10 + 30 points
Document documentation by kristin gish
April 23rd, 2008 5:54 PM
I'm sitting on the couch in my living room. The time is 7:31pm and we've just had dinner, which consisted of fried rice, sauteed chicken, steamed broccoli & english muffins with butter and honey. I have orange kool-aid and the front door is open to let the sunlight in. Steve is sitting at the kitchen table right now molding time travel. This is the setting.
Directly in front of me is an old desk that has been in the family for 4 generations, my television .. and of course what else but a wall. This wall is an ordinary wall. There is nothing special about this wall. It is white and unspectacular. This is the wall I chose to put my pictures on. My old taped up again and again pictures. This is where I start the story.
This is Kristin's documentation of her north living room wall and the collection of pictures renting space there.
When you look at this wall it seems a mess. I've moved too often and never bothered to remove old tape or take down pictures that have pieces torn off. You'd never know that in the beginning this selection was made very carefully and the arrangement was tended to with endless care and passion. You'd never think that I spent many hours cutting images from magazines and printing photographs that I felt on the inside off my printer. This is how it was though. And so looking at it now, with the pictures falling off, the old tape collecting on all sides, gaps in the placement and rips and tears like an old tshirt.. you'd have to wonder how it got to be this way.
For most people pictures are just that.. pictures. They make us smile and make us remember that we enjoyed something sometime.. or let us imagine we are in places we only could dream to be in. For some people, pictures aren't even that, but only proof that they actually know someone besides themselves. To me they are much more. The pictures I've chosen invoke multiple feelings not excluding negative ones. They provoke thought .. in my own mind and inspiration and are reminders as to how life works and how relationships with other people change and evolve. There are many changing patterns but you can always capture something at one point or another.
You'd never know that i have twice as many pictures than this in my attic.. still in a pile,.. with tape holding them together and dust settling in the cracks. This is what happens when you relocate. This is how things get forgotten and time becomes congested. At one point i intended to put them all up, I put them down. I gave up. They're in the dark now and they will stay there for along time. Until some big change occurs.. good or bad.. and fills me with the need to create.. when there is nothing else to create and they are all i have .. then I will crawl up to the attic and rescue them.
There is a picture of Jessica smiling in a black lace dress. You wouldn't know it but she's just made cookies. You wouldn't know it but its the day of her boyfriends funeral. You wouldn't know I knew him since the fourth grade. In fact you wouldn't ever know he existed.
There is a picture of me at Stonehenge. This picture was taken in Fairibault, Minnesota on a rainy night right after I had my son during an unsatisfiable urge to see something new. This was an experiment with a projector.
Three apples, green.. that I cut out of a National Geographic magazine, sit in the middle of the group. Right next to the apples is a picture of two black chairs half gone inside a mound of white snow. This was my backyard last winter. This was how I felt at the time.. and below that is Miss Myrna Minx herself walking through the art museum downtown. This was the day we spent gallery hopping. This day happened before the day that I told her if she wanted blankets that two people would have to call the news about it first.
There is a picture of a painting. This same painting is also located on the west wall of my living room.
Two chairs, old, plastic., tattered and falling to pieces. One blue and one green. and next to them a polaroid of chinese lanterns, which reminds me of the summertime. The pieces of light that fall through the curtains and onto the floor in tiny slits when you're having a good day. This reminds me of warm small smiles and warm skin.
A view of the street from the 17th floor of 205 W. Randolph where I used to work doing accounting and serving coffee and where during my breaks I'd hang the upper half of my body as far out of the conference room window as i could manage in order to see the streets from every angle, especially in the winter time. You'd never know that this picture, taken in summer, reminds me of christmas and one moment when I turned around and the snowflakes were falling through the large arched window just like in a movie. You'd never know that this was something I'll never forget.
I could go on, but I will not bore you. This is the end of my documentation. I hope you could see some of what I see, but I know it's not exactly the same.
Thank you.
Kristin Gish
Directly in front of me is an old desk that has been in the family for 4 generations, my television .. and of course what else but a wall. This wall is an ordinary wall. There is nothing special about this wall. It is white and unspectacular. This is the wall I chose to put my pictures on. My old taped up again and again pictures. This is where I start the story.
This is Kristin's documentation of her north living room wall and the collection of pictures renting space there.
When you look at this wall it seems a mess. I've moved too often and never bothered to remove old tape or take down pictures that have pieces torn off. You'd never know that in the beginning this selection was made very carefully and the arrangement was tended to with endless care and passion. You'd never think that I spent many hours cutting images from magazines and printing photographs that I felt on the inside off my printer. This is how it was though. And so looking at it now, with the pictures falling off, the old tape collecting on all sides, gaps in the placement and rips and tears like an old tshirt.. you'd have to wonder how it got to be this way.
For most people pictures are just that.. pictures. They make us smile and make us remember that we enjoyed something sometime.. or let us imagine we are in places we only could dream to be in. For some people, pictures aren't even that, but only proof that they actually know someone besides themselves. To me they are much more. The pictures I've chosen invoke multiple feelings not excluding negative ones. They provoke thought .. in my own mind and inspiration and are reminders as to how life works and how relationships with other people change and evolve. There are many changing patterns but you can always capture something at one point or another.
You'd never know that i have twice as many pictures than this in my attic.. still in a pile,.. with tape holding them together and dust settling in the cracks. This is what happens when you relocate. This is how things get forgotten and time becomes congested. At one point i intended to put them all up, I put them down. I gave up. They're in the dark now and they will stay there for along time. Until some big change occurs.. good or bad.. and fills me with the need to create.. when there is nothing else to create and they are all i have .. then I will crawl up to the attic and rescue them.
There is a picture of Jessica smiling in a black lace dress. You wouldn't know it but she's just made cookies. You wouldn't know it but its the day of her boyfriends funeral. You wouldn't know I knew him since the fourth grade. In fact you wouldn't ever know he existed.
There is a picture of me at Stonehenge. This picture was taken in Fairibault, Minnesota on a rainy night right after I had my son during an unsatisfiable urge to see something new. This was an experiment with a projector.
Three apples, green.. that I cut out of a National Geographic magazine, sit in the middle of the group. Right next to the apples is a picture of two black chairs half gone inside a mound of white snow. This was my backyard last winter. This was how I felt at the time.. and below that is Miss Myrna Minx herself walking through the art museum downtown. This was the day we spent gallery hopping. This day happened before the day that I told her if she wanted blankets that two people would have to call the news about it first.
There is a picture of a painting. This same painting is also located on the west wall of my living room.
Two chairs, old, plastic., tattered and falling to pieces. One blue and one green. and next to them a polaroid of chinese lanterns, which reminds me of the summertime. The pieces of light that fall through the curtains and onto the floor in tiny slits when you're having a good day. This reminds me of warm small smiles and warm skin.
A view of the street from the 17th floor of 205 W. Randolph where I used to work doing accounting and serving coffee and where during my breaks I'd hang the upper half of my body as far out of the conference room window as i could manage in order to see the streets from every angle, especially in the winter time. You'd never know that this picture, taken in summer, reminds me of christmas and one moment when I turned around and the snowflakes were falling through the large arched window just like in a movie. You'd never know that this was something I'll never forget.
I could go on, but I will not bore you. This is the end of my documentation. I hope you could see some of what I see, but I know it's not exactly the same.
Thank you.
Kristin Gish
This is beautiful.