Idea Blog for 08/27

Forgetting I, 20x39", Digital Photo, Kerry McDonnell, 04/2008

I began photographing my siblings upon my parent’s separation as a way of coping with the situation. I found that photographing and participating with my siblings throwing paper planes was a release for me as well as for them. I saw those pictures as a way of letting go of stress and anxiety; to realize everything will sort itself out if you let it.

I continued with this idea into our Concepts class. I wanted to share with everyone my anxieties about the effects of the divorce on my siblings and to prove the emotional release that can be had by throwing a paper plane. However, it progressed into something completely different. With the absence of my father, I ended up photographing the new “family identity” and what each of our responsibilities and relationships with one another was like, integrated within the suffocating atmosphere of my home of 20 years.

Untitled I & II, Digital Photograph, Kerry McDonnell, 12/2008

Ultimately, my final concept was the juxtaposition of the new family identity and the general absence of my father, with the old family identity. I ended up taking pictures of my family and things in my house, printing them on 5x7s, and scattering them around areas of/near my home and taking a picture of that scene. The areas that I scattered the 5x7s are places that my siblings and I used to play in when we were younger. I had 3 different locations for the 2^nd part of my project, the pictures from which I made large, mounted prints.

The absence of my father in those images was obvious. However, with the final presentation, along with my large prints, I decided to include a photo album of the 5x7s that sat on top of a side table that my dad made for me. I wanted the final presentation to reinforce my father’s separation from us by only having the side table serve as a metaphor for the person that should still be a part of my family.

Last semester I continued my work with my siblings for my Locations final, but instead of focusing on family issues and my siblings’ responses, I wanted these to be more light-hearted and hopeful. I wanted to show the other side of my sibling’s personalities. Like other children, my brother and sister and I would make forts and play dress-up with anything we had at hand. For this assignment, I photographed Michael and Hayley taking on roles that they would as children. I had them dress up in available clothing, sheets, costumes, etc., as well as interact with available props. I wanted to capture a childish innocence in the two of them that is seldom seen around home nowadays.

An Orange and A Blue (3), Series, Digital Photograph, Kerry McDonnell, 04/2009

So, for the past year and a half I have been focusing on my parents’ divorce and its effect on my siblings. I have documented them as hopeful, nostalgic, as well as their true, uninhibited selves. I’ve reached the point where I feel like this subject matter has been exhausted. It’s time to stop ignoring the inevitable. For the next year I plan to turn my focus onto how my parents’ relationship is affecting me.

The lack of communication between my parents and how openly and immaturely they’re handling the divorce has severely taken its toll on me. My mother and father both are not ones to express their thoughts and emotions subtly. Their sarcastic and snide remarks about each other and the family are what I’ve had to endure for the past 2 years. However, over this summer it has become undeniably intrusive. Unlike my parents, I am not one to convey my emotions and thoughts openly. I’ve had to stifle too many outbursts for the sake of sparing myself, my siblings and my parents from more embarrassment and distress to the point where I have become incessantly anxious, compulsive, paranoid, and irritable.

For this project I plan to use moths as a metaphor for these frantic, fluttering things I continuously have to keep in check. The message I hope to communicate is that these behaviors are both internal and external. They overwhelm me and escape into my surroundings and affect my friends, family and my general perception.

I have recently learned that my dad has OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder), the signs of which are the behaviors I’ve listed above. In turn, the moths will serve as my fear of becoming like my father as well as a constant reminder of him. Ultimately, I will use this project as a way of defeating these sudden behaviors as well as to overcome my fear of becoming like my dad.