Two years ago, my wife graduated from the University of Central Arkansas with a degree in photography. For her final project as a senior she had to submit work to the UCA art gallery, along with other seniors, to be displayed publicly. Her work focused on the duality of nature (light and dark, good and evil, etc., and NO I didn’t just like it because I’m her husband and I’m supposed to like it). The medium that she used was polaroid photographs. Now, most “serious” photographers would scoff at this display of “obvious lazyness” since polaroid film requires no time in a dark room to process and develop the film, and even the new-age digital photographers could potentially see this as unrefined. In fact, this was the response that most people who wondered through her section of the gallery had. The other photography submissions were your typical 8×10 or larger prints (mostly in black and white) that had some person or collection of objects looking artistic and, well, bored. My wife and I, however, saw her work very differently.
She selected the polaroid medium not because it was easy, but because it stands in stark contrast to traditional artistic photography methods. This, of course tied in the duality of nature that she was trying to express. The polaroids were also in color, of course, which contrasted with every other photographers work in the gallery. Finally, the subject, the actual things being photographed were trees that were blooming in conway. Doesn’t sound to inspired except when you consider that all of the photographs were taken late at night on streets that were not well lit.
The end result of her work was several polaroid photos of bright reds, purples, yellows, and whites on a completely black background. Unfortunately, the people who understood her work could be counted on a single hand, but those people were the most important people involved.
Needless to say, the entire experince changed the way I view art as well as artists. I stayed in the gallery for most of the week long viewing and was a bit taken back by the number of people who walked right by her work and looked at it, puzzled for a few moments before walking away wondering what possessed that artist to use polaroids in a formal gallery setting. It amazed me how few people stopped to read the one page explanation that my wife had written and posted just to the left of her first piece. The explanation, of course, would have told anyone, even the basest Arkansas art viewer (I say that because Arkansas isn’t exactly known for its art culture) the purpose of not only the content of the photographs, but also the purpose of the medium she chose.
Overall, this experience did broaden my aesthetic horizons. Before I met my wife, and even during this particular project I had allways been most impressed by realist art. I found the technical aspects of it intriguing and found the finished products beautiful. After my experiences with my wife’s project (I did, after all, have to live with it on a day-to-day basis) I have found an appreciation for art that challenges conventional thinking, and I must say that something as common and familiar as polaroids can (and should) find a place within the artistic community.
Hamibord's Weblog 