September 16, 2019

Like last week, I composed my own still life with personal and traditional objects. Composed in the studio, the resulting photographs had an entirely different feel than when taken from my room. This is an aesthetic that I do not find particularly exciting or inspiring thus far.

I began to paint from this still life, again attempting to hone my formal painting and drawing skills, but found this process to be frustrating as I was uninspired by the subjects and because I prefer oil paint to acrylic. I used acrylic because I knew that I wanted this to only be an exercise and not a lengthy project.

I did not make as much progress as I would have hoped, because of my lack of practice--an issue that I am hoping to remedy by doing these exercises.

I remembered my ideas about how I want the person who owns the objects to have authority over them, so I thought it might be interesting to photography or paint a person's hand intervening into a still life scene, catching the fleeting moment. 

A bit more interested in the results of this, I think that it could be intriguing to see how this idea could greater develop.

Upon reflection, I think that the film photos I took over the summer could be interesting with their inclusion of the date stamp. I have a roll of film, currently, with many found still lives I have taken in my home. I think that there could be something interesting about an obsessive documentation of my space. Accumulating many photos, what could they speak of my habits and routines? I will continue to take these photos and see what a mass of them could speak to after development.

As for my research, I did get into reading Powers of Horror by Julia Kristeva. I believe that you are right in that the abject might not be as relevant to my content as the uncanny. Something about Kristeva's idea of skin on milk as producing vomit within her, however, sticks with me. It reminds me of the study I did on the sublime during Contemporary Art and Theory of the dirty coffee cups left by customers and the of the crusty smoothie mason jars that fill my home's counters and sinks. I think this text may be worth some more time, but I would like to spend time this week reading more of Black Sun and begin to look into On Transience. 

Not making as much progress as I would hope, I fear what road blocks may come up in the future, but will try my best to be sufficiently prepared for upcoming critiques and meetings about my work.