Assignment 6

I've been trying to think of a title for assignment six, and my dad just suggested a great one. I'll title this project: 

"Work in Progress"

Here's my assignment six.

Wow, I can’t believe this class is nearly over! I did my assignment five presentation on Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, the husband and wife photographers. Their work is very surreal and often has hidden meanings, and because we are taking inspiration from our artists for our final assignment, I tried to follow that theme for this project. As I mentioned in my presentations, I also borrowed visual elements like the hands and soil cross-section from some of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrisons’ Counterpoint series. I really like the emotions of the pieces in which the ParkeHarrisons used these elements. I also liked how they used hands to represent the whole person in a way, which I think is a very cleaver visual tool.

A detail shot to break up this crazy wall of text

I tried to make this assignment using a set, similarly to the ParkeHarrisons. They are known for creating elaborate sets before taking their pictures and I tried to do an approximation of the same. As can be seen in some of the work in progress shots further down in the blog, I made a fake cross section of the ground in my back yard. It began as a rectangle of soil with grass at the top, and then I added roots, small plants, and small objects with personal meaning from my life. For example, you can see an old soup bone in the upper left corner of the finished picture. The Siberian Husky dog from my childhood used to eat those bones and they can still be found pressed into the dirt and grass around the yard. I used to play in the dirt a lot when I was a kid, and I would sometimes sit under a tree and play with a set of small plastic horses and other treasures that could be found on the ground. Shepherd’s Purse plants, chewed walnut hulls dropped by squirrels, and those flat sided marble things were all toys in those games, so I gave them cameo appearances in this project. After the set was complete I took a series of pictures, and then photographed my left hand in a series of poses on the dirt to add in Photoshop.

Another detail shot. More breaking up of the text

I decided to make this project as part-two of my first assignment. In assignment one I tried to capture how I felt looking forward into my first semester of college. In this project, I tried to capture looking back. Soil was my research topic in my English class, which became a little all-consuming at times. I used soil as a big element in this project because of that. My hands are reaching up through the soil, or maybe through the challenges of a first semester. I really liked the pressure in the ParkeHarrisons’ Bloodroot piece, which featured Robert ParkeHarrison’s face deep underground, and I was hoping to recreate that in this project. This semester felt like a lot of pressure from the soil! I don’t feel that I really managed to recreate that pressure, but I like the symbolism none the less.

I printed this assignment at twenty-three inches on the short side, if I remember correctly. I needed it to be large enough that the hands were not smaller than my hand sculpture. There was some concern that the resolution from my camera would not be able to hold up, but fortunately it did! I chose the canvas to print on because of its durability, but also because of how nice my print looked on it in the test. The canvas made the colors look wonderful in comparison to the other paper.

The hand sculpture as it is today

 There is a second element in this assignment that I made last weekend. It’s a hand sculpture of sorts, I guess. I wish there was more to say about it, but it’s really just something that I made for the fun of making it. It also had some great procrastination value. It began as a chicken wire hand that I made to add another dimension to my print, and then it ended up getting stuffed with dirt and plants. I’m surprised that it worked, but so far everything has lived! I like that it turns the elements in the print inside out. I plan to display this sculpture on a table in front of my print, as a sort of companion for the project. Robert and Shana Parkeharrison have been known to include a sculpture or two amongst their galleries of prints.

I did not appropriate any imagery for this project. 

Baby radishes have sprouted on the hand