Erase Background
Exploring a simple image editing feature while holding the awareness of its conceptual weight
What am I missing or ignoring about what is in the background?
This is a question that I am regularly asking myself. I want to be aware of my privilege and all the ways that my white bodied lineage has been woven. Awareness and knowledge inform any and all intentional gestures going forward.
I know that ancestors on my Fathers side, from England and before that the Netherlands, benefited from a cheap land purchase in which the indigenous peoples stewardship and identities were marginalized and ignored. This same ancestral thread reveals that two slaves were gifted, received and used before freed but not after the tragic loss of two of their children after a long day of seasonal labor.
I know that ancestors on my Mothers side were preachers who traveled and took care of their flock while also moving Westward, taking advantage of cheap land and wide open spaces. Colonizers, farmers and tradespeople. My grandfather learned the jewelry trade from an uncle. My mother was great at unknotting delicate links of any necklace while her brother was a beautiful engraver.
There are artists and alcoholics and world travelers. Some paralyzed by depression, neurodivergence and social norms. Others with heads down, doing the work.
My inheritance is an understanding of what care is and, what compassion is and how I use the awareness of the complexities of my lineage is woven into my gestures of art making and empathy.
When I am exploring the capacities of a green screened I am thinking about how it facilitates erasure while also supporting a fictional secondary narrative.
Pictured:
Top - A screen shot grid of self portraits taken with a 10 second timer. I am incredibly fond of the moments captured while not entirely sure I am in the frame or in focus. I am holding/carrying sweet pea vines grown from seed, planted my my garden, admired, nurtured. The focus is upon the plant material, not the artist/gardener. Their tendrils more important than my arms.
Bottom - I enjoy learning something new. If I am erasing the background I want to know why and I want to explore how. The blur inserted in the background is from moments with lower light and a wider shutter.
Below - The blur background is eerily familiar to me. After my father died in 1994 many of his possessions were passed to me. Sorting his slide collection there were a few blurry scenes I fell in love with. The shutter clicking inadvertently while visiting the Chicago Botanical Gardens. I used the slides to learn how to format an image and then use the large format digital printers. It hangs in the room adjacent to my sun porch studio. The toes hanging image beside it is a drawing made by my son, his grandson who he met only briefly.
I am always holding and excavating hidden narratives, poetic objects and an interest in learning something new.
What is the weight of your holding and caring? What are you making that gives you the grace of time and space to better understand the complexities?
What is hidden in the green screen?