Through a lot of my work I have focused on people’s living spaces to compare and contrast with my own. It’s been an eye opening experience that I have really enjoyed. Through my Marketing class, I have been introduced to another type of environment that I found very intriguing. It is called the Village on Sewanee Creek (Click for the Website or the owner’s Blog). The Village focuses on self-sufficient living but not the typical “green wash” that we see a lot of today — driving Priuses, sticking a solar panel on the roof, etc. They are truly trying to capture all of the natural resources of the land and utilize them to the best of their abilities. This includes harnessing the power of waterfalls for electricity and collecting rain water so they can be self-sufficient for water. They focus on attracting innovative people who want to creative things and be a part of a larger, prepared, community.

Some people have categorized this community as a “prepper community”. While this cannot be disputed, in my opinion, I think people’s opinions of preppers could be better formulated. This community does not have thick twenty foot walls guarded by armed men. What it has are residents who want to be prepared to survive on their own incase of an emergency or some political or financial downturn.

Though this lifestyle is not one that I am embracing any time soon, I think it’s a really interesting idea for those that are at a place in their lives where they feel they can make a change and I think some of the skills they have acquired are extremely useful and beneficial to everyone. It definitely wouldn’t hurt for people to learn to be a little more self-reliant.

I think it’s worth taking a look at their website and I can try and answer any questions you might have or the owner himself (information on the website) would be more than happy to speak with anyone.

Hope everyone has a safe, happy, and prepared day

I have rounded the corner and am heading full steam ahead towards the end of my college career. It is both terrifying and exhilarating. There are so many exciting new opportunities coming in the near future, but nothing is certain. I am not one to really just “fly by the seat of my pants”. I like a plan. Unfortunately, at this time in my life, I am left with no choice but to keep an open mind and see what path I get to travel on next. School has been a comforting constant for the past 16 years of my life and having to actually face reality and consider myself an adult is going to be quite the transition. Luckily I have a full semester left of soul searching, and tearing my hair out, while completing my comp body of work and trying to come to some sort of conclusion (at least temporary) in my photography. I’m definitely nervous to see what is going to happen next, but very excited as well for what is yet to come.

I will trying to be posting photographs much more regularly.

Enjoy!

This evening I was doing some more stumbling. I came across this blog. It focuses on the book Where Children Sleep comprised by James Mollison. The book is comprised of diptychs of children and their rooms. Each set of photographs is accompanied by a caption that gives some detail about each child’s life. I enjoy looking at this work because it   parallels what I have been thinking about doing with my own series.

I was perusing the New York Time’s art section this evening while trying to put off editing my thesis paper. I came across this interesting article about a photographer named Arthur Tress. He recently came across images he took over two decades ago and was surprised to see how relevant and similar they are to his works of today. You can check out the article here. Also, make sure to click on the picture that will take you to the compare and contrast slide show of his then-and-now works.

I realize that although I have been posting about other artists and work I find interesting, I haven’t really posted much of my own work here recently.

This set of images is from my greater Thesis Body of Work about the family I work with in Cowan, Tennessee. It is the second of three parts I have done this semester. If you click here you will be directed to the work! Enjoy!

I found this article, I guess you can call it that, but it’s mainly all pictures, of what the great nudes would look like if they had the ideal bodies of this century. This plays in well with my fixation with the body and how people view size. Here is the link. Enjoy!

It’s probably become clear by now that I am very interested in obesity. Although my work has branched off from this topic, it still plays a role in my pictures. In addition, I am working on a project about obesity which includes researching organizations and their efforts to control the epidemic. The other evening I watched a documentary called Killer at Large. It focused on the obesity issue and why people fall victim to the disease. I was interested in the idea that once we were hunter-gatherers and when we came across fatty foods we tried to eat as much as possible because we never were certain when we would encounter it again. As time went on we never developed a sensor to inform us when we had had enough fat for the day. It labeled obesity also as a cause of food addiction. I’m both saddened and fascinated by this issue and love learning more about it through all different sources.

While putting together my midterm presentation I started looking through other documentary photographers. I found Dana Romanoof and fell in love with the series Wild No More. It doesn’t really influence my work but I think it’s a beautiful set of photographs. You can view it here. Enjoy!

On Monday my Junior Tutorial class watched the Senior’s present their Thesis work. It was rather intimidating to see them be interrogated by the professors about their work. I’m working on my presentation now and it’s definitely starting to make me anxious. I’m sure it will all come together in the end.

This week we were asked to find artists who explore the same themes in their works that we are working with. My current focus is obesity. The art that stems from obesity is not always the easiest to look at. The first work, here, by Joseph Barbaccia, is chilling. It is a sculpture that combines a stomach with a cheese grater. He is using these two objects to create a new meaning. John Yeadon made a series of controversial photographs exploring obesity. He has been banned from some galleries from presenting grotesque pictures of extremely large nudes. His work can be found here. The last artist that I found depicts obesity in a different way. Her work, found here, is a series of paintings that shows food vs non-food items. All three works, while all vastly different, all convey the same contextual meaning as my own. I hope to not be as gruesome or overt as the first two artists, however. I would like to depict the situation and have others decide themselves what to do about what they are shown.