I Like It Like That

I like this idea of self-portraits.
> Tracey


Tracey wrote this to me a week or so ago and I have not had a chance to respond. Why do you think self portraits are a good idea? Do you like the idea of performance that is inherent in self-portraiture or do you feel that only you can best express who you really are?

I like both the performative and voyeurist aspects of self-portraiture. There is a certain degree of scandal that is involved in removing one's clothing and posing as I did in the image from the last post. The image was from a series entitled The Annotated Topsy. This series examined the character Topsy from Harriett Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. In that series I used the universal concept of opposites (night and day, black and white, yin and yang) to tell the story of Topsy's psychological battle for goodness. I use Stowe's work to enter into my own imaginal space by continuing the story where Stowe left off. Stowe literally writes Topsy out of the novel after Topsy is taken to a northern free state. I cover Topsy's experience in the north and rejoin Stowe when she reintroduces the character at the end of the book.

In Stowe's novel, Topsy claimed that she was "wicked" although little Eva assured her that she was not. Topsy repeatedly promises to be good and repeatedly fails. My text explores abuse and neglect of slave children and why their attempts to be good might be doomed to failure. Topsy's quest for goodness is haunted not only by the physical abuse that she received as a child but also by her African ancestors who remind her constantly that she is black and is therefore considered not good by her European oppressors.

On that note, please go back to the last post and look at the work of others and how they use self-portraiture in their work. Is there anything that might resonate for you in their work? Look at the work critically and ask yourself questions? How does Carrie Mae Weems use language, storytelling and photography in her work? What about symbolism? Can the symbolic speak? If so, how? Can you realize your own symbolic language through visual imagery? We have already looked at the women's bodies on the raft and the language that their bodies impart. What other ways can you use your body in your own photography to signify defiance and protection? Might you become invisible? If so, how? Just a few questions to guide you along, but ultimately it will be your own questions that will guide you.

Good luck and thanks Tracey for your comment and for comments from other members.

The above photograph can be found at http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/onstage/films/kalemhp.html

Just Who Am I Anyway?

When I was a little girl, oh around six or seven, my world changed. I was happily moving along in my own childhood (which is an imaginal space in its own right) when suddenly, it was interrupted by race. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina. Typical of most southern towns in the early 1960s, Southern Pines was segregated, which meant that I grew up in a rather isolated environment. Looking back, it was very much a sanctuary. I was safe and secure, situated in a space where I was surrounded on all sides by aunts, uncles, and caring neighbors--surrounded in the same way that the women surrounded and protected MV on her imagined Rice Raft.

But when I was around six or seven, everything changed. I rode with my father to city hall to pay our utility bills. Just behind city hall was a lovely park with swings, see-saws, and teeter totters--just the thing to entice a playful and rambunctious toddler turned young missy. I immediately begged my father to let me play in the park. I can remember the troubled look on his face when he was forced to deny me such a small delight. I learned that day that the playground was not for "colored."

What was "colored"? I remember thinking about my crayons and my coloring books. My crayons, waxy, bright and cheerful, brought the black lines and white space to life--what a dull book without color.

We returned home and within a few weeks, I had my own swing set. Daddy ordered it from Sears and he was proud of himself when it arrived. The motto in our house was they would never be better than we. We are just as good as they. My heart fluttered and my toes reached for the sky with each gentle push from my father's strong hands. I was quite happy.

Throughout my life, my world would be "colored" by race. Like a well-designed trap or a blues song, race has inspired and hindered, caused me to laugh and to cry--all at the same time. I remember first meeting Milburn Crowe in the African American town of Mound Bayou in 1989 and asking him if I lived there could I have had an ice cream in the Crowe's Nest, the restaurant that he ran on legendary Highway 61. He assured me that I could have gone anywhere I wished, because segregation did not exist there. (I later learned that the train depot had a bathroom for colored and white, but no one used the white toilet.) The people at the electric company were colored and as well as the mayor, so had my beautiful playground existed, I could have lingered for as long as I wished. I have often wondered how my growing up in Mound Bayou would have changed how I looked at myself.

Who Are You?

We are Sistagraphy, a collective of African American female photographers. The mere fact that we have chosen to group ourselves based on race says much about who we are and how our world has been "colored." It is for this reason that I am going to suggest, as I did in the last post that we consider self-portraits for this project. I'd like for us to take a look at the work of Renee Cox, Carrie Mae Weems, Nikki S. Lee, and Cindy Sherman and I have provided links to sites that will familiarize you with their work below as well as a site that looks at self-portraiture. Please also Google the names for further info.

Carrie Mae Weems - http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0310,carr,42270,13.html
Renee Cox - http://www.reneecox.net/gallery.html
Nikki S. Lee - http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/lee_nikki_s.php
Cindy Sherman - http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1997/sherman/index.html
Self Portraiture - http://www.shutterbug.net/refreshercourse/portrait_tips/197/index.html

The above photo copyright Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, 1993

February 5: I am standing with a group of women on a carpet made of rice stalks. I find it odd because my family grows cotton, although there are many rice farms along the Mississippi. I am amazed that the carpet is so stable. As we float down the river, we observe a white man with a camera. I am remembering Jefferson Davis. He thinks that we are inferior to him and hates that we now live in the house once owned by him and Varina.

"What does he want?", asks one of the women, angered by the fact that the man has "entered" our space uninvited. Our bodies tighten, almost in unison as he points the device toward us. For some reason, I am reminded of my garden and musical notes. Each note, each flower stands separate from the other, yet when they come together it is a harmonious setting indeed. I remember my family as the women draw closer as if to protect me and I realize that I am coming closer to realizing my true self. Photo credit: Portrait of Delia, Harvard (preserve.harvard.edu/.../ images/woman.jpg)

Assuming MV

In this piece MV has actually joined the women on the rice raft. I have assumed MV's body in my imaginal space.

A couple of things might be considered in this narrative. First, rice becomes an important part of the imaginal space. What do you remember about rice? Why is rice so important? How might rice become a part of the installation? Secondly, an intruder is introduced. He is a white photographer. MV remembers Jefferson Davis who frequently visited Hurricane and Brierfield. The Montgomerys actually lived in Davis's former mansion at Brierfield. Dorothy Sterling notes in We Are Your Sisters, Black Women in the 19th Century, (p. 466) "Unlike his brother, Jefferson Davis was a firm believer in black inferiority. To be greeted in his former home by a well-dressed, educated black woman must have been a disturbing experience for the ex-president of the confederacy."

The white photographer has entered into the women's lives uninvited. The women become defiant when he turns his camera toward them. But what do they fear? After all he is far away and the camera is simply a machine. Could it be that they fear he wants something for nothing? I am reminded of the J.T. Zealy photograph above of Delia who was, according to the website "an American born slave." Can a person be born a slave? How would MV answer this question?

Going back to the photograph, what does the women's body language say about them? If you were on the rice raft, how would you pose? Furthermore, how might our installation challenge the way that African American women are remembered in photographs? What other issues of identity come to mind as we float past the white photographer on the our Rice Raft in South Carolina?

Images that we have taken of ourselves challenge stereotypical notions. These images might be vintage photographs of family members that are incorporated into a piece or they might be self-portraits. They might also be both. Has Sistagraphy ever done an installation that uses both vintage images and self-portraiture? Remember, duality is an underlying theme in the installation.

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February 5: Full of animation and spirit. I sang and played [piano] at daylight. After Breakfast I found Von saddled and very tastefully arrayed in red ribbon. The weather being pleasant, I hastened to Hurricane. On returning my horse ran off with me. The saddle turned around and I fell almost senseless. Great excitement prevailed. I was brought home in the buggy. My arm was most injured. I only cried because I had to give up today.


Departing Reality, Entering the Imaginal Space

It is upon this entry from MV's diary that we exit reality and enter into the realm of imaginal space. The term "imaginal space" is loosely based on the work of mythologist, Maggie McClary http://www.mythandculture.com/weblog/2005/10/cultural-mythology-methodology.html. McClary uses mythology as a critical thinking tool to examine culture and prejudice. She defines the study of mythology as "the imaginative study of logic, the hidden mythos in the logos." She writes:

To uncover the mythos in the logos requires one to seek out the stories and myths that lie beneath logical structures, scientific theories, hidden assumptions and implicit biases. What lurks beneath an idea, theory, or bias can bring one into an imaginal space in which the logics are the surface of the story but never the entire story itself. In that imaginal space, I move beneath the surface of a predominate idea (i.e. fatness is bad) in order to find the mythos that reveals the hidden ideas and archetypal structures.

While McClary uses Greek mythology in her literal examinations, I refer to another narrative form, the fairy tale, because of its folkloric nature. According to Catherine Orenstein, "fairy tales are told as flights of fancy. They occur outside of history, in a unquantifiably distant past." (Catherine Orenstein, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale, p. 9)

For me, the fairy tale operates as a kind of meta-myth that crosses cultures because of its symbolism. While the majority population may not know The Illiad they certainly know the story of Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Bears. In my new work the symbols and images that are familiar to us in fairy tales are crossed with stereotypical images (which have become archtypal in American culture). African symbols and representations provide another layer. MV's story is transformed from her journalistic endeavor into an adventure that uses the hero myth as its structure. In particular, I use L. Frank Baum's nineteenth century childrens book (and later the movie), The Wizard of Oz because it is one of my favorite stories and one with which we are all familiar.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is on a quest to find home--a place of solace, a sanctuary. MV's world is situated in a kind of "slave utopia" the result of the ideals of Scottish social reformer, Robert Owen, and MV's former owner, Joseph Davis. But something is wrong in paradise. While MV may have been afforded opportunities that other slaves could never have imagined, she is still bombarded with nineteenth literature and photographs that disrupt her utopian world. This is where we depart reality and enter into
imaginal space so that MV's diary now reads:

February 5: Full of animation and spirit. I sang and played [piano] at daylight. My musical endeavors awakened Uncle Fate who had arrived very late from Chicago. He trundled downstairs obviously half asleep but with a smiling face and after a glass of juice and lots of sunshine was very pleasant indeed. He presented me with a beautiful stereoscope and several cards that contained peculiar images. I was delighted with the gift. After Breakfast I found Von saddled and very tastefully arrayed in red ribbon. The weather being pleasant, I hastened to Hurricane. On returning my horse ran off with me. The saddle turned around and I fell senseless. When I awoke, I found myself in an unfamiliar yet familiar space, surrounded by dubious characters. It was as if I had been caught in a fairy tale. I panicked because I could not find my self but I was not afraid. Where fear escaped me, curiousity filled its space and I found myself on an incredible journey to find my true self.

The above is the narative structure from which the images in the installation are based. My way of working is reminiscent of the "divergent pairings" that Deborah Windflower discussed on the April 26, 2006 post.