Photographic "art"

At the torture-filled local school I went to for grades seven, eight, and nine, the Industrial Arts and Home Economics programs were organized so that every grade seven student took two units of IA and two units of Home Ec. In this way, I earned credits for cooking things I could cook with my eyes closed and for sewing a stuffed animal. In this way, I also reinforced that my career would not involve engines, tools, or anything vaguely mechanical or manual.

This is my final submission for the darkroom rotation in IA 1. We also made carvings on blocks of linoleum, printed posters using a very simple letterpress, turned a tin can into a Barbie chair, and turned a wine bottle into a giant long-stemmed glass. These objects have long since met the landfill, but the photographic evidence of my darkroom incompetence remains.

To be fair to myself, I should observe that it's not the darkroom processes that went wrong. (The green streak is an artifact of scanning.) The assignment was to assemble a simple image using our choices from a box filled with interesting bits of metal. My wobbly owl is a fine concept; the hurried execution remains an artistic issue, however.

I enjoyed the darkroom work. I also remember that while I was doing this task, some of the boys I was friendly with were obsessed with Bob and Doug McKenzie and the Great White North. So perhaps some of the owl's wobbliness is the inanimate object's effort to escape from excessive exhortations to "Take off, eh."

Grade seven in a nutshell. Not sure about the infinite space, but bad dreams? Check.