Artist: Tawny Davis

Violence among young people is an aspect of their desire to create. They don’t know how to use their energy creatively so they do the opposite and destroy;

We are constantly being influenced by our surroundings and are also affected by the People in our lives.
My younger sister, Tawny, makes digitally composed collages through photoshop. She is currently a freshman at VCU in hopes of beginning AFO in the fall with a goal of becoming a Graphic Designer.
Tawny attended the Shenandoah Valley Regional Governor School concentrating in Visual Arts while in High School, as did myself. Her dream job would be designing graphics for Volcom. She enjoys making collages for her friends daily.

The collages are playful, colorful, energetic, but upon closer inspection there are often undertones of metaphor and symbolism. The collages range from intricate to busy and simple to complex.
Tawny's method is to not think, but to begin. She takes a suggestion/idea and just lets the artwork develop/process while maintaining an aesthetic quality/"personal style" within the piece. There is also a strong narrative sense to the works because as children, we were often told stories.

http://twaneyshae.tumblr.com/



A mock poster possibility for the VCU Photo Senior Show 2010





Too Late to Die Young


I cant change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination




not only are you doomed but so is everyone else you have touched

Idea: Pictures of the sky/ Landscape of the American Dream

The sky changes everyday.
Large format photographs of the sunrise, sunset, or the traffic of planes with Cumulonimbus clouds and the moon in midday.
Combine into some sort of collection of images, a a quick quantitative series that repeats for eternity.
A picture of the sky for every day I looked up and took a picture.
Many open ended possibilities to the usage of the images taken of the sky
What about including B&W photographs of sunrises/sunsets over water.
Move onto nighttime photographs of astral bodies and the starry heavens.

Looking up into the sky is looking all the way into forever.
Laying on your back and looking up at the sky.

Artist: Chris Verene

www.chrisverene.com






Paul recommended that I look at the Artist, Chris Verene. After looking him up I realized I had seen his works in person at the ADA gallery here in Richmond. I have a postcard of the "Mercedes will soon.." hanging up on the mirror in my room. Ha

Verene's childhood hometown is about the same size as mine. He grew up in Galesburg, Illinois and three generations of his family and friends still live in Galesburg. Verene's work is an ongoing documentary/portrait of the people in his community and of his family and friends. This is verene's Galesburg Series 1984-Present)
His series, The Camera Club and an installation performance piece, Self Esteem Salonwere part of the Whitney Biennial in 2000.

His family and friends in Galesburg, Ill. are midwestern counterparts to "good ole folks" and remind me so very much of my friends and family of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. His portraits portray the subjects in their homes and give the viewer an inside look into the itty gritty mediocrity of everyday people in Galesburg.

"The simple color photographs are unstaged and reflect a plain yet beautiful side of American life that might otherwise pass by uncelebrated."
www.chrisverene.com


I am drawn to his portraits because they are also honest. Chris Verene has turned his family photo-scrapbook snapshots into fine art. I also enjoy his energy in the compositions/posing of his photographs. I think that his portraits are of "True Blue Americans" at their best by just being themselves and having fun with their families. I love telling stories just as much as I love hearing them and Chris Verene tells a story with each photograph, which he does through a terse hand-written sentence/title.
The handwritten title gives each photograph even more "personal"ity.

Verene will be opening a show,“EXPOSED: VOYEURISM, SURVEILLANCE, AND THE CAMERA SINCE 1870" at the Tate Modern in May 2010.

Idea: Spirit Portraits

I was just thinking about ghost stories. I am planning on moving in with my Father after graduation. He lives in a small modest home at the foot of Wintergreen (old potatopatch) Mountain. I am going to move in with my Father because I have not lived with him since my parents divorced when I was 7. Dad was/is a Trucker and wasn't around much anyway. Living with him will give me the opportunity to get to know my father.

Anyway, to the point of Spirits. Dad's house is haunted by some spirits. I have never personally "seen" anything, but have heard the stories. For a long time, years in fact, nothing happend, but recently things have started happening again.
What If I could conjure up spirits in order to capture them on film? Portraits of ghosts?
It's so easy to "fake" a ghostly photograph if you know what youre doing and I do and could easily stage something like that, but i am now intrigued with the idea of trying to take an artful portrait of some ghosts. I think I would just need a little bit of patience and spiritual cooperation.

There are also psychics who claimed to have mentally projected their thoughts onto unexposed film?
I read the Russians had created a camera that could capture/reveal the human aura...
perhaps I could create legitimate proof of the mystical/metaphysical realms through a photograph?

New Work: Going Three Different Ways On Valentine's Day, 2010

Going Three Different Ways On Valentine's Day, 2010

This new photograph is a memorial to my Sister and her two Daughters(my nieces). On Valentine's Day this year I took their family portrait because it was the last time they would all three be together for a very long time. The day after Valentines they separated going three different ways to start three new lives.
These three women have climbed many "Mountains" together as a family and I believe that if they wrote down their stories their lives would be portrayed as a mini-series on the Lifetime Movie network. I wanted to capture the simple moment of a simple goodbye. My goal in photographing this semester is to record moments in the lives of my subjects that mark a change. It is in simple everyday moments that our lives change forever and my goal is to preserve those moments honestly on film.

Artist Lecture 2/15: Paul Pfeiffer

www.gagosian.com/artists/paul-pfeiffer
www.pbs.org/art21/artists/pfeiffer/index.html

On Feb 15, 2010 I attended the guest artist lecture of Paul Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer's work consisted of appropriated films ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes in length played continuously on loops.
Pfeiffer's films are about 4"x5" in size giving forcing the viewer to have an intimate experience with the tiny screens.
"Tiny acclaimed films on dollhouse sized screens" Pfeiffer's works are surprisingly Solitary, Introspective, and contain Spiritual/Religious undertones.

Pfeiffer stated that his "video sculptures" were "akin" to paintings or photographs and that his goal in makings these mini films was not about making objects, but that it was psychological and it was up to the viewer's imagination to create the artwork within. All of Pfeieffer's work contained spiritual/religious undertones while also dealing with Identity, Race, and Sexual orientation.

Artist: Richard Avedon

www.richardavedon.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Avedon

Richard Avedon is a very prominent and well-known American fashion Photographer. I am not going to repeat facts about him because it would be easier to just look him up.
Richard Avedon was one of the first photographers I was introduced to back in high school. Avedon was well known for his fashion photography, but I am drawn to his portraits. Richard Avedon has a marvelous ability to capture a person on camera and I am not quite sure how he did it. It seems to me that he took his subjects out of their environments and placed them in a studio under lights and exposed them for who they really are and the subjects left with nothing but themselves were therefore captured on film. The thousands of portraits of Marilyn Monroe are all soft and glamourous pin-ups, but Avedon's portrait of Marilyn appears as if the picture was taken when she wasn't ready and I perhaps think that is the genius of it. By capturing a photograph at a moment when Ms. Monroe was unexpectant, Avedon captured a moment when our actress wasn't acting, therefore taking an honest portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Again I speak of "Honest" portraiture of which I believe Avedon successfully creates/captures honest portraits of his subjects.