Assignment Six Proposal

For assignment five, I will present tomorrow on Winter Arm, Spring Arm, and Summer Arm by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. As our final projects are to be inspired by our assigned artists, for assignment six I will be making something influenced by the work of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. I have learned a lot about them as I researched for my presentation, and one of the things I admire most about their work is the surreal social commentary of their photographs. I think I will take inspiration from this aspect of their work. I am also fascinated by the imagery in some of the pictures from their Counterpoint series, and I really like their use of hands to represent people as a whole, and how they buried the model's (actually Robert ParkeHarris playing Everyman's) head in the ground in their piece Bloodroot. I can almost feel the pressure in that picture, and it reminds me a little bit of the pressure of keeping up with classes this semester.

 I think I could use all of these things in my final project. I have an idea to have hands buried beneath the soil, with their fingers twining and reaching to push up through the earth like spring daffodil bulbs. I could include bulbs and roots and worms and things, and it could be viewed perhaps in a similar cross section of the ground as the ParkeHarrisons used in Bloodroot. I think this project would probably be made by assembling photographs in a collage to look like one of the elaborate sets that the ParkeHarrisons create for their amazing photographs, so it would be made similarly to my assignment one. The project might be best suited to printing normally, but I could also print it on canvas and glue some dried roots or something onto it for texture. I’d like to go for the same pastel, cool toned look that the ParkeHarrisons used in their Counterpoint series.

In my English class, the topic I have used for my research papers all semester has been the soil’s relationship with climate change. With that in mind, I think that featuring soil prominently in the picture would actually illustrate my whole semester in a way. I’ve been thinking that this project could also kind of wrap up my ideas from assignment one. In assignment one I tried to show how I was feeling in the very beginning as I looked forward at my first semester of college, and similarly this project could be looking back on it. Certainly when I look back on this semester there is a lot of soil involved.

See Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison's Counterpoint series here: http://parkeharrison.com/counterpoint