The Good Girl Grooms

Here's a new video.Please be advised that the audio is slightly PG-13. But I think you all can handle it. Thanks for viewing.

The Good Girl from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Gerd Ludwig: Grimm's Fairytales

A really interesting take on Grimm's fairytales. Photojournalism meets culturally imbedded stories meets modern idea of appropriation of old classics. Anna Gaskell couldn't have done it better.

Beautiful Video

Woodkid - Iron from WOODKID on Vimeo.

Here is a video my student shared with me. So beautiful. So interesting. THE LIGHTING!

Yoga Mom

Yoga Mom Sketch from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

This is a piece I did in collaboration with Allison Pugh, a mother and Yogi from Des Moines, Ia. I am interested in this piece for the interaction between my subjects and myself, the conversation and the imposed gaze that my camera brings to the situation. I asked Alison to perform head stands in her home environment, a feat that takes many years of practice combined with immense physical and mental strength. This piece also speaks to the balance of body as well as the balance of motherhood As my mother always said, and my grandpa before her, "Once you have kids, you always have kids."

Thank you Allison for your hand (stand) in this piece.

Tell Me I'm Pretty

The Necklace is the Piece. The Photograph is a sketch. Looking for a better model and a better way to shoot the images of the "costume jewelry" I'm starting to create. Thinking about going 4x5. Here's a taste in the mean-time.

Things Organized Neatly

OMGOMGOMG. BEAUTIFUL. BLOG. Somewhere inside me is an organized person and she is totally in love with this blog.

Janet Reno: Commentary on her Public Image

From the Washington Post

How to Be a Lady

By Candace Simpson-Giles (Note the hyphenated name)
Published in 2001.

Some particularly interesting tidbits:

"A lady learns how she looks best when being photographed."

"A lady knows how to make others feel at ease."

"A lady graciously accepts a compliment. She does not downgrade as if she did not deserve the admiration from the other person or persons. She simply responds with, "Thank you."

"A lady knows that her posture is as important as any article of clothing on her back."

"A lady is mindful of her appearance at all times."

"A lady knows that 'please' and 'thank you' are still the magic words."

"A lady does not raise her voice when angry. It is only proper to shout at someone when he or she is in danger or about to score a touchdown."

"A lady does not lead men on."

"A lady stands up for herself and is never a doormat."

Perhaps, I've been referencing a lady all this time, not simply a "good girl." Good girls are not necessarily ladies.

Business Cards!

Front and back of one card.



Front and back of the other card.
DESIGNED BY THE BEAUTIFUL AND TALENTED ALI SABLE.
p.s. Image quality sucks b/c of me. The design is crisp and wonderful.

cHeCk HeR OuT

Portia Munson: PINK!

Interesting meditation on the color PINK. Obviously relevant to my work. My concerns with early/instantaneous gendering and the consumer products that drive color identification in young people.

Rineke Dijstra: Park Portraits

I've been familiar with Dijstra for some time. But these Park Portraits struck me more then any of her other work. And it was through these images that I started to understand her images as a whole. In my examination of these portraits, I focus on how we've been trained to present ourselves, both by our parents and by the camera. How we are poised and pose. And how children already have this sense of maturity and purpose that looks contrived or exterior to their very being.





The girl in the fairy costume is the exception. While she is the most costumed, she is also the most child-like. Letting us live in her fatally with her. Whereas the other children refer very strongly to what they will be when they grow up, or what they already are.

My Work in 75 Words or Less

My work focuses on the stereotype and performance of the Good Girl –– her training, attire, social etiquette, intimate relationships and everyday operational tactics. I explore the inter-workings of her character through documented video performances, testing the limits of her composure, examining the fragility of her cultivated appearance and ultimately asking the question –– what does it mean to be good and what does it mean to be a girl?

Baby Limb Wall Hooks

I find these to be fascinating. And Smart. And Funny.

For more crazy wall hooks, not related to dolls.

What Happened to Sally?

This is a new work, commenting on the overwhelming influence of pink in a young girls life.

Untitled Doll: March 2011 from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Sally Mann: Proud Flesh

Beautiful images exploring the aging male body. I'm particularly interested in Mann's words about looking.

Jeanette May

Interesting work on how women view men in current visual/sexual culture.

Melanie Bonajo

Really interesting Performance/Installation work. Visually beautiful as well as challenging.

Melanie Bonajo

Harvestworks: Digital Media Lab

A call for work I'll be submitting to:

End to End

This site/place has amazing resources including classes, internships and workshops. I can't wait to explore more thoroughly.

Final Product: Posturing Piece

Untitled (January 2011) from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Kristian Kozul

Thinking about her work in relationship to my dolls. Humor plus heavily used consumer objects already encoded with their specific cultural stigmas. Altering the object to rediscover the object.

Woman-Girl-Doll: The Beginnings

Woman-Girl-Doll from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Sorry about the quality. It doesn't compress well for Vimeo. I'll figure this out.

Here is the beginnings of an idea. The bare bones of the process and direction. Thoughts I'm ruminating on/around/above and below:

A.) The need to construct and deconstruct ideas of gender/femininity.
B.) Need to MAINTAIN control over performance of gender/femininity.
C.) Traditional vs. Contemporary standards of lady-like behavior.
D.) Standardization of dolls given to little girl. Who plays with dolls and what kind of women do they become. What if the dolls became the women that played with them.
E.) Do you have to rebel to be liberated? Does liberation dictate a change in appearance or only a change in mindset?
F.) The doll moves back and forth between tradition and liberation. Is she struggling? Is this reality? What does she gain through either transformation? What does she loose? Is it important that she is liberated? Is this reality?

Lilli Carre

Beautiful little illustration and moving images. Made me laugh multiple times. I also enjoyed the function and form of her website. Check it out.

Chelsea Knight

Another interesting video artist. Looking into researching her more.

Marianna Ellenburg

Interesting artist I found while browsing possible gallery/exhibitoin spaces. Her work is a combination of video/sound/photographs about the body and phamecutical drugs. Beautifully asthetisized to lure us in and engage in a critic of prescription drugs.

Take a Look.

New Piece

Here's my most recent piece. I need to adjust the audio and work with the levels in Color a bit, but otherwise I love it.

Untitled from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts

I want to do this.

Black Rock Arts Foundations

http://www.blackrockarts.org/grants

This grant organization sounds right up my ally. Interactive Community work.... I have an idea and a road trip evolving around this very subject.

Creative Capitol

http://creative-capital.org/

An excellent grant program. I will dream and drool over this opportunity until I am qualified.

Pinky Bass

I'm interested in Bass's use of embroidery, coupled with the natural photographed body. The results seem simultaneously intimate and objective, weaving the emotive throughout the scientific.

Pinky Bass

Her topic at SPE is "Can I Still Call Myself a Photographer?" And is that really important anyway?

I look forward to hearing her thoughts on this.

Thesis Proposal: First Three Paragraphs

Through this body of work, Perfect Is As Perfect Does (working title), I investigate the relationship of the individual to larger social systems. Using the form and language of well-ingrained manners, media images and expectations, and gender performance, I am interrogating the underlying structures through which we participate in the creation of our own stereotypes. The main subject of my work is the creation, perception and perpetuation of the white, American, middle class “good girl” character. I examine the conflict between the American dream of individual agency and the system of influences aiming to create and recreate stereotypes, social structures, and class expectations.

I plan to explore the character of the middle-class girl using visual themes such costuming, absurdity, formal manners, exhaustion, deterioration, rehearsal, training and futility. By pushing the limits of the “good girl’s” external perfection, I examine individual choice as well as the pressure of choice within the American class system. By placing my character in direct questioning to the system in which she operates, I am acknowledging the conflict between personal agency and systematic dominance.

The “good girl” character is one I understand from my own experience. Through researching my upbringing—what I watched on television, read in books and magazines, and listened to on my personal CD player—I elaborate upon and critique the stereotype I embody. I explore the contemporary definition of the “good girl” through themes such as “Reviving Ophelia” and “Girl Power,” which emphasize both individualization and individual choice in young women while also recognizing the media systems and upbringings that create those same stereotypes. I draw upon public education, religion, media, language, and social structures, as well as the morals and ethics created by those chosen and reproduced environments.

Posture Practice

Posturing Rough Draft from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.

This piece is a very rough draft of ideas I'm beginning to work on. I'm interested in ideas of posture and it's relationship to feminine definitions of beauty. In the past, women stood for lengths of time with a book on their head practicing the "art" of standing up straight. Presumable for the lofty goal of getting a husband... and emphasizing boobage. Modern society considers these tactics outdated, perhaps even barbaric. Although the methods may have moved on, the desires and implications have not.

For further exploration of this idea I'll be looking into the trendy practice of yoga. What started out as an underground hippie counter-culture past time (and before that, an ancient asian art practiced by tiny little religious men) has now become a status symbols for fit soccer moms and career women everywhere.

"Where did you get those rockin' biceps? Your ass is so tight, for your age...."
"Well I do yoga 5 times a week. It's better then sleeping, better then eating. I feel whole and centered. I feel like I can conquer the world."

The benefits of yoga are nothing to wiggle your jelly roll at. I've seen the fruitful miracles of many dedicated middle age women and their daughters... but how are those "miracles" the same or different then then patience and tranquility instilled in young girls when they were training to be house wives?

Do a head stand to have excellent posture. Lift your leg over your head for flexibility... and better sex. Hold that strength pose longer, for powerful (slimmer) thighs and weight control. Go out in the world and hold you head high. You do yoga and you'll "turn out well."

Final Four Minute Version of the Jump Rope Video

Untitled from Whitney Warne on Vimeo.