I am currently in the process of constructing my fifth and final box. I’ve been agonizing over the conceptualization and just a couple nights ago I finally started putting things into the box and making real decisions about it. I’m not sure why, but this has been the most difficult project so far. Perhaps it’s because there is more pressure for a final piece, but I just can’t let myself worry about that because it’s been hindering my process.
For this box, my focus was more on aesthetic choices than a very specific idea that I wanted to capture. The placement and inclusion or exclusion of objects and photographs was guided more so by instinct than logical reasoning. My hope is that this box is unique and yet fits into the aesthetic and nostalgic quality of the five pieces as a set.
The very first thing I did to start the process of this box was to go on a hike (in the pouring 
rain) and collect materials from nature that appealed to me visually and that I thought could be used in the construction. It was also nice to be out in nature; I thought about Anthony’s project and how many of our projects have turned out to be interconnected. After that I spent time sketching and just trying to visualize how I wanted this assemblage to look. Second, I went in search of the perfect box and fortunately I found something very interesting at the flea market. My next step was to look through the supplies I have at home including old negatives and found objects and pick out the ones that resonated as “back yard” to me.
Going to the darkroom, like always, was another important step. I ended up printing six different photographs and in the end I’m only using one is my assemblage. Since we didn’t have critique this week, I thought I would include those extra photographs in this blog post. I also printed a photo of my mom just as an experiment. I found this photo of her when she was probably five years old (in her childhood yard) on 35mm film, but it was a positive image, so I thought I would take it to the darkroom and see how it looked printed in negative, just for fun.
On Tuesday night I layed out a table of everything I was considering using in my box and just started trying different compositions and made some real progress.
I’m excited for our final class and to hear what everyone thinks and to see all the work that our class has produced over the quarter. We’re almost done! I’m going to miss our little domestic group…