Art Encounters - Field Report 1

Stephen Shore takes a month-long trip across America to document historical places of America.  He went all the way from New York to the west coast.  He kept a journal of very specific things including what he ate and places that he stayed, the gas he bought for his car, which was actually around forty three cents a gallon around that time.  He stated that he wanted it to be a collection of facts with no subjective writing whatsoever.  More people are involved with his piece than they were back in 1973.  He also never visualized his work as a publication but instead as an artwork.  He believed there was something about the war ending which made people travel to America.  From an early age Stephen was always interested in photography, he taught himself how to take photographs with meaning.  At age nine he made his first color photographs.  At age fourteen he sold three of his works to a curator of a museum.  Stephen's work also proved that a color photograph, like a painting in black or white could be considered a work of art.  When he was twenty four he was the second living person to have a solo exhibition.  I believe his work can relate to our lecture and discussions in more ways than one.  One way is how he expresses his beliefs through a creative artwork, just by taking pictures around the country.  It seems everything we've studied so far, including the films in the lecture, has been different and creative just like Stephen Shore's work.  Things like expressing their ideas through sometimes horrifying videos with no sound or odd sounds.