Looking for the Remote Control to My Life

So the semester is at it's end.
I promised my sister that i would start working on my grad school applications today. Mostly just trying to hunt down different professors to request letters of recommendation from. I haven't given it as much thought as i know i should. I'm not really all that sold on any of the art programs i have looked up at this point.
They all have their pluses and minuses.
I need more time and more motivation to figure these things out. It seems kind of odd to me to start working on laying down a plan for the next part of my life before this part is even over. I need a pause button or something. Just a little bit more time to organize my thoughts...

anyway. I had my last critique in a photography class as an undergraduate student EVER. Probably my last critique with Elizabeth Dove, who's been my mentor for the past year and a half or more. That makes me stop and think for a moment. Not feeling very sentimental about it or anything, it's just kind of an odd notion. I have had three photography teachers throughout my career as a photography student.

My highschool teacher, Tom Morris, taught me to use a camera, judge light without a meter, print images (no matter how ghetto the setting) etc.
Elizabeth taught me that just because i knew how to use a camera and make a print, didn't necessarily make me a photographer. she coached me through my BFA and was with me every step of the way as my concept altered and started to fall into place. She's been a phenomenal asset to my education and development as an artist, printmaker, and photographer. The art department may not have the best facilities or supplies available, but the people they have working in it are what make it wonderful.

Last but not least, there's Marcy James. Marcy also helped me develop my concept. She was actually the first person to get me to start direction the jumble of thoughts and images i go about taking all the time and trying to funnel them into an actual idea. I don't know if i mentioned this in an earlier blog, buti used to do a lot of portraiture. I used to love taking pictures of people. They fascinate me, and there really wasn't any substance to what i was doing or how i was taking the pictures. I was just clicking away on the shutter because i could. I had one portrait of a friend in critique at one point. Marcy sat down with me, trying to help me sift through my thoughts in search of a strand of concept and theme that i could hold on to. she held that picture and said to me, "This is a very nice print. I really like the image, but i look at it and wonder, 'why do i care about this person?'" I had no way to respond to that. It was the first time i'd looked at my images and asked, 'why?' it seemed really stupid and irritating at the time, but since that point i've furthered myself a great deal. or at least i feel that i have and it's because of Marcy's nagging question.

Anyway. I am hoping to have some opportunity to pursue more gum bichromate work next semester, but it depends on whether or not the department can organize a place for a group to do them in. Otherwise it will just be printmaking. I could probably sneak into the darkroom occassionally to produce some prints, and i should definitely keep shooting new work.
We'll see what happens though.

On another note, all of the random images in this blog are images from my final series for my photo III class. some of them were produced as gum prints, others didn't actually get presented in class, but here they are. they were taken at the same time as the images from the previous entry. I'm particularly pleased with the 'flying saucer' (which is actually a rather creepy merry-go-round that has/had a catepillar's head on it... the paint's all worn away and you can't actually see the head in the photo b/c it was shot with a Diana camera and my aim was off) and the park benches.
Anyway, best of luck to anyone reading this who's still taking care of finals stuff. It'll all be done with soon, whether you like it or no.

Tripping Down Memory Lane

I went home for Thanksgiving. I've never really been fond of having to claim Billings as my hometown, but seeing as it's all i have, i can't really fudge over it. Each time i go home i think i lose part of my sense of comfort and belonging there. I hate driving in that town b/c i feel like everyone is out for blood, i don't like going shopping because A) it's shopping, and B) i always run into people who i don't want to run into. The people who didn't leave and are pretty much the same since i had last seen them, which in most cases was a rather long time ago, so i can't really just ignore them either.
Billings keeps growing too. Every time i go back there's more housing developments. i find myself wondering who on earth is moving to that town that there's such a need to build more complexes and houses. It's probably just that i'm biased since i have a hard time understanding why someone would want to move there in the first place. I just get the feeling, when i go back, that it's not the town that i grew up in anymore. I have a connection to so many places and things and yet when i go back to visit them all i can't tap into them as i used to. I have a lot of memories of places that technically are still there, but just are not what they were when i knew them.
I wanted to shoot photos of these places. Specifically the playgrounds i went to as a child. I already knew this, but for some reason it hadn't struck me entirely, but with playground equipment upgrades that have taken place over the past decade, the playgrounds and parks i knew aren't the same. At All.
I went to Veteran's park, a park that was directly south of my elementary school. We'd have birthday picnics there, my dad's company had many company picnics there. Sean's little league baseball team played at a couple different fields that are there. There used to be a wading pool there that Billings Parks and Rec. ripped out and planted grass over. You can still see a difference between the grass that was placed over the top of where the pool was and they must have torn it out 8 years ago at least. I was walking through the park, looking at the hideous new equipment, looking for some fragment from the playground i knew as a child. All i could pin-point was The Tree.
A behemoth of a tree. I remember that it was big when i was a kid, but this tree is HUGE. Seriously, the bark on this tree is just crazy to see, pieces are separated by giant chasms rather than mild cracks. It's an impressive tree and i wonder and how long it's been there. There's two benches at the foot of the tree, facing the playground, that have been there as long as i can remember and their age is told by the layers of paint that's crackling off of them.
I can remember them being the mom benches, where kids in strollers would be parked while the mobile ones would goof around on the playground equipment. There used to be an awesome merry-go-round at Vet's Park. They also had a see-saw when i was really little. We used to not be very evenly matched up in weight on the see-saw. I remember a number of occasions where i would be trapped on the end that was high up in the air (high up being maybe three whole feet, but when you're not even that tall, it's HIGH) desperately trying to get the opposing side to let me back down. I probably got to do the same thing to some hapless victim at one point or another. The see-saw was eventually taken apart. Someone probably thought it was dangerous.
Wandering around the one baseball field was also interesting. The field was directly south of the school's playground, and we weren't technically supposed to play down there during recess because it wasn't part of the school's property. We did anyway. There was a cinder-block wall directly behind the bleachers, and they had obviously had to redo one of the walls because some tree roots had started to undermine its strength. I remember that wall being a lot taller at one point... but anyway, I don't know if whoever was finishing the wall did it on purpose, but when they were finishing smoothing the cement they left circular textures on the wall that are very similar to finger prints. I thought it was very interesting at least.
Anyway, i moved on to visiting the playground of my old elementary school. I hadn't been back there since maybe Junior High. I don't remember exactly what year it happened, but the school district closed my elementary school, maybe in my early high-school years... It's not a Head Start facility, and the entire school and playground is encircled by a chain-link fence that wasn't there when i was. There's a lot of things that are the same from back when. The swings are the same ones we used to spend ages counting to 100 to have our turn using, the four-square blocks and hopscotch are painted where they were, the 'newer' equipment (which was probably put in when i was in fourth grade) are still there. The windows that face out from the gym are still cracked and broken from when we used to play wall-ball where we weren't supposed to. The black-top of the playground is pretty much the same, but i'm pretty sure they've resurfaced and repainted it at some point because it's actually black, something i don't remember it being.
Despite all of the familiar things, it's really different. It's almost as if they resurfaced over all of our memories and connections. They cut down some trees, built a fence, resurfaced out playground, and they didn't even ask if that was ok with us. Not that i expected anyone to seek my permission. It's strange to see such changes take place to something you're so familiar with and so attached to, only to realize that once the changes have taken place, it was never yours to begin with. That nobody cares about your memories and connections. Time keeps going and we're left by the wayside wondering what the hell just happened. Or at least that's how i feel.
I guess what made this ring particularly clear for me was the bench. I can't remember exactly, but i think that i was on the student council when we established the bench. There was a crab-apple tree on the corner of the 'soccer field' that we decided to place a wooden bench around. On the bench there's a little placard that says, "Bench Provided By Rimrock School Student Council 1994-1995". Good luck reading the placard now. It's so rusted and dirtied from the elements that the only way i could make it out was because the rust had highlighted the letters a little more than the rest of it. The crab apple tree must have died a while ago, because not only had it been chopped down, but the stumps from it are the dried grey that happens when wood is exposed to the elements over an amount of time.
Anyway. I don't mean to be a Debby Downer. It was just an interesting experience and i wonder if many other people reflect similarly on visiting such places from their past. I feel like i'm grasping at straws. Trying to find something substantial from a pile of vague rememberances

What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen. ~Cynthia Ozick