An Anonymous Inventory of Objects Stolen from Art Departments (Skull)

It took awhile to track this down for the Anonymous Inventory of Objects Stolen From Art Departments series. It was the first time one was photographed in an environment. I am not sure if it will be included in the Art Department series, but I am glad that it exists before I return it. 

The clinical white background will be part of the inventory. I am inching toward 50 items. Slowly but surely. Once that happens, I'd like to create a small publication and a site-specific installation at a university gallery where contributions are solicited to add to my collection.

Lenscratch Indiana: The States Project

A year ago, Aline Smithson asked me to be the editor for Indiana in Lenscratch's States Project. This week, the work of five photographers living in the Crossroads state will be featured along with today's post on the Art Department series. [I was brave and introduced new images that are not currently published on the website.]

Check out Aline's interview and introduction here. Thank you again for the opportunity, Lenscratch!

Additions to the Art Department

Although I am supposed to be engrossed in the Autobiography in Water series during my sabbatical, the Art Department creeps in to tell me that I am far more excited about making these photographs than any of the others. I am composing a brief story for this image (and the final one) - both are still in progress. It was taken at the Oregon State University Art Department in Corvallis, Oregon in March. Its history is tangentially related to mine and it is the first one taken that is not at a school where I attended (but I taught from 2002-2005).

At the end of April I revisited Boise State University for the fourth time in two years and was finally able to take the photographs of the next three classrooms properly. What a lesson in patience! Here is the old painting classroom, now a space for life drawing/anatomy but more notably the one where the peephole was cut into the homasote from my father's office. I wanted a blank chalkboard because despite the experience of seeing into a space covertly, nothing ever happened on the other side. Ever.

Awhile ago, I found an old journal where I wrote about the first two weeks of taking classes with my father for the first time. This circumstance took place in Drawing 1 in the very same location.

This space is much more important than the image would ever indicate. It was my photography classroom where my professor Brent Smith taught me how to see color. During his Color Temperature lecture, he pointed to the light shining through the top of the blinds bouncing off the ceiling. He noted how high noon sun is blue in hue - I never forgot what that looked like. Everything about photography centers around light (and for me, color) and now the windows are sealed. When examined at a larger scale, one can see the blue sneaking in through the center.

I am still working on the stories in my father's letter. Asking police officers to take their portrait, finding models to pose nude and in a body stocking, acquiring a metal box with very specific dimensions, and wondering how to make a facsimile of human feces is proving to be a challenge. So I wait until I return to academia to continue...

Photolucida 9/10 Prepared

The prints from Autobiography in Water (eight pieces plus two sketchbook mock-ups for Hearst Castle and Kirkham Hot Springs) and Art Department (twelve images including the vinyl text on the cover of the case) are printed.

I wish I was further along on the water series and could bring ten completed depictions but there is only so much I could do after losing the month of March.

It was a superhuman task to get to this point over the last two weeks and I force myself to remember that with the exception of the two water photographs from Texas, all of this art was created in the last eleven months. I have never been able to produce so much during the school year and for that I am most grateful.

Sculpture Chalkboard: Before and After

More text occurred on chalkboards in the Sculpture lab this week in preparation for Photolucida. Kenton's writing is on top while mine is on the bottom (not trying too hard to imitate it). It was my first encounter with an earth colored board.

Photolucida 6/10 Prepared

 
Confetti in the Office Drawer and Freight Elevator, 2015

Reshoot photographs that were not quite right, edit and print for portfolio = check.

Redfish Lake, Idaho (After Rebecca Solnit) 30" x 20" print made, jars soaked and painted, installed in the gallery, mock-up installation documented, and 13"x19" printed for portfolio all within 12 hours = check.

Art Department: Confetti in the Desk Drawer

I am slowly working on the section of the Art Department series that features a letter outlining outrageous activities that occurred in one department in the 1970-1990s. This circumstance featured a stolen master key and confetti dumped into the drawers of all the faculty members' desks after hours. I purchased $25 of confetti and fortunately, my friend David let me use his office for the photo shoot. I didn't want to buy pink confetti (which symbolically represented the person who originally did this in the 1970s) and opted for bags that described me. I was thrilled to find saguaros (Viva Cinco de Mayo!) and also purchased anything that was predominantly blue.

I spent time separating a few of the cacti from the chili peppers before I tossed all of the confetti into one ziplock to mix them, thoroughly convinced that it was sealed properly before I turned it upside down to shake.

Wrong.

There went an hour on a Sunday afternoon picking confetti out of the kitchen sink with tweezers.

At least it was good practice for the real event three days later.

Here is the image that I am contemplating using in the series.

I left David a few surprises in his tack box after spending an hour cleaning up the confetti.

David's lunch bags or my audience during this 2.5 hour affair.

"Russell, Russell who was [s]he?"

Once a couple years ago, I wrote this about my "photographs not taken." The Daily Iowan obituary of a Professor Russell's death at the University of Iowa in the 1960s and its prominent position in my father's office for several decades, will haunt me forever (much like it did him). Unfortunately, I cannot find this article online nor can my father find the yellowed clipping.

Today I recreated it by installing vinyl letters of the phrase on my office door. I have steadily rotated the slide tape crumpled into an abstract design from the back to the front of the door all semester so its placement is not staged. I sewed the curtains my first semester - some of the last fabric I bought at Bolt while living in Portland. My only fear is that it looks like the text was Photoshopped.

In the meantime, Amelia once told me that karoshi will be my downfall. I need to prove both these statements wrong.

Further Adventures in Anonymous Items Stolen from Art Departments

To be printed to scale soon.

"An Anonymous Inventory of Items Stolen From Art Departments" Part 1

Jacinda Russell, Site specific installation currently on display at the Biennial Faculty exhibition at Ball State University, 2014 - ongoing

Twice a month I photograph new objects as my favorite part of this series is people quietly volunteering to let me borrow something to eventually display over an entire wall. I've deduced that aside from the obvious (tools), chairs and still-life drawing display pieces are the most sought after. I did not take any one of the above, however, I borrowed Mark Sawrie's "Stolen BSU Photo Area" stamp and made sure it was represented on the wall.

Art Department: University of Arizona, Photo Area, Room 14

  

I have been writing on chalkboards and dry erase boards in Art Departments since May, telling the stories that took place in those very same rooms years ago. This one refers to teaching my first semester (and what a horrible job I did of it). It is the tamest of the group - or the one that I am most likely to admit I made now.

I follow specific rules when taking these photographs. I do not plan what I am going to write. I accept any spelling and grammatical mistakes. I take the photograph quickly because more often than not, it feels like I will be caught (and I was once at Boise State). Most of the time, when looking at these images later, I regret the words that were written, wishing for something more.

Returning to the University of Arizona photo area for the first time since 2001 was jarring. It looks far more run down than I remember with stains on the linoleum, scuffs on the walls, warped homasote, and outdated furniture. I was happy to see that the color processor was in full swing - wishing I still had access to that room and all that I could make with color film.

The Skeleton in the Drawing Closet

Once a few weeks before obtaining my undergraduate degree, I borrowed my father's keys to the art department. After midnight, a friend and I removed the skeleton on the right from the drawing classroom and installed it into the art gallery exhibition. It was placed prominently in the center of the space and was well illuminated the moment the gallery director turned the lights on the next morning.

When returning to Boise last month, I requested to photograph the skeleton in the drawing closet. It lives in another building now and is missing an arm. I was surprised to see that the once white anatomical man on the left was still in use. Its presence was often featured in drawings displayed in the hallways. It, too, was missing its right arm but I found it on the shelf above and reattached it for this photograph.

I was a child when I first encountered that skeleton. Back then I wondered who that person was before they died and how their bones came to live at Boise State. Last month these thoughts persisted: what does one do with an aging and decrepit skeleton in an Art Department? Can it be discarded or repaired? How long before its life after death has run its course? Many years later, I no longer recognized it as human and it felt as false as the model on the left.

Spheres of Cat Hair and an Orange Chair

I took this photograph two summers ago around the time I was emulating obsessive activities professors did in art departments. I finally showed it to my inspiration - the person who rolls cat hair into spheres - last year. Fortunately, he wasn't horrified and that gave me permission to carry on (and post it now). After this photograph was taken, I started another activity (talking to a plant and recording my conversations) last January after my former professor who acquired dementia and was found conversing with cacti on campus. Once a month after each faculty meeting, I sat next to a bush and talked to it as if it was she. She died prematurely last summer and I was never able to say good-bye. That was such a depressing endeavor that I stopped after four months, not particularly interested in ever hearing the sound recordings again.

More stories were collected from friends and colleagues and I kept wondering what the point was in my recreation. I was interested in the subject matter but grew despondent thinking I would become these "characters" when they were, in reality, not like me at all.

In May, I saw this chair in the old watercolor classroom at Boise State University and my heart flew into my chest and everything changed.

I remembered this chair from our last acquaintance in 1995. It resided in my Dad's office for years, providing a seat for students during open office hours. I even recognized the blue paint.

Suddenly, I knew that the work I must make had less to do with other people's experiences in the art department and more of my own. I have thought about these photographs all summer - the white one above was the most important image I made on the residency. My return to Boise State earlier this month allowed more access to the photography, drawing and painting classrooms. I am working with the original locations but still telling stories through the objects I find there and the actions that took place in those spaces many years ago.

Art Department: Further thoughts after the post a couple weeks ago

I was born into an Art Department and have spent all but two years of my life there. One evening while participating in the Surel's Place residency in May, I walked to Boise State and visited some of the classrooms where I spent many of my earlier days watching my father grade, helping him rearrange drawing chairs, and staring out the windows while he completed administrative tasks. Later on I would attend the same school, switch my major to art from creative writing, and enroll in the classes of the professors who had known me since birth. I moved to Arizona for graduate school, attended another department, then eventually became an art professor. After seven years as an adjunct (at University of Houston, Lee College, Washington State University Vancouver, Oregon State University, Lewis and Clark College, Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, and Mt. Hood College), I obtained a full time teaching job at Ball State University.

It wasn't until last May while wandering through the hallways of the past, did I realize how important it is to make art about this topic. I have tried to reconcile this, deciding if it is worthy to pursue (or too insular), but I can't stop thinking about it. The concept refuses to fade away and I keep taking photographs. I may post a few of them over the next week or two while I formulate the words to describe what this means.

Boise State - Visiting Artist Gig with Alexis Pike

The posters and the contracts.

Alexis discussing we sagebrush folks in Jonathan's class (photo by Laurie Blakeslee).

Where I fell in love with photography and changed my major from English to Art. It hasn't changed too much since 1995.

The only Jobo left in the old color lab.

The first time I exhibited the cakes with an "archive" in a vitrine. More exhibition documentation coming soon.

Art Department

Sarah Jones, Colony (Studio) (I), 2008

Sarah Jones, The Drawing Studio (I), 2008

I have spent all but one year of my life in an art department. I was born into one, attended two, and have taught in eight. In May during my residency, I realized that a series devoted to this topic has potential. I am slowly coming to accept this and have begun working on it regularly. Here's to being so excited about a project that I spent seven hours working on one photograph without eating dinner tonight.

It is a reprieve from needing to travel to points far away to finish the "water as autobiography" and artist stalking series. They are still in the works but I have reached the point where serious travel must happen to complete them (which is difficult during the school year). I am researching funding opportunities but in the meantime, looking over my shoulder at my surroundings to see what will materialize.

Material Message at Kenyon College

Material Message at Kenyon College opens next week featuring:

Jacinda Russell, Art Historian, 2011-2013

Past & Present: Art Historian

Past Reference Point (Postcard Collective Summer 2011 submission):

Current Reincarnation (completed August 2013):

Clockwise from top left: Monterey, CA, Marfa, TX, Ucross, WY and Bellevue, WA

I learned about the retired art historian who couldn’t bear to look at the artwork on her hotel room walls a couple years ago. She sought any article of cloth to drape over the printed reproductions before she carried on with her activities. This became known when she attended a conference and shared a room with a colleague who witnessed this behavior. She was no longer living when the Art Department shared this story but one additional phrase was used to describe her: “control freak.”

Three months later I began to replicate and document her actions. I started in Monterey, California and continued throughout Northern Italy (here, here, here and here). Intermittently over the next two years, I hung towels, bedding, clothing, and even a yoga mat over paintings of cupid, horses, flowers, golf courses, abstract geometric forms and bales of hay. I only hesitated at covering one print advertising a Josef Albers exhibition in Marfa, Texas. I felt certain this image was “art historian approved.”