"Flatfoot"

I anticipate a lot of unearthing of the artistic past in the coming months. First up is Flatfoot (since we were on the subject of shoes and skates in a previous post). I've collaborated with a number of artists in my life but this piece is from my first collaborative exhibition in 1995 with my father. After receiving it in the mail, I photographed it quickly at school today and noticed that it had a long drip of white paint running across one of the photographs in the top right corner. I couldn't remember if it was there before so I hunted down the documentation from Focus magazine below and found that it was a new addition since its creation two decades ago.

It's embarrassing to look back at this artist statement (certainly undergraduate material). I don't even know whose signature that is since it's legible and so far from its current scrawl. The images come from four semesters of undergraduate photography classes and are also collaged alongside of the box that supports the shoe in the center. It's the only piece I have left from this exhibition. Many of the other works were sold or buried in the backyard before leaving Boise.

I'm thinking more about objects these days - where my interest comes from and how I can make my photographs more three-dimensional. Still tying up a few loose ends before I have the time to work on that in full force. Soon.... I hope... soon.

Introducing my other collaborators...

There are two other people I have worked with that are very important in my artistic practice, one of which is my father, James K. Russell.



Sayonara: Born to Do More was my final exhibition in undergraduate school and my Dad's last show before he retired after 27 years as the painting and drawing professor at Boise State University. The work we created marked the beginning of me looking at the relationship between photography and sculpture, found objects and collage.

The other very important person who had to be featured in these cake floats is Lisa Rader. She is my best friend from graduate school and we spent the summer of 1998 in New Zealand - mainly Southland, Auckland, and Stewart Island. "Finding Stewart: A Collaboration" (photograph by Javy Russell below) was very instrumental for me in terms of working with different materials and mediums including artists' books, printmaking, postcards, found objects and photographs. It was the first time I had traveled to a location with someone and made art based on the "road trip."



Our last collaboration occurred in 2007-2008 when I sent Li my wedding ring and she did the following with it (text Li, image Jacinda):



Li is a huge inspiration for me and her inclusion in this project brings my whole involvement with collaboration full circle. Here we are at the Brandon, VT 3rd of July parade (the two of us combined had red, white, and blue covered).