emotion |

three pcitures one of two nail varnishes, one of a teddy bear close up and one of some strawberries with sugar

Childhood Memories

Title: Childhood Memories

Exercise: Recreate a childhood memory in a photograph. Approach the task in any way you wish but consider carefully the memory you choose and how it will be represented.

Process:
I approached this exercise by simply scanning some of the things around me and seeing if anything sparked any particular memories. I also looked at some family albums and it was this that elicited the ‘Bear’ and thoughts of my Mum and my Nan. After various attempts to capture something, possibly incorporating the old photographs, I decided on a more straightforward still life type representation. I had chosen not to include myself in the photograph partly because I was already thinking about the self-portraiture assignment and I wanted to keep that separate from this exercise.

I also used the exercise to try my first attempt at creating a triptych in Photoshop, it took a little experimenting but in the end I did manage to stitch the three images together on a single canvas.

Content:
Once I started the process a whole host of memories started tumbling to the surface; events at school, adventures with my brother and thoughts of people who are no longer with me. In my late twenties and thirties a large number of my closest relatives died and many of the pictures and objects I was exploring took me back to memories of them and their place in my childhood. Two of the images are about people who are still with me and one is in memory of my Nan – Nanny Osborne (known as Nanny Oz in the family).

Now I look at the images they are both about childhood and about growing up and leaving things behind. The nail varnish is concerned with my memory of biting my nails as a child. My Mum always had beautiful nails and I remember being envious of them as a small girl as they stood in sharp contrast to my own stubby finger tops. My ambition was to be able to see my nails over the top of my fingers when I looked at my hands from the back. The image includes the first ever manicure set I was given. I am pleased to say I achieved my ambition and now have my own extensive collection of nail varnishes. It was perhaps one of my earliest remembered experiences of goal setting.

The Bear was given to me by my Uncle and has always held a special place in my memory both as something I cherished and an early experience of change. It was given to me when I was three or four years old and I had a memory of it being huge, the biggest bear I had ever seen. At the age of five we moved to Australia for a number of years and when I returned, through some curious event, my beloved Bear had shrunk! I was growing up and it was a little painful to see that my recollection of the bear no longer matched my reality. I chose to shoot him close up to emphasise my memory of his size.

Finally, I have included the strawberries. They come from memories of hot summer days in my Nanny Oz’s long garden and picking the strawberries from beds caressed with straw. Nanny Oz had a cut glass sugar shaker with a silver top (long since gone I fear) and we were allowed to shake sugar on our plates bite the strawberries and dip them in the sugar (something that would surely be frowned upon today but I still occasionally do if no-one is looking!). We ended up with plates of mushy sugar streaked pink from the juice of the strawberries. The strawberries make me smile, and think of sunny days and laughter, and people I love and miss.

Evaluation & Synthesis:
As with many of the exercises the finishing point is never as I imagined from the beginning, it has echoes of those early thoughts but has evolved and developed in ways I might not have imagined. It is interesting to explore how many of my memories are bitter sweet; laughter and loss often intertwined. While I remember them fondly they are connected in some ways with grieving too. Something to consider for other aspects of the course.

I was pleased to have achieved the technical aspect of the triptych although it is not perfect and now I understand the process better I might reorder them with the strawberries on the left. I also underestimated the size of the file it would create so that is something to keep in mind in future. It might have been quicker just to upload the three images side by side in WordPress!

Title: Project 1 Autobiographical Self Portraiture

Exercise: Reflect on the pieces of work discussed in this project and do some further research of your own.

Reflections:

The moment when a man comes to paint himself – he may do it only two or three times in a lifetime, perhaps never – has in the nature of things a special significance. Lawrence Gowing, 1962

It seems the reasons for creating self-portraits are many and varied, but most have in common a desire to share the human condition. Self-portraits can explore politics, issues of representation, personal trauma, or celebration. Sometimes the images make me uncomfortable, I feel voyeuristic; the act of looking at people I don’t know who seem to be sharing their deepest vulnerabilities sits uneasily. This may in part be influenced by the fact that I am deeply uncomfortable about being on the other side of the viewfinder. Sometimes I connect in a way I could not have imagined, the image speaks to me of myself as much as of someone else.

Narcissism: self-admiration; sensual gratification found in one’s own body, whether as a normal stage of development or a pathological condition. The Chambers Dictionary, 9th Ed.

In the research I have done on various photographers’ self-portraits I don’t think they are narcissistic in the pathological sense (although that may be hard to say without having met them in person), yes they may be regarded as self-absorbed in that they are exploring something of personal importance to the photographer or artist. In many cases their self-absorption is giving the viewer something to reflect on or learn from. One set of images was particularly arresting and Laura Hospes is very articulate about her motives.

At first, I made this complete series for myself, to deal with the difficulties and express my feelings, … After that, I want to inspire people who are or have been in a psychiatric hospital. I want them to see my pictures and recognize themselves in it. I hope they feel taken seriously, less crazy and less alone. Hospes

I find Hospes images incredibly arresting and troubling. I wonder how a young woman finds herself in such circumstances, and then has the capacity to record her experience. It reminds me of the stories I read when doing assignment one on Brookwood Asylum and contemporary attitudes to issues of mental health. From Hospes’ willingness to share her personal story I am connected to a world of wider stories. I am grateful to her for putting the images in the public domain – I am not sure it is something I could ever do.

In their summer exhibition Turner Contemporary posed an interesting question about self-portraiture, noting in particular the growth of the ‘selfy’ phenonmenon.

In a world where ‘selfies’ have become everyday expressions and ‘Britishness’ is being redefined, what is the role of self-portraiture and how has it shifted through the history of art to the present day? Turner Contemporary: Self, image and identity

Sadly, I didn’t get to see the exhibition but the range of works from Van Dyck to Yinka Shonibare suggests a dynamic genre that shows no sign of abating. The review headline in the Guardian speaks of ‘bagginess’ rather than dynamism and its title suggests a perhaps stark view of the point of self-portraiture but by the end of the piece I think the potential power in the works is acknowledged.

Me me meme: artists’ selfies paint the full spectrum of self-obsession