Memories

When reading Kim Zorn Caputo’s short forward, I found her statement, “Memory is the force behind making art – the drive not to forget,” to be quite true when thinking about why I create certain pieces of art. I noticed that I’ve created ceramics, paintings, photographs, and even pieces of literature that symbolize childhood memories. Such memories include a trip to Paris, Friday night football games, and hunting or fishing trips. It is true that at the core of much of my artwork lies a memory of a life experience. When filtering through the photographs in issue three of the magazine, I found that I didn’t care for many of them. However, one image was very striking to me was Sally Mann’s photo entitled “Picnic”. The picture portrays three young girls watching the breakout of a wildfire just over the bluff as they are having a picnic. I really like this photo because the fire captures the girls’ attention which demonstrates they are aware what’s happening. The girl on the far right also has her hand to her mouth which shows her surprise. The photographer captured a brief moment in time that these girls will probably never forget. Similarly, Jerald Frampton’s photo, “Boy and Mask” captures a young boy’s fright as he comes across a mask lying on the floor. Looking at it again, I am also wondering if this picture was taken out of a keyhole in a door. The edges are darkened in a peculiar shape that to me resembles a keyhole. Another photo I enjoyed was Lee Friedlander’s entitled, “Rockwood, Tarrytown, NY, 1993.” The majority of subject matter I enjoy photographing is nature and I love Lee’s photograph of the tree. It is very abstract and contains dark shadows that almost turn the image into a silhouette. All in all, I found this website to be very well organized and found myself venturing around to look at other works outside the assigned issue. – Tim Olson