My relationship with photography perhaps started when I was a child of parents who owned suburban newspapers. There were always photographers around, who smelled funny, which I realized later was the acid from fixer. Perhaps the sensory experience led me to the darkroom later. As my parents had predetermined my destiny to run the newspapers when I grew up, photography was not how they envisioned my future. I wanted to be a painter, or an artist, or whatever “artist” meant to a grade school student. Later I compromised with my publishing parents and settled on graphic design as a major in college. However, I fell in love with photography in my senior year, then attended graduate school to learn fine-art photography and haven’t looked back since. Most of my career has been teaching other potential artist-photographers at college undergraduate and graduate level, while pursuing my own projects. I left graphic design because I wanted to work for myself, not produce commercial projects. Although I have supplemented my fine art practice with occasional projects for others, I have followed ideas that began as a very young person rooted in the experiences of growing up suburban and middle class.
Graphic design was actually a great way to develop compositional, color, and thinking skills. The process of design is about problem-
Black and Blue, photography
solving and communicating ideas, based on research of various sorts. It seems linear, but for me, was a thinking process that clarified ideas and approaches to making pictures.
I have always been interested in the point where reality and fiction collide. Although I have done many projects about the world as it exists, such as photographing resort areas at night, hot dog stands, and even Elvis impersonators, each of these projects were my voyage into the colorful fantasy world of life. I did not photograph downtrodden, poor or disenfranchised, which have attracted many documentary photographers. Rather, my work in its various forms, were always of places, people or experiences that I personally knew. I believe one must “be true to thyself” and therefore, each project has been a reflection of my own life, whether fictionalized in the studio, or found out in the world. I was also attracted to places of entertainment, which often had a dark side to them, yet on the surface were bright, colorful and alluring.
Most of my projects are long term, or even unending. I began photographing at night after completing graduate school at the Institute of Design at IIT. Color photography just became available to the consumer at the time, and I was intrigued with the possibility. I settled upon Cibachrome as my ideal technique, because it had saturated, brilliant color and an extremely glossy surface. I could shoot positive film, (35mm and medium format) and then print directly to Cibachrome paper. I would set up a tripod, and long exposures of color would produce more saturation on the film than could be predicted. This seemed to fit the photographs I was making at the time, which were places lit by neon or bright lights at night, in a background of black or darkness. My family had traveled to resort areas in Florida every winter since I was born, so the subject was very familiar to me. The places I found were ordinary, bland, and dull during the day, but light transformed them into exotic, lurid fantasies at night. The places were usually motels, restaurants, bars, bowling alleys or any places of entertainment and leisure. I began the series in Florida but then continued it for years as I traveled. The series is titled, “Sunset After Dark.”
Leave Out, photography
When I began photography with black and white, I photographed painted walls or over scaled objects in the landscape that were like imaginary pictures inserted into reality. I also still find these subjects, and it continues to be a way of collaging the dream world into reality. Part of running away from home for a photographer is a road trip. It is still a favorite activity of mine because the world presents so many narratives. However, as the USA has become more corporate and blander, with the same offerings of food, gas, entertainment etc., the road trip is not as fun or visually interesting any longer.
Most of my projects are really about home; running away from home (as the ones above where I am wandering the world looking for places that fit my imaginary world), or being home, which are the later projects. The subject of home is fascinating for me on many levels. As a kid, home was not the quiet, perfect suburban experience as advertised. As an adult, I have made many homes in many places and still question what it means. The pursuit of the perfect home drives me, even though I may never find it.
Most of my projects are really about home; running away from home (as the ones above where I am wandering the world looking
for places that fit my imaginary world), or being home, which are the later projects. The subject of home is fascinating for me on many levels. As a kid, home was not the quiet, perfect suburban experience as advertised. As an adult, I have made many homes in many places and still question what it means. The pursuit of the perfect home drives me, even though I may never find it.
In my freshman year high school English class, we had to write a paper on our home. I wrote mine as a fish living in a fishbowl. The teacher expected something more real, but this was the most revealing essay I ever wrote. Perhaps, home is a myth. Home is comfort, or at least, the most familiar place you can go. Home is where personal psycho-dramas get played out.
In the 1990’s my husband and I moved to England. The move was a shock to my system, even though I had extensively traveled internationally. It is a more complicated issue to live and make a home in a foreign culture. I began to have an identity crisis, as I was now addressed as Mrs. Jones, rather than Patty Carroll, artist. I had to consider myself in new ways, and strip down to essence, uncomfortable in an unknown culture and place. In response, I began to make work of a lone woman, with domestic objects obscuring her identity. The woman was defined by her domestic roles and objects. The work was no longer about America, suburbia, resorts, fantasy or anything I had previously done. It was about identity of self. I called it “Anonymous Women.”
When we returned to the States to live once again in Chicago, I was preoccupied with making a comfortable home after the culture shock of Britain. This time, I found the ideal home that I did not live in as a child. We bought a perfect 1950’s ranch house with its original pink kitchen. I proceeded to restore the house to its former perfect self, and combed flea markets, antique stores, estate sales etc. for objects and furniture. It was like a puzzle, where the pieces had been scattered in remote places. I became obsessed.
Many women spend effort, money and time making home to be a place of perfection. Obsession with décor, objects, appliances, or things is often a fulfillment of identity. Maslow believed that there were five types of desires that need to be fulfilled if every human were to feel whole: physiological, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem and self-actualization. “Things” often take the place of these various states or desires. I was no different in this case. The décor started to make its way into my work. There were several interim series using vintage sets, objects and “dressing up.” Eventually, I hid an assistant behind drapes and It started the series, “Anonymous Women: Draped,” which became an offshoot of the former series, started in England. This time, the figure was hidden rather than vulnerable and exposed. She was part of her surroundings, and was swathed in fabric or drapery, with occasional objects from the home. I used the vintage fabric and drapery from my house, and the pursuit of drapery was now also an obsessional pursuit. This iteration of the series also included short, and very silly videos of a woman unable to do simple actions because she is hidden in drapery. Eventually I brought in more household objects and expanded Anonymous Women to include more of her “stuff.”
We use a life size box in the studio as a substitute for a room in the home. All the images are made in the same space. It is 8x8 feet with 4x8 foot side walls. A mannequin substitutes for the ideal woman, who is camouflaged among her many domestic possessions. The photographs are square and large. Everything is arranged in the “stage.” I often spend days or weeks searching for the right props to create each scene. We then often repaint, craft or redo found furniture or other detritus to make the scene cohesive and colorful. I often sew the outfit for the Anonymous Woman to wear so that she blends into her surroundings.
Once again, the project is a commentary on obsession with collecting, accumulating, designing, and decorating. A few short videos are also part of the process, often with the objects moving.
The most recent iteration of the series has household activities and objects take over, leading to domestic disasters and mayhem. Whether she is trying to cook, clean or relax, she has lost control. In her domestic “Demise,” the woman becomes the victim of her home to her fatal end; she is crushed by her own possessions and obsessions. Her home has become a site of tragedy and danger, with scenes of humorous and heartbreaking mishaps and horror.
Booky, photography
My work is inspired by my formative years in suburban Chicago, and influenced by a variety of sources, including traditional still-life paintings, classic films from the 1950s and 60s, decorating magazines, Victorian literature, the game of Clue, and personal experiences. Many of the titles are from idioms turned on their heads.
My primary focus is to shed light on the tireless efforts of unsung heroines who manage households, families, careers and have shaped nearly all of us. Though inspired by consumer culture and the meaning we attach to material possessions, my female figures represent women from all backgrounds. These narrative images use humor to convey darker messages about women's societal roles that are often just as poignant as they are hilarious.