Up-Swing

It's no surprise that I should take much more fulfilling pictures post grad and that i would be more inspired creatively after escaping the bog-down of deadlines, instructors, and classes. I have begun to schedule and plot out photographs. and i'm excited.

YOu guys have just seen me write this way. My more formal writings for the THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY are now up on their website for their auction in september. My initials are on the pieces that I wrote for. You should at least check it out to see new art. Some of it's pretty cool. Others are okay.... as usual.

chao.

Googley-Eyed

I've been thinking about the misuse and misunderstanding of common words in the English vocabulary. As a society we're told constantly that we are visual, everything relies on visual context, we listen with our eyes, and basically we've become completely illiterate because we no longer read, unless it's the captions underneath a photograph. This has undoubtedly changed our perception of words, their connotation, and ultimately their meaning. I would not be surprised if a dictionary in a few years became obsolete, replaced only by images of course. Google, I'm sure will jump right on that, since they practically have become THE image database. I decided to an experiment on words that seem to be the most miscommunicated and misunderstood in my own personal experience. I google imaged 6 words: Woman, Man, Desire, Love, Lust, and Sex, and I collaged the first five image results from these words. The results were interesting, but unfortunately not surprising.

WOMAN



MAN



DESIRE



LOVE



LUST



SEX



While coming across the first image in the sex one, there was an interesting article attached to it about hardcore art. check it out here

Removing Linear

I knew the first thing I wanted to do with my work as an artist when I finished Columbia was to move away from linear and series-based photography. It's so boring, so expected. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it's a yawn fest. I don't want to be just a photographer. I'm interested in using all mediums in one project (gasp!) - something Columbia wasn't too friendly with. I still want to discuss the same issues as my senior project but yes, in a different way. I think that people didn't hear me in critiques when I said I wasn't happy yet with the project and how it was photographed. For the time and place it was in the project it was as successful as it could be. People took me saying that I wasn't willing to loose the idea of the project, as me saying I wasn't going to budge photographically or aesthetically. This was THE most frustrating and irritating to handle throughout the nothing-but-frustrating project. Anyways, my head has been spinning with creativity and ideas, but I have no direction. And having no direction is absolute bliss! I know I am guilty as charged for trying to get the point to the viewer as clearly as possible and ended up taking photographs that I would never ever want to take. Caught in that mindset though, I was proud of them. Whatev. Live and learn. I didn't listen to my gut-instict back in photo sem, so after that everything spiraled into a Columbia-inspired, cut and dry, linear piece of crap.

Here are some sketches of ideas that have been running through my head that I've managed to capture on film. It is completely different from my final project but still has the same ideas, which means I'm completely excited about it. I love sitting in a certain way and being instantly inspired. That's what happened here:



Ironically this example is linear, but in a much different way. ha! when i speak of non-linear I mean One photography, the next one, photograph number three, blah blah blah. I'm thinking of Wolfgang Tillmans, who i actually don't particularly care for, but the only example I can think of.

I also like it when you take pictures for a completely different reason that what they turn out, when in context of others. Lika zis one:



Especially in context with this one:


and this one:



And here are some others I like:

Musings

Aha! Reading and visiting Nashville always does me good, creatively anyways. I've currently started writing my screenplay that I am super duper excited about. I didn't think that I would be excited really at all, but I am. I've also got some vague ideas about where my burdened project will continue. Donna Arntzen has gracefully allowed me to use her for my model temporarily. Here is a polaroid sketch of sudden inspiration I gathered from her house:


Here are some more musings from that day:







I've also just today started to storyboard an idea that I've had for about a year or two now. It will be fun, but all I'm going to tell you now is that it involves this car, or one similar to it. So if you know where I can borrow one for a day, let me know.



In the steady stream of trying to find a job that doesn't sell my soul, I came across this artist, Helen Maureen Cooper Beautiful Inspiration from her series "Birds of Appetite."

Mint Rhubarb Spritzer

I will update soon.
I promise.
But now i'm too busy making rhubarb spritzer.
In other news:

none. except that everyone is getting married. which is really no news at all.

ReBoot My Robot

So Graduation is over and life after school begins....okay what now?

1) do NOT work at Starbucks or any coffee/tea cafe
2) do get a decent paying job probably at a restaurant
3) climb my way up the gallery-working ladder
4) get a job at anthropologie so i can get an adult's wardrobe
5) organize my life
6) start paying back loans
7) take a break, but keep photographing

Still, I wonder when my life really begins. Even after all these things can be checked off. I wonder how long it will take me. I wonder if I ever will. Or have I really already? blakglkjaslkdhalogop.

This picture makes me chuckle a little every time I look at it. It's from the set of Peer Pressure, the practicum film I shot film stills for.



Here are some other favs:

With A Wink & A Smile

Hint Hint.

This is where my project has taken me: to a lot more work for me. but at least i'm actually somewhat excited to pick up a camera now. I just got to get out of my uber lazy streak.

The God in Goddard

This scene made my day. I was t.a. -ing for jon gitelson, it was the class' midterm so we just got to hang out and watch movies. this was the last one we started watching and didn't get to finish. It is not 171 in my netflix queue. The classic French filmmaker, Jean-Luc Goddard, in his masterpiece, Bande a Part (Band of Outsiders). You can also tell the HUUUUGe influence it had on Jim Jarmusch while he was making Stranger in Paradise.

Spring Break

Wish I was here again.



{Nice}

Instead I'm excited that it's 50 degrees in Chicago. oh well.

Happy Spring Break.

And Happy Birthday Alanna!




And for God's Sake, Happy Napping!





{venice}

System Overload

Right now is a time of solitude. I am becoming a recluse. I am suffering from severe senioritis and i don't want to do A NY THING! I am so bored out of my mind with photographs right now. Everything has turned into a chore, a systematic way of life, where i feel like even the art world falls into a robotic ignorant state of mind. I thought the art world would bring me away from this but really the art world is just a different version of roboticism. We have our own language, that when you stop and think about it, is absolutely absurd. "I really enjoy this image because..." God if I hear that one more time my brain is going to explode through my corneas. Along with: This image is "painterly," "juxtaposition," "your since of light," etc. Im just so sick of it all that it is draining all inspiration i once had. We've become so soaked and marinated in the "art world" that we start making "art" for only the art world; art that can only be understood by this absurd language and that looses all its meaning because the art is just another form of materialism for this world. We envy it, we lust after it, we create it, we become a slave to it, we conceit it.

Anyways, it's times like these when I retreat back to music to give me a since of direction and placement in this world. Today, Bjork is helping me do that. Everyday I am realizing that I need to stem out from photography. A flat still image is boring me. I have more than that. I feel more than that.

enjoy:

New Inspiration

T.A. - ing for Kelli Connell and now making contact sheets for her has been more than beneficial. To see work like hers once every week that only select eyes get to see is profoundly helpful to me. Her work blows my mind; there is something on every contact sheet that I like. I'm pretty sure that the closest I will come to be a successful photographer of her stature is when someone mistakes her contact sheets for images taken by myself. And what a great person on top of it! I heart Kelli Connell. If you are not familiar with her, get familiar.






Vist more of her work here.


Also another new favorite female photographer is Alison Brady:





Another honorable mention, Lisa Kerszi:

The Polok Myth

is it devendra banhart? is it jesus? it's YATZIK! he may not be a myth but he certainly is legend. and a legend that has now said goodbye to his jesus locks and traded them in for nothing less than a wharhol-worthy do.

Flikah

Check out my Flickr for kinda new photos

Nice Try

So I tried to update this last week, but blogger did not want to upload pictures. But for all you loyal readers, i.e. mom, i will have something to show for my six week break in a few days. In other news, the semester has started off pretty great and I'm getting my Canon 5D tomorrow! woohoo!

peace,
elise

School's Out

A bunch of us went to celebrate Victor's birthday at Skylark. This is how we entertained ourselves. Photo booths are always cool.

Ashley, my favorite owl, and me.


Yatzik, Chiara, Ashley, and me. Look closely in the third one and there is the creepy eye of Yatzik. Yatzik, the all knowing.