The Motel Project

            My work explores the dynamism between repulsion and attraction in an intimate setting. The motel is an anonymous and unobtrusive space that serves its purpose by providing the bare essentials seasoned with a few ‘comforts’. The room becomes yours for a night and your mess is cleaned up and all traces of you are erased from the space after you leave. Taking photographs of motel rooms after the patrons checked out allowed me to document stray artifacts and the overall wear on the room. I was interested in both the short and long-term effects people had on a space designed to be both intimate and universal. The patron knows in the back of their head that this room was inhabited hundreds of times before them, with people sleeping and showering in the same spots as them divided only by time. This inability to escape the contact with others – the smells, the worn spots on the armchair, the cigarette burns in the carpet- this repulsion is often blocked out. And the layers of meaning that emerge through time in a spot can be both disturbing and comforting because of the level of intimacy. The Motel Project documents the emerging patterns of what is ‘left behind’- in the way the human body interacts with and leaves its imprint on objects- by unconsciously manipulating the rectangle into an organic form. The focus is the beautiful abstract shapes that emerge from the colors and textures of these interactions and a general curiosity toward the overlooked objects and what they communicate about us. 

Unbiased Light plays on Prison Cells and Trash

Thomas Roma’s series "In Prison Air," published in book form in 2005 is a collection of architectural photographs of the decrepit and abandoned Homesburg prison in Philadelphia. The history of the prison from its opening in 1896 to its closure in 1997 is a bleak one, inmates overcrowded in cramped quarters, unfavorable and unsanitary conditions, and medical experiments performed on the undereducated and illiterate prisoners. Roma said, "I think the pictures in ’In Prison Air’ are as beautiful as I’ve done. But look close—you want to spend a minute in there? They’re torture chambers." This dichotomy between an ugly space and the beauty that exists when unbiased light strikes walls or objects is the common element between Roma’s and my own work in my Motel series.

         The elements take their toll on the prison buildings, the moisture and the bleak light begin to peel the walls over time. The rectangles, the smooth sheets of paint waste away as organic bark, both humans and nature innately turn the mechanized barren space into a layered dialogue between people and their space. In a similar way my images speak of the rectangles- of the order of the room and how we are conditioned to react to the simplicity and the ‘safety’ of clean lines. The geometry of a room, the sill of a window, the edge of the bed, the sheet, the very shape of the photographic frame is counteracted by the unintentional organic effect of a person on a room- disorder, entropy, manipulation of a static object into a less geometric shape. Liquid spills not in rectangles, it spreads over a surface and has soft curves. The evidence of the patrons in a motel room is in the way they wear out the cloth sheets and the stains that develop and the waste that can be disposed of.

         In Roma’s work the elements have tampered with and aged the space as well as the layers of meaning that emerge from multiple inmates inhabiting the space. The motels I am photographing are older but not in disrepair, but I do tend to focus on aspects of the rooms that are not intentional (if the intent is to be ‘new’ looking and clean) that portray the wear over time- a physical reminder of the other patrons who have spent their nights there in the anonymous space.

         Both Roma’s work in ‘In Prison Air’ and my own work for the Motel series are focused in small quarters on what aesthetics may be found. Roma’s photographs firmly sets you in the space, it is very concrete and you know you are looking at a wall or a room’s corner. You admire the peeling paint, the curves of the ceiling as if you were viewing an old European chapel until you realize where you are, a space with a stench and a draft. And the realization that up until two years before Roma took these photographs- inmates were inhabiting the prison. This horror and unsettling feeling is coupled with the beauty. Roma has pulled out shots and mine are closely cropped, focusing on one object and its near surroundings. I investigate how this trash becomes an abstracted form when situated within the linear elements of a smaller space. How for a moment you can forget that this is the ‘left behind’, that which makes the room less sanitary and more human, and be caught up in a beautiful shape.

         Light and texture are the defining features of the photographs of the prison cells and the motel rooms. The shapes and forms are illuminated by the casted glow from the window. Smooth, dirty, rough, stained- full of the organic shapes that grow and peel out of the rectangles that we press into a space. The rectangular sheets are crumpled by human feet, they wrinkle and the texture of the wood, the plastic, the cotton sheet, the porcelain are my main focus as well as the colors and subtle variations of form.

        

         Prison cells are outfitted with only the most rudimentary furnishings- a bed or cot, a toilet, a sink. Cells are anonymous and standardized and I cannot help but think that the inmates need to express themselves and communicate in some way with the world, even if this world has been reined in in scope and size to the 6 x 8 foot room, is intense. People naturally desire their surroundings to reflect their interests, their idea of beauty, their identity. Incarceration seeks to take all those away from a person and place them within the confines of a barren scape. They scrawl on walls, they hang up posters, they personalize their space and so affect their small environment. Roma’s photographs communicate this to us, the human need to alter our surroundings.

         In the same way a motel is not one’s personal space and belongings and personalization are essentially ‘out of place’. The motel

is intentionally meant to be anonymous and unobtrusive, to not offend, to only serve its purpose of maintaining its neutral goal of providing shelter. What we leave behind (and the unseen what we take with us) is very human- our affects speak of who we are and how we consistently interact with objects.

        

         Thomas Roma’s ‘In prison air’ is what inmates leave behind on walls and on floors and how they affect the space as well as how the elements degrade a space, in essence “the aesthetics of incarceration”. Both our work touches on a subject or an object that would rather not be thought of- to others I am photographing ‘garbage’ or what is out of place in an organized establishment, Roma focuses on an undesirable population and their rooms. The focus on the ‘artifacts’ or ‘features not naturally present but a product of an extrinsic agent, method, or the like’ lends us to a greater understanding of the inhabitants and the great similarities between our needs and our spaces. My work is a record of the abstract shapes that appear out of people’s disorder.

 

Print Viewing Response

 Graciela Iturbide’s image of the woman with boombox and trailing hair.

         In the black and white image of the rushing woman there is strong contrast between the dark tones of her upper body and the white sky against which she stands out as a near silhouette. The subjects are of rich and varied texture, from the rough rock and dried leaves of a bush in the foreground to the thick cloth of the woman’s skirt and her soft flowing hair in the middle ground. Mountains recede into the background, and the repetition of small plants fills the expanse of the right side of the image. The woman’s arms are raised up and bits of sky peak out from beneath them. One side of the boombox she is carrying is illuminated by the sun, casting a small triangle shadow on her skirt. Her dark hand holds the boombox as naturally as it does the other unrecognizable object in her left hand which creates a sense of mystery in the image.

         My first impression was excitement and a sense of peace. I love the vantage point of rounding a corner with the woman and the space opening up. Because we are coming from a familiar place and a human scale and moving into a flat plane I feel that she is leading me somewhere. She is both grounded- rising organically from the rocks and completely in motion. I want to touch her hair and the folds of her skirt which are like petals of a flower.

          The woman is hurrying somewhere, she goes with purpose. Her posture connotes resolve- she is forging ahead as if nothing could stand in her way. The folds of her skirt are slightly billowing with her movement and also perhaps a slight gust of wind has blown her hair back as she rounds the bend. Maybe she is bringing music to the quiet desert. The artist created this image to show the woman whose presence is natural but at ease with an object of technology, of music. Music is as old as civilization, as old as birds. But the boombox is new, and without it the photograph could not be dated. Something I learned from this work that I could apply to my own is that it is okay to preserve a sense of mystery and leave the audience with a question. This image does not even show the subject’s face yet her demeanor, her determination, and her poise are perfectly communicated. I would love to make an image that is so beautiful and whose formal elements are so strong that it allows for the life of the image- its essence and purity- to resonate.

War Photographer

“The only way I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person’s predicament. The extent to which I do that is the extent to which I become accepted by the other, and to that extent I can accept myself.” –Jim Nachtwey

                                                          "My Soul Cannot Rest"

Jim Nachtwey is a witness to human suffering, he is a recorder of injustice. The poignancy of his images resides in the smoldering anguish and sorrow, the wailing, weeping...tears that would never cease. The dichotomy is the pure emotion and the aftermath- what happens when one runs out of tears-when the crying becomes a hiccup and finally stops. The viewer wonders how the subject could have moved on with such deep physical and emotional scars, but life continues, and these people have chosen survival. The man who is maimed will live to see his children grow up right, to help his wife, to live with dignity. Nachtwey’s photographs give a voice to the humanity of the unseen.

 The quote, “Normal codes of behavior are suspended in war” summarizes both the atrocious acts committed during wartime and Jim Nachtwey’s access to photograph them. The gravity of Nachtwey’s images comes from two ideas- carnal (having to do with the body) and carnage. One of the ways we connect to other people is through our understanding of the body- it’s basic processes and needs. However when the body is no longer  ‘complete’, when it is maimed or mutilated we notice immediately and we might see the person as less like us or even ‘less human’. Nachtwey forces us to recognize this idea we hold and invites us to engage in the deeper question of what makes us a person.

The images of famines depict frightening, skeletal, almost un-human creatures. They are the gaunt, cadaverous, wasted, rawboned, withered, passing away- the nearly dead.  The photograph that stuck with me the most was the emaciated men crawling on all fours, where even the basic evolutionary trait of bipedalism has regressed to conserve energy. His skin stretches over his bones in the same way the thin woven mats drape over the wooden supports on the house. He is wearing no clothes, which in addition to his posture increases our sense of his desperation and animal nature. He seems so near to death- lacking possessions, clothes, even bodily flesh and this makes him mystic and terrifying. A sense of urgency lurches at us to feed him, to clothe him, to ‘give him back’ his humanity (which is the question).  His desperation is our panic, our lurching stomachs and watering eyes. It is not without a sense of fear that we would look into the man’s eyes. Could we digest that amount of longing, pain, or worse yet- total acceptance of his fate- slipping away into the great unknown.

 In addition to the carnal, relating to the physical/ animal aspect to us, is carnage or the flesh of slain men, a great and unusual slaughter and injury. The sickening feeling that comes from seeing a disfigured person and their broken body, raises the question that when everything is taken away, when the body is so close to death-is that person less human? We are haunted by the image, but it is not shock alone that draws us to them and could by itself be ‘othering’, it is that recognition of their (and our own) most basic human nature.  It is with an understanding of the injustice and especially their willingness to be photographed by Nachtwey that conveys they are still human. Their awareness of their situation is constant, perhaps it is this that communicates with us what it is to be human.

Nachtwey has developed a method of working through the situations he photographs. There exists an openness to the event, and a deep understanding/acceptance of his role as witness and recorder. He has his own ‘library of suffering’ in his head and from this library he can connect to his subjects while still staying centered within himself. In order to complete his work he must be mentally prepared and completely present, which means not acquiescing to his emotions. Nachtwey must act as a camera- merely absorbing information and the emotions of others within a framework of understanding the way events play out. His effectiveness is not in his deep empathy, although that is crucial to gaining the trust of his subjects, but in his ability to deal with fear and channel his emotions into the strength of an image. The opposite of maim is to cure, heal, remedy, fix, mend, or rebuild. The process of witnessing the atrocities and the suffering of people and recording it can facilitate the healing or at least open a dialogue to negotiate peace, as Nachtwey does, by seeing ourselves in ‘the other’.

Assignment 3

Motels

Proposal 2: Artists in their Studios

Purpose



The artist studio is an intimate place where objects and ideas are forged and technical and creative hurdles are overcome. I want to see the creative process in progress in the space that the artist has chosen for that purpose. I am interested in seeing the routines, “off-task” and seemingly mundane or meditative practices of artists in their studios. This project seeks to uncover the relationship between artist and room, artist and materials, and artist and his or her creation. The images of the dirt, grime, order, obsessive-compulsive, caffeine, nicotine, the steady and unsteady hand guiding the work that we see.

Techniques

A.   I will be using a Nikon D40 to shoot and the project and display it as prints.

B.    I would like to both frame the artist within the space by using the ceiling height and walls, as well as more detailed images of the artists and their work to decrease the scale and capture the intimate moment when idea goes through the hand and into the medium.

      C.  I have access to photograph at least 3 artists in Tucson and more in Phoenix.

Significance

The process of making art can easily be overlooked when presented with the final product, I would like to capture artists at work and their unique way of inhabiting their space and their relationship with their materials.

History

No history exists thus far with the project, I have thought before about photographing artists who live in warehouses and their need to make the space ‘personal’ by adding ‘homey’ touches to the otherwise barren, out of proportion, generally dark world. 


Plan of Work: 



I will ask permission to photograph artists in their studios, I would like to begin with at least five artists and then select the most favorable, or perhaps juxtapose the different experiences of creators in studios. I will be able to start working on the photographs immediately and work evenings after five, Sundays, and three mornings a week starting in a month. I believe that I will end up working mostly with Tucson artists unless I have the ability to drive down to Phoenix and photograph the artists I know in their warehouses. 

Expected Results


I expect a body of work that explores the emotions and actions of artists in their creative havens. My concerns for the project are that artists may feel uncomfortable at first with another person being in their studio, they may act unnaturally or not feel the urge or ability to work normally.  


Budget

I only anticipate paying for gas money to get to the studios, and the occasional compensation for the artist in the form of coffee, cigarettes, or food.