The Evolution of a Photographer Pt 4

Posted on | March 5, 2010 | 2 Comments

I am not really sure when or why the housewife theme came into my work, but it first showed up photographically while I was working at City College in San Francisco. I wrote a lot while I was there and the character of a repressed 1940s American woman began developing in my sketch book.

. . . her body rises and moves toward the sink her mind is forced to follow pushing her through the motions of her actions. Pulling eggs out of the fridge laying out her utensils like her armor; ready for their purpose they await their usage. She runs the kitchen sink watching as the foamy water rises in the sink. She is waiting like she always does for something to shake her out of this life, a catastrophe to give her permission to escape. But the sink filled to the rim with dish soap and water and her hands continued to do their duty, slowly rubbing the sponge across each dish and placing it in the rack. Her mind takes her beyond the four walls of the kitchen. The only place of freedom she knows is within the confines of her own mind. She is brought back by the loud slurping of the sink as the last drops of water run down the drain. She catches herself, smoothes her apron with both hands and walks away from the sink.

I began to think of her mind as a space that was confining and freeing concurrently.

I played out some of these ideas while I lived in Seattle and worked with a model as the housewife. I got some intriguing imagery, but it was not until I became the housewife that a deeper meaning slowly surfaced. I was pushed by my teachers to really ask why I used the icon of the housewife in my work. It was not enough to make imagery, I needed to have some sense of where it was coming from.

What ended up surfacing was the images of my three grandmothers. I found a connection between the femininity of me and my grandmothers. I have three grandmothers in my life that all have very different stories and backgrounds. I can see traces and evidence of each one of them in my work. These traces have to do with each one of their lives and the challenges they faced as human and as women; housewife escapee, immigrant apple picker, and the perfect housewife.

At this point I am struggling with how to contextualize the housewife images. It is not just about the housewife any more. The process of photographic self-portraiture allows me to decontextualize aspects of my feminine identity. I am my own voyeur, a self semblance, deconstructing the domestic, framing fiction, encouraging sentiment, finding fissures, performing femininity, I am a return of the repressed.

I am an object of memory.

I am far from being done with this work. In some ways I feel like I am just beginning it. As one of my mentors told me during a critique of my thesis show, “You are not done with her yet.”

This is the 4th and final installment in a series of articles written by Rosey Lakos. Be sure to check out The Evolution of a Photographer Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. You can also see more of Rosey’s work at RoseyLakosPhotography.com.

Category: Art, Culture, Photography
Tags: photographic self portraiture > photography > Rosey Lakos

Comments

2 Responses to “The Evolution of a Photographer Pt 4”

Jennine
March 5th, 2010 @ 8:05 PM

I like, “You are not done with her yet.” You aren’t and that is wonderful. Because we get to see more, you get to experience and dig and create more. I am excited by what you will find. Thank you again for sharing. Yummy stuff.
loves,
j
Justine
March 8th, 2010 @ 8:46 AM

My husband has always like the image of me as an old lady (pardon the vernacular). It’s sweet. I don’t get asked to dress like a tart but more like a repressed housewife of the 1940′s.

I really miss my Grandma Gerry, the “Merry Widow”. After raising and feeding kids, grandparents and the occasional hobo, for decades she did escape that life. She was the first female President of the Santa Barbara Senior Citizens Center. She was a swing dancer, every night she could.

A tall vertical escalator, at a Stateline Nevada casino, was her eventual undoing. We had some good times before she started to fade away. She looked almost translucent before she went out, with a story that has to make you laugh. She swallowed an artificial plant leaf in the middle of the night and choked. They found her in the morning at the old folks home (again apologies for the short hand but it was called a convalescent hospital back then).

We later had a huge family reunion at a Santa Barbara beach to remember her, and Grandpa, in the good times.

House of Cat

All things artful and curious

The Evolution of a Photographer Pt 4

Comments

Categories

Recently Written

House of Cat RSS Feed

Links