Noelle
posted by tearful dishwasher at 10:52 AM
Saturday, July 16, 2005
About Me
- Name: tearful dishwasher
- Location: U.S. Outlying Islands
Fully engaged in the whole catastrophe
Previous Posts
- Welcome to the Center of The USA
- MECHANISM OF THE YELLOW CHAIR
- Two sides of the same coin
- Ms. Finch Visits the Bucket of Blood
- Ugly
- The Fallible Gods
- Dirty Martini
- I've Been Wronged
- Antidote
- under my skin
8 Comments:
again, this one seems somehow incomplete. maybe i'm just spoiled with your strawberry cream pie, huh?
what i mean, i suppose, in this instance, is that the collage seems to lean toward a fairly singular meaning, unlayered. am i being at all clear?
Yes, that's pretty clear. I wouldn't worry at all about expressing your reactions with any more specificity than the original "gut" reaction, which is bound to be the most honest and direct.
I think that this piece is probably more effective for me than it is for a general audience. The model is my step-daughter, and she is a highly complex and difficult subject, so much so that this single image in all its simplicity is almost overwhelming to me, and I couldn't bear to do anything other than to just set her there in the corner and leave her be. Any addition would only serve to water down the impact her image has in this setting.
In thinking about this image more deeply, I can see that there is another layer of meaning that could not be available to anyone else, and that is the 'trick' that revealed the emotional content here. Noelle was sitting for a portrait, and as I was shooting she got something in her eye. All the rest of the shots were these "clean" portraits that only presented the face that she shows to the world, which is flawless and composed.
So when I saw this "throwaway" shot that revealed her "hidden" face, it was a revelation for me. And I slapped it up.
So, there's a little bit of what I feel when I regard this piece. Not that you were supposed to be able to figure any of that out. But I had hoped that some of the impact I felt would leak out into anyone who happened to see the piece.
Another thing that I am actively trying to do is to find a voice in collage that is intensely simplified, direct, and uncluttered. So much of the work done in this form is crazy with layers and imagery. I'm exploring the other extreme, seeing how little imagery I can get away with and still elicit a powerful effect.
I guess we can chalk this one up as a "not quite there" effort, at least as far as a general veiwing public is concerned. And that is entirely valid. For art to be effective, its message must reach out beyond its creator. How many poems have we read that leave us flat and yet the poet cries out "Oh, but it means SO MUCH to me!! Look here, this is what this symbolizes, this is what that means," and etc.
If you caint dance to it, it aint music.
All the best, my friend. And thanks for helping me explore my work. I can't tell you how much it means to me.
yrs-
Scott
maybe it's the title that threw me off: i didn't immediately think of a proper name, but of noel, maybe in french, i thought lol. anyway, if the title went more toward "something in my eye," it may have brought me closer, thinking, aha, yes, yes, indeed, a tear. j
a lovely face... and the wiping of tears is very tender here, that you chose to capture that moment.
i am struck not just in this picture, but how you are an artist who puts his subject offside of the whole.
to me this placement triggers a strong emotion each time. the subject is never central, but something enacted upon by something much larger than self, and i believe that has a deep significance for me, to realize we are sunk into the cosmos, afloat in events so much bigger than we are- whirling like laundry in a washer machine- sometimes agitated, sometimes on the 'gentle cycle' lightly fluffed and turned.
what i mean to say is that the offside position has a truth that a central positioning would not. and even for the egocentric, the truth is, we're all small electrons functioning in a vast mechanism and so helpless, you have to love us when cognizant of that.
maybe god feels this way...
k.
ahh, but it is we who read that "something in the eye" as a tear. scott didn't see it as sad so much, i suspect, as unguarded. and that is where the artist and the viewer move apart. whether that is good or bad or just the thing that happens in every work ... i don't know. j
oh my god, i think this is stunning, incredibly private and textured.
Rebecca-
Thanks so much for stopping by. It's good to see a new face. I really enjoyed your website, by the way...fabulous photographs and powerful poetry.
Cool stuff.
Thanks again-
Scott
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