Response to Newman’s “Connotations”

While reading Hayley Newman’s “Connotations,” I became very interested in her usage of photography to construct the “documentation” of staged performance pieces, paying “homage” to her personal notebook of performance ideas. I found a connection to her work in my own work as an artist with a character I have been developing over the past few years. As mentioned in a previous blog, Alice Gorman Vence appeared before me when I was sifting through old photographs at my grandfather’s home a few years ago. When I asked various family members about this woman, no one seemed to know much about her, other than who she married and where she lived. There were no stories that were passed down or memories shared about her life.

I have used Alice in several different ways in my artwork. In an attempt to rectify Alice as a “true” ancestor (one who hasn’t been forgotten about or become lost in the back of family photo albums), I staged various scenes of a woman at her farmhouse in 1923 (the pictures posted in this blog are a few of the photographs from the “Alice” series). I printed the photographs in the darkroom using no filter, thus stripping the photograph of any prominent black and white contrast, trying to emulate an “aged” look. In other variations, I soaked the photograph in tea, staining the paper and creating an antique feel.  

            In attempting to fabricate and stage these scenes and present them as factual family photographs to my audience, I blurred boundaries between the real and fictional. Working in collaboration with another artist, I wrote a letter as Alice and received a letter back addressed to Alice, pursuing this idea of fabricating a family member’s life. By “documenting” Alice’s history, I am bringing her story to life and realizing her existence, much in the same way that Newman was bringing her own project ideas to life. Newman states that,

“Connotations provided the forum for the idea to exist without actually having to execute the piece.” (Newman 170).

In a similar fashion, I feel as though I am providing the forum for this ancestor’s forgotten story to be told, without actually knowing anything about this woman’s life.