Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and so begins Lent. Growing up, I was quite unaware of Lenten exercises save that of the Catholics giving up meat on Friday's in exchange of fish. This made no sense to me and was simply explained as "something Catholics did." This was not a satisfactory answer for my young mind. I continued to wonder why they did this. In my spiritual immaturity (have a become mature even know?) it seemed like a silly thing to do. Though I now see this was likely also colored heavily by my Protestant/Evangelical upbringing. In addition to fish, some gave up Coke, others ice cream, and so on with a list of dietary options. What I failed to understand then, as I wonder today if many still do, is that the practice of giving something up, is that you may fill your life with something else, focussed on the things of God. So, say trading TV between 7-9 pm for reading theology, scripture, praying, journalling etc. The Lenten exercises are to focus not exclusively on subtraction but upon addition (look at that...math talk from an artist!). This year, as I have a number of times in the past, my Lenten addition is praying the hours as found in Phyllis Tickle's Eastertide. The hours include 4 prayers each day (morning, noon, early evening, and before bed). Tickle infuses the prayers with standard collects from the liturgy, lots of Psalms and Gospel readings. It is a good place to begin with prayer of the hours. These prayers are extracted from the larger 4 volume set that runs according to the seasons. I would highly recommend them all.
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The other day I posted a similar string object. This one is about 2.5 times larger than the other and is in better condition. While this one is larger, it is still a similar but more hardy construction. This one also has pins with a significant white head on the star points to hold the threads in place. I was curious about how old the piece is so slid the now stiff threads aside and considerable fading has occurred to the piece. So I know that it is old...just not how old.
When preparing for the MFA exhibition, I was purchasing large photo lots from EBay to fill out the installation pieces. When I would get the lots I would skim through them looking for interesting photos, themes, etc that I would eventually hold back for my own collection. I found this interesting piece on one of those large lots. I've titled this posting "Vintage Photoshopping" as a joke, but there is some photographic trickery going on within the image. My hunch is that this is photographic object is really the combination of 3 different photographs cut and rephotographed and printed.
There are several clues...First, check out the infant...its placement within the photo, the strange highlight on its left side and how the dress is cut on the infants right side all suggest that this is a later addition to the photographs of the couple beneath. Second, I suspect that the images of the couple beneath are really 2 images rather than one. She appears to far forward compared to him. Also, I suspect the images come from different times based on the dress of the two...though I cannot be sure on this. And would these two even be a couple? She appears much younger than him. But there is also something amiss with the lighting...notice how in the center of the image, it is much darker, likely the cause of a little darkroom dodging and burning. Lastly, notice the shadow created from the yellowed photographic object on my whiter background. Now look within the photograph itself. To me, I see a similar shadow burned into the image below the child and in the upper left corner. To me, all of these little peculiarities seem to add up to a touched up photo that combines multiple objects taken at different times. But why might someone have such a photo made? Could the photo have been made by the gentleman for the child after the mother had passed away? There could have been some years between which might give some reason for the disparity of age and clothing. But alas we do not know. Over Christmas break on our trip to California, we spent a day up around Sonora. We hit a few antique stores and I happened upon this little hand-made piece. From what I can gather it falls under Victorian string art. It is roughly a star-shaped piece of cardboard with a photo affixed and wound in in some kind of thread. I am guessing that by the kinks in the thread extending above the piece, it was further wound but has become undone. The second photo shows the complexity of the string winding. While I really dont know much about this type of art yet (as in how it was used etc.), I have found another similar piece which I will post in a few days. This is one of my favorite photo pieces. After you examine enough historical photos and a little more research, you begin to recognize certain motifs that seem to pop up again and again. Often studio portraits involve someone holding a book or a hat as a prop. Others have a curious addition of another photograph. Sometimes they are sitting on a table. Sometimes they are held. Sometimes they sit on an empty chair. I find these objects fascinating for many reasons, but one being the re-duplication of an image...an early form of re-photography. But why did this motif emerge? In some it seems like the photographed subject is merely contemplating the image, but others have a much emotive tale. Frequently the photograph is used as a substitute or surrogate reminder of someone who is no longer living. Were we able to zoom in more to the photo in this child's hands we may well find it to be an image of a sibling or more likely her father who is now deceased. These photos fall into an fascinating niche of photo history often called "mourning photography". A few weeks ago I picked up these cheap little tintypes. They were advertised as carnival tintypes. Which seems to make sense since they are qualitatively different than typical tintypes with a very silvery surface and seem much cheaper in look. The card into which they are placed looks similar to the older tintype, but these look much more the part of a 20th C. product based on the script and design of the card and of course the clothing of those pictured. I thought the set of four were unique enough to pick up the lot as I have seen only one image like this before in the same card which reads "My love for you from...) I grew up going to flea markets and antique shops with my mother. She went for the antiques. I went with hopes of finding baseball cards. Later I found an interest in old print ads and magazines, and antiques in general. As of late, I have actually started hitting up antique shops again for a new kind of collection. My MFA work at the University of North Dakota used old vernacular photographs culled into an archive to explore how we think about objects. But since then I have taken to a deeper interest in vernacular photos, their kinds, histories, and oddities.
Last fall I took a historical research methods course, where I formulated a project centering on mourning imagery of the Victorian age. Would could become an ambitious MA thesis project has spurred me on toward thinking about teaching a history of photography and utilizing vernacular photographs as teaching aids. Geoffery Batchen, and others, have argued that photo history (like most history) has focussed on great men and great events. But Social history has turned the focus toward the perimeter and explored the common human experience. Within photo history, vernacular photo is typically excluded from the narratives that focus upon the greats of the tradition. Yet, the most common forms of photo that humanity is most familiar with, are often left out. As an educator, my hope is to include these vernacular works into the history of photography. My recent trips to antique shops, and time surfing Ebay, I have been looking for a variety of old photographic objects that will be used as teaching aids for a future history of photo class that I hope to teach. So over the next while, I will be posting some of my own collection and other photos from my growing collection that I just love. This study was a profound experience for me. So much more could and should be said about each Psalm that carries one of the accusatory questions. What started off as a musing on the aggressive prayers that Israel seemed to offer has become a provocative challenge to both covenant and Creator. This study has also cemented in my mind the need for lament in ecclesial communities. Without it, our liturgies lack a certain honesty about our selves and our world. We need to overcome the isolating tendencies of individualism on both the personal and ecclesial scale and rediscover our solidarity with a crumbling and disoriented world. Rediscovering our social reality is fundamental to rediscovering lament. When we do, we will find the need for such language again. Such a language will “help the church genuinely mourn the world’s enmity and pain, give a voice to the voiceless, and witness against injustice.”[1] Lament offers the church a solid “rhetoric for prayer and reflection that befits these volatile times, a rhetoric that mourns loss, examines complicity in evil, cries for divine help, and sings and prays with hope. For indeed, what ultimately shapes lament is not the need of the creature to cry its woe, but the faithfulness of the God, who hears and acts.”[2] [1] Sally Brown & Patrick Miller, ed., “Introduction,” in Lament: Reclaiming Practices in Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), xix. [2] Ibid. Before Christmas I started re-posting this series of reflection on the Lament and complaint Psalms. Psalm 79 is another striking example for the communal complaint and lament that closely resembles Psalm 74. It is a very human plea to Yahweh to act on behalf of a sinful Israel who has been overrun by her enemies. Tate notes that the destruction of Israel is not just a theological crisis, but also a political, social, and economic results.[1] Not one aspect of their life was left untouched. The first five verses describe the horrific scene to Yahweh. All three participants, Yahweh, psalmist/community, and the enemies are intimately bound from the outset so that they cannot be extracted one from another. The nations have decimated and humiliated God’s people, and thus, by covenantal extension, Yahweh himself. On the surface, we again see the overwhelmed cry of a besieged people, but from the perspective of the covenant, despite Israel’s sinfulness, God seems to be implicated in this disaster by allowing it to happen. Israel pleas for God’s anger to be turned from them to their enemies. But they do so that God’s actions on their behalf would bring God’s glory. Such is the intimate connection between the covenanting God and community. Within the plea, “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name's sake” (vs. 9) the draws on benefits for both dialogical relationship. By God’s actions, Israel is restored and by doing so, God restores his own name and glory.[2] We find the psalmist and community immersed within the situation itself and lays it before God that he experience it as well. What is striking is the “guileless simplicity of strongly felt passion, which can be shared with Yahweh. There is no self-deceiving politeness, no attempt to protect Yahweh from how it really is.”[3] The utter humanity that is captured in this psalm is remarkable. This psalm shows us those things such as bitterness, anger, and desire for vengeance that never allowed to be spoken in our liturgies and not like most prayer lives either. But the speaker is honest before God, and yet subject to God’s will. Once again we see the selfish desires raised in exasperation. [1] Tate, 302. [2] Brueggemann, Message of the Psalms, 72. Brueggemann calls this a “convergence of interest.” [3] Ibid., 71. On my old blog Axis of Access, I would occasionally put up You Tube videos of my favorite songs...I think I will keep that tradition going this year. Here is one my current favorites. |
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