Mollie Schaidt Week 6

Jim Goldberg
The Last Son
2016

This is spreads/images in Jim Goldberg's 2nd photo book in a 3-part personal series. Goldberg uses assemblage, found objects of his past to bring in and use with his images. "Presented in the form of a Marquette pasted up with typewritten texts, handwritten notes, frames from home movies, and contact-sheet photographs marked with grease pencil, Son is rough and fragmentary, less a narrative than a series of memories, incidents, and impressions." I personally love every single work that this artist produces, and it never ceases to amaze me. I find similarities in how we work with objects of our past, and using what we have to tell a story. The whole idea of being transparent gives a sense of intimacy within work I believe. I also feel like working this way I can convey a story with complete control, and comfort in dealing with familiar things. I find beauty in what on the outside seems ugly, dirty, or rough around the edges. I can work with physical objects and create something with my hands which sometimes I feel photography lacks for me, so I try to bring in sculptural elements within an image. I sometimes found that hard to do just because of being caught in guidelines of "what your suppose to do" and "what photographs are suppose to look like".  I feel it isn't always about how an image looks but what is within the image. The artist makes a photograph for a particular reason and it is up the viewer to interpret. 


Liz Steketee
Reconstructing the Portrait

Liz Steketee examines the construction of family, memories, and truth within her work. Steketee reconstructs images to reality as she sees it. These images are interesting that using needle and thread to piece them together, and that is really what she is doing piecing together realities. I start to try to make sense of certain, and wanting to know why she eliminated people, or parts of people. I wonder why she is piecing two different people together, I just wonder what is the meaning behind the image.