The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Today’s featured artist: Kate Woodman
Sisters
In 2018, I worked with a company to create a tutorial focused on color theory for photographers, which was sort of an exploration of how to employ color for maximum visual and emotional impact in an image. “Sisters” was the culminating series created for the tutorial, designed to showcase how color could be used effectively in set design, wardrobe and post processing to help tell a story.
In the process of coming up with ideas for this shoot, location scouting and sorting out the curriculum for this course, I really started to think hard about ideas and art that has continually interested and influenced me over the years; and two things that I always find myself coming back to are first, this infatuation with relationships—the varying dynamics therein, how they manifest and play out in different ways—and second, Americana and American culture—particularly from the vernacular perspective.
So when I think about these sort of themes, I start to think about artists like Normal Rockwell or Edward Hopper, or Andrew Wyeth, who are really sort of the champions of Americana art, and have spent their artistic careers portraying the beauty in the vernacular American life. Particularly, having grown up in the Northeast, I have found myself more and more drawn to the work of Rockwell, and his vignettes of every day scenes—nothing monumental, just ordinary people in the moment. Growing up visiting my grandparent’s house when I was little, they had a magnet on their fridge of Rockwell’s “Girl At Mirror”; and I remember becoming so enamored with this girl, dressing up as her—braided hair, nightgown and all—and would recreate this scene regularly.
Rockwell’s gift was in his ability to both immortalize and humanize the past, which, as an artist and a historian, is something that resonates deeply with me. For this series, I wanted to pay homage to these great Americana artists, while infusing some of my own experiences as a sister and daughter. Shot on a goose farm in rural Missouri, this series explores a day in the life of two sisters and their mother, capturing vignettes of their interactions—those humanizing moments of play, tenderness and bonding. Its set, styled and color graded in an early 20th century fashion, but these relationship dynamics are meant to transcend any specific time period.
To see more of this project, click here
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
