vortex of thought I fall into and can’t get out of until it has run its course. These “tunnels” are streams or loops of consciousness containing a multitude of things ranging from thoughts memories, emotions, fantasies, realizations, etc. These currents can be powerful and quick running me over like a linebacker, or can runs it course slowly in the background of my mind over the course of months. I have seen references to similar phenomenon in literature and film. Off the top of my head I can think of references in Sylvia Plath’s “Bell Jar”, J.D. Salinger “Catcher in the Rye”, and Joan Didion’s “A Year in Magical Thinking”. Films often contain flashbacks that are similar to what I’m speaking about, but are not the same because they are not simply memories, but it is similar to the flashbacks and fantasies in “Love Song” by Christophe Honore. I have a clearer idea of what the final product would look like than the first idea. Over the years I have done multiple dioramas with viewfinders. On that note, I have posted an image of the first diorama I ever completed (Last Image). I would continue in this path by using a diorama to contain a single tunnel.  I will go into this further in later blogs. Due to the personal nature of this work, the place to start would be increase the amount I journal especially when acute tunnels are occurring and photographing where they often occur.

I was hoping by writing a summary of both that I would get a better idea of which one I’d like to do, but I find myself torn still. Over the next couple days, I will continue research on both artistically and conceptually in order to find which idea I’d like to concentrate on.