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Artist Statement

In my video essay, “Here’s The Story” – I have created a memoiristic/ autobiographical piece that explores the man I am today, and everyday, based upon the influence of television on my childhood and teen years. I had to overcome a strange fear in conceiving this project – for the longest time I’ve been trepidatious about admitting to people that The Brady Bunch changed my life. But it did. And there’s really nothing to be ashamed about that. In doing this project, I got to know myself better, and in reliving the passions of my early youth, I can now see myself from a certain vantage that I was not priviliged to prior. In the video essay, I use a combination of photos from my childhood and teen years, cultural photos from particular television shows, original photos taken for the project, and personal art pieces that I feel adequately accompany portions of the video. In terms of a structural motif, I chose to incorporate popular and anachronistic elements from classic sitcoms into my video; laugh tracks, vintage scene transitions, and lighthearted mood music are used to make my video essay resemble, in part, a typical episode of The Brady Bunch.

Artist Bio

Vince Ynzunza was born and raised in Washington State – although he lived in NYC once. Someday he’ll go back there. But right now, he’s looking forward to graduating from The Evergreen State College.

Vince’s artistic passions include kitsch pop culture, tiki symbols, totalitarian aesthetics, Warhol, bad nail polish, Lisa Frank, antique furniture, and a pedophile’s garage sale. He enjoys the culture of a city but prefers the wisdom of the country.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Artist Statement

In my video essay, “Here’s The Story” – I have created a memoiristic/ autobiographical piece that explores the man I am today, and everyday, based upon the influence of television on my childhood and teen years. I had to overcome a strange fear in conceiving this project – for the longest time I’ve been trepidatious about admitting to people that The Brady Bunch changed my life. But it did. And there’s really nothing to be ashamed about that. In doing this project, I got to know myself better, and in reliving the passions of my early youth, I can now see myself from a certain vantage that I was not priviliged to prior. In the video essay, I use a combination of photos from my childhood and teen years, cultural photos from particular television shows, original photos taken for the project, and personal art pieces that I feel adequately accompany portions of the video. In terms of a structural motif, I chose to incorporate popular and anachronistic elements from classic sitcoms into my video; laugh tracks, vintage scene transitions, and lighthearted mood music are used to make my video essay resemble, in part, a typical episode of The Brady Bunch.

Artist Bio

Vince Ynzunza was born and raised in Washington State – although he lived in NYC once. Someday he’ll go back there. But right now, he’s looking forward to graduating from The Evergreen State College.

Vince’s artistic passions include kitsch pop culture, tiki symbols, totalitarian aesthetics, Warhol, bad nail polish, Lisa Frank, antique furniture, and a pedophile’s garage sale. He enjoys the culture of a city but prefers the wisdom of the country.

Artist Statement

In this video essay I set out to speak to a very specific audience: Michael Williams. This is a private conversation set in a public forum. While the subject matter may be personal, I hope that the emotional gravity of everything I am trying to convey reaches this public audience.

A little less than two years ago, my adopted older brother removed himself from my life because he disagreed with a life choice of mine, but not before disrespecting me and everyone I love. He is still nearby, and is still talks to my sister. But he and I have not spoken since our one and only fight, two years ago. This letter contains a small percentage of all of the things I would like to say to him.

My audio is a personal essay, braided with improvised memories. All of the pictures, with one exception were taken at my house, with the help of my partner Derek Trygstad. The final picture is of my brother in our home in Ocean Shores thirteen years ago. He was sixteen in that photo, and fourteen when we met him. By that time he had lost most of his family; many of them were drug related deaths. I wish I had more time to tell you about his life, I have used it to justify his actions for many years. I think about him every single day.

Artist Bio

Mariah Gerth is from Ocean Shores, Wa. She is a sophomore at The Evergreen State College. She has taken several writing, literature, and film classes at Evergreen, as well as writing a column in her high school district’s newsletter and interning at the local television station. She hopes to work in documentary films or television in Seattle after she graduates from Evergreen.

FACES OF THE DAY

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Our intention with this project was to examine the changes in our personalities as we progress through the everyday. We felt that people act differently when they are at home at night from how they act during the day. To capture this, we each wrote three free-form poems with themes of day, afternoon, and night. We also each tried to capture aspects of our everyday through photography, then mixed and matched photos in editing. Through combining the pieces we felt as though we gained insight on the collective everyday experience of others.

Our video essay depicts the progression of our day and how our perspective identity changes as morning moves to night. We decided to portray this progression through the genre of free-form poetry. We felt this would give us enough freedom of expression for the ambiguous nature of our topic. The most challenging aspect of the project for us was the overlapping process of taking our photos and crafting a script. Our efforts came to fruition in editing, which was the most rewarding aspect of the project for us.

 “Awareness of the divine begins with wonder. It is the result of what man does with his higher incomprehension. The greatest hindrance to such awareness is our adjustment to conventional notions, to mental clichés. Wonder or radical amazement, the state of maladjustment to words and notions, is therefore a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of that which is.” 

(From Abraham Heschel’s God in Search of Man)