Finishing the Theatre Project

Today I mounted and hung my final series for the Theatre Project. I put five 11X14 prints in the Ratt and there were seven 16X20 prints in the gallery showing at the Orange Crate Gallery in Cedar Rapids. They will be hanging there about one month and then they will be framed and moved into Cornell’s Theatre building at the end of April. I am really excited to have them in permanent display in a building where I learned and grew as a theatre major. The images were very well received by the people that I talked to. Even some of the people that came to the gallery opening who knew nothing about me or my work were pleasantly surprised and really liked what they saw there. Then when I told them that they were taken with an old 4X5 film camera and that I was the one who processed everything they were amazed about what I had accomplished in such a short amount of time.

This is a project that means a lot to me as a fellow theatre major; at the end of my college career it becomes a retrospective look at the people around me who affected me. Though it does not include everyone who influenced me, it really shows those who took a similar approach to the theatre major and has walked a relatively similar educational path. As a fellow major I know my subjects fairly well and this led to some images that really capture the essence of the person. I meant for this project to show the subjects for who they are and how they relate to the department. It is interesting to see who chose to be in the theatre and who chose to be away from the theatre and to think if this means anything about their commitment to their major and also how much a major can really define who you are in a collegiate setting. Everyone who I took pictures is pretty involved in the department, whether it is through the department or student groups, so it is not to say that anyone is not committed, it is just an interesting comment that developed in this series. This series really demonstrates how easy and willingly students become so involved in their major that they start to become their major. It is something that one looks for when deciding a major, you really have to think about what it means to be a “theatre major,” “math major” or “French major” and this helps you decide if you want to become that infamous “theatre major” or not. So this series really becomes about what a “theatre major” is and how that can, or can’t define you in college. Overall, this series is meant to capture a moment in my personal history, but it is also set up as a series that shows others who Cornell theatre majors are and can help to get past the stereotypical ideas of what it means to be a theatre major.

Andrew, the Artist

Who am I as an artist? This is a question that has been asked of me several times, but I have never been able to clearly explain. As an artist I am not limited to the constraints of one media, I am a theatrical designer, photographer, ceramics artist, singer, painter and interior designer. I constantly move from one media to another, always looking for another way to express my creativity. I take aspects from every medium and bond them together through my life experiences. I was raised by a family of artists, an actress/photographer for a mother and a singer for a father both who became elementary school teachers. They took me to the Art Institute of Chicago to the Louvre in Paris. They took me to Broadway shows, shows in the West End in London and encouraged me to act in plays at GILT (Grand Island Little Theatre) all the way through high school. They took me to movies and encouraged me to express myself in what ever felt the most natural to me. They were never tried to constrain my style of expression and nurtured my creative side when ever that was possible. Though the most influential experiences came on our trips to Disneyland, either as a family or with all of my cousins. (Picture from first trip to Disneyland in front of the Haunted Mansion) This was a place where everyone wanted nothing less from you then to use your imagination. As Walt Disney said, "To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past...and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America...with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world." To me this is the statement that drives me as an artist, as a child I grew up looking at history and things that changed the world and Disneyland was where I started to look towards the promises of my future, in many senses it was my first major outlet of my creative side. Though I never made any art there, the things that we imagine as a child, flying into space meeting your hero (Mickey Mouse) and riding a run away mine cart were there and I was able to experience them for the first time, understanding what your imagination can do. My life past, present and future is what guides me. As an artist I want to represent and express just that, my life experiences, because they define me. Family and friends motivate constantly to take my creativity and ideas to the next level, never stopping to think or worry about obstacles, just helping me to overcome them. That is why Disneyland continues to inspire me even now, the creativity there keeps doing the same, continually reaching new heights. Simply put, I am an artist of personal history, which not only drives me but continues to challenge my creativity.

The Theatre Project

So, I have been working on a project for my class that is all about the Cornell Theatre department and the individuals that make us into a department. I started out by giving everyone the same prompt which states:

" For this project I am planning on taking portraits of the Theatre Department’s students. This is open to any Theatre major and would need to take place in the next two weeks. The premise for the photos is to take the portraits where you feel the most “at home” on campus while you are wearing your favorite outfit or something that shows your personality the best. Props are allowed and encouraged. If you are in a relationship doing a portrait with both of you is acceptable."

It is now the end of the second week and I have finished taking the portraits of my fellow Cornell Theatre students. The media that I used was a 4X5 Camera and a 35mm Camera with a cool light system. The hardest part of the shoots was hauling all of the equipment around the campus, it usually involved two trips and would take a half an hour to set up and another thirty minutes to take down. Then, depending on my subject it would take me an hour to two hours to take the pictures of the people. I took pictures in locations from rooms in Bowman to pictures in a tree by ink pond, to the most common place, the theatre building. Overall, I took portraits of 14 people and took 34 4X5 Pictures and 288 35mm pictures with accumulated time of photo shoots between 30 to 35 hours on taking pictures alone. I have developed and made the contacts of all of my pictures, and I am relatively happy with my result. This is because until recently, I have not thought of myself as a portrait photographer, but instead as landscape/still life photographer. I have included one of my land scape pictures from my trip to Japan, that recently won an off-campus photo contest and was featured in the Cornellian. As I work more with my portraits I will begin to upload pictures from this project, please stay tuned...

Response to afterwalkerevans.com

When viewing this website, there are many things that stand out as odd. One, that you can take a famous persons' ideas/photos and sign it making it your own piece of art. Two, that it is able to stay up and hasn't been forced off of the web. I understand the idea behind the site, which as they say is to, "to facilitate their dissemination as a comment on how we come to know information in this burgeoning digital age." It makes sense that as a comment on the digital world, what was once only able to be produced and owned by the person holding the negative, owning the painting or sculpture is now all over the web and peoples homes. There is now no art that can not be mass produced and sent all over the world (at least there can be images of 3D art). So in a way this website is simply a commentary on this relatively new phenomenon in the art world. That is the genius behind the website, in a way it is its own art instillation that we may see in a museum, only its forum is that of the web where all the art has been sent to over the last couple of decades. This set-up is the way that comments on exactly what their mission statement is about facilitating their dissemination of these photos. It is a great comment on the digital age.