photographer presentation 6

Judith Golden
I chose Judith because of her book work, being that i'm trying to currently make a book. Her books are somewhat similar to mine in that they contain dreams, notes from her journals, dictionary definitions, and poetry weaved through pages of photographs, collage & paint. Although her themes of death, rebirth, love & loss are a bit heavier than mine I thought it would be good to look through them to get some inspiration on how to put mine together.

Rudy Wilner Stack said, " Golden's work has helped define the history of women exploring self and society thorugh visual media since the 1070s when she was first recognized as a distinctive creative voice. working with series, golden inventories the myths and methods of human consciousness while revealing the powers of nature and the mysteries of time. her work continues to eveolve iwth rich new subjects, returning iconic thems, and unending questions and answeres to the experience of life.

She grew up in Chicago where she attributes her curiosity regarding other cultures and countries to this early expereince in a multicultural neighborhood. she earned here bfa in '73 from the art instute of chicago & in '75 earned her mfa from UCLA. The California Funk Movement was going on at the time which allowed a playful and personal attitude within her art. Golden describes her photographs intent as to suggest the human connection with sacred, eternal, and spiritual realms. She is currently working on a new series, "Memory Mosiacs", which represents fragments of memory, history and mystery.

Julie Blackmon
statement:
The Dutch proverb “a Jan Steen household” originated in the 17th century and is used today to refer to a home in disarray, full of rowdy children and boisterous family gatherings.  The paintings of Steen, along with those of other Dutch and Flemish genre painters, helped inspire this body of work.  I am the oldest of nine children and now the mother of three.  As Steen’s personal narratives of family life depicted nearly 400 yrs. ago, the conflation of art and life is an area I have explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home.  These images are both fictional and auto-biographical, and reflect not only our lives today and as children growing up in a large family, but also move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives, both imagined and real.

     The stress, the chaos, and the need to simultaneously escape and connect are issue that I investigate in this body of work.  We live in a culture where we are both “child centered” and “self-obsessed.”  The struggle between living in the moment versus escaping to another reality is intense since these two opposites strive to dominate.  Caught in the swirl of soccer practices, play dates, work, and trying to find our way in our “make-over” culture, we must still create the space to find ourselves.  The expectations of family life have never been more at odds with each other.  These issues, as well as the relationship between the domestic landscape of the past and present, are issues I have explored in these photographs.  I believe there are moments that can be found throughout any given day that bring sanctuary.  It is in finding these moments amidst the stress of the everyday that my life as a mother parallels my work as an artist, and where the dynamics of family life throughout time seem remarkably unchanged.  As an artist and as a mother, I believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality:  to see the mythic amidst the chaos.

born in 1966 in springfield missouri. studied at missouri state university where she became interested in photography and the work of sally mann and keith carter. drawing extensively on her personal experiences and realtionships, blackmon adds an element of humor and fantasy to create works that touch on both the everyday and the fictious.