Sally Mann

What I found interesting about Sally Mann was the fact that it had never really occurred to her to leave her home to make art. She has such a wide range of artistic subjects, but all of her work was created by using the people she is close to (sometimes animals) and the land on which she is accustomed. The fact that she found comfort and inspiration in “the local,” her family and the land, was inspiring to me. I have always found people that can create art out of what they see everyday, things that would normally become mundane to most, very fascinating.

She has taken a wide variety of pictures, starting with her children, then he farm, her “Marital Trust” with her husband, her husband’s bodily changes after his disease began to set in, and the death of her dog and the people in a nearby facility studying decomposition. It seems to me, that the intimate and personal relationship that she has with her work seems to create more pain when her work is scrutinized. Most artists form a bond with their work but when the subject matter is something close to their hearts it seems to me it would be harder. There seems to be a constant inner struggle in Sally between the art she wants to create and what she wants to leave behind. She wants to capture images of her lived ones, but she also doesn’t want to leave behind anything hurtful.

When Sally describes her children she said the pictures captured their heritage and a certain tenderness. The people who criticized them called them an abomination and speculated that they might be some form of child pornography. She also described how much the convict being murdered on her land changed her view on how the land is changed once death occurs there, and she spoke of how hard it was for her to let go of her dog once it had passed. These experiences spurred her body of work on death. She seemed to have put a lot of thought into how to make this body of work give its viewers a little hope as they left, and she decided to do so by creating a table that contained pictures of her children’s faces, vital faces. Her connection with the subject and the work seemed to make it much harder for her when the gallery decided to no longer show it.

I have mixed views on how I might feel about diligently photographing the people close to me during good and difficult times. I think that there would be a lot of good that would come out of capturing my loved ones in images. It could serve as a certain kind of therapy to cope with the hard times, and a way to capture the history of the people I love. I think that it would also be a struggle because when I was capturing the hard times that the people close to me were experiencing it would be hard for me to decide what to include. In order for the work to be art, I would have to include everything, but I think it would also be hard to capture all the hard times without causing more pain to my loved ones.

I have yet to document the intensely personal aspects of my life in a photographic sense. I have taken a lot of writing courses, and have documented personal experiences in that way. I have not been able to find a way to effectively document these experiences through photography. It is difficult for me to document these things because most of them have happened in the past, and I think that they would have to be depicted in a rather abstract way. I also find it difficult because personal aspects of my life seem to be more sensitive than exploring political views or landscapes. Capturing things that are close to you seem to be harder. I learned the same thing in my writing classes, because the artist often tries at first to try to maintain a distance from the subject. In order to affectively capture the essence of something, especially something that is really close to my heart, I have to find a way to keep myself from maintaining a comfortable distance. Making myself a little uncomfortable in the process.

What I learned in the film was that sometimes the most rewarding work can be work that helps the artist explore their own personal feelings. Sometimes the work is scrutinized by the outside world and critics, but if you have shown what you feel you need to show the work will eventually speak for itself. Even if it may at times only be speaking to you as the artist. It is hard at times to put your work ( and often subsequently your heart) on the line for everyone to criticize, but in order to create a body of work that has meaning one often has to explore something that is close to their heart.

I have yet to explore the more personal aspects of my life through photography, but the film made me want to try a little harder to express my own inner/deeper thoughts through a medium other than writing.