Untitled II

I may have found a sudden burst of inspiration.

Untitled I

I quit smoking. I exercise almost too much.  I whiten my teeth.
I don't make art anymore.
What is wrong with me?

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. 


-Sylvia Plath

June 22, 2011

"Naturally I do, but as I have already proven to you, I make mistakes like the next man.  In fact, being-forgive me-rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."-Albus Dumbledore

Milwaukee Art Museum

 Georgia O'Keefe, Pelvis I

 Robert Motherwell, Two Figures with Stripe

 Roy Lichtenstein, Crying Girl

 Chuck Close, Nancy

 Duane Hanson, Janitor

 Alfred Stieglitz, The City of Ambition

 Kees Van Dongen, Woman with Cat

Nicholas de Stael, Flowers

Some of my favorites from the Milwaukee Art Museum, which I visited last week while I was in town for a wedding.  I'm sorry for the lack of updating, I'm going to try to get back in the habit again.  My creativity and motivation has been severely lacking.

Day 39.

, originally uploaded by Madilyn Peiper.

Jen Plaskowitz

Jen Plaskowitz is a MICA alum, and reminds me greatly of Francesca Woodman.  I wish I could have met her, but she was studying abroad in Italy when I was last at MICA. All of the above images are printed with silver gelatin, which is another teasing reminder that I have been away from the dark room for entirely too long. On second thought, maybe the FW similarity goes hand in hand with Italy.

Stefano Marchionini

Stefano Marchionini is proving that capturing existence is sometimes more necessary than being conceptually alert.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Just brushing up on a photographic legend.

Day 29

, originally uploaded by Madilyn Peiper.

"Tangle/Struggle"

"Tangle/Struggle", originally uploaded by Madilyn Peiper.

Day 24.

Robert Mapplethorpe

I can vividly recall, my tender fascination of Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith at the age of 15.  I would sit at round library tables, and surround myself with photography books, then rush home to download music from the origins of punk rock.  Oh, adolescence.

Adam Ekberg

Adam Ekberg is part of the new breed of sculptor photographers; a new genre I find to be very inspiring.  The sculptural elements within his photographs breathe such an overwhelming air of loneliness.

Toto Frima

In today's language, Toto Frima could be considered the original Katie West.  She is a master of " the outspoken self image", and is a legend within the world of Polaroid instant film.

At a Loss

, originally uploaded by Madilyn Peiper.

Laura Bell

Laura Bell's photographs have a tangible quality, that so many others are lacking in this tragic digital age.

Kelli Connell

Kelli Connell shoot self portraits with film, and then scans and manipulates the images using photoshop. The result are these fantastically beautiful, and astonishingly intimates images.  Oh, the art of learning one's self.