Laura Shipley
A response to Michael Martone
Process Notes
I was intrigued by the sense of withholding in Martone’s piece. I liked the visual of the sky writing—a private message that is displayed very publically. If you had witnessed the written word but did not know who it was for or why, you would be completely in the dark about its meaning. Martone puts the reader in a similar position by giving them the story without revealing the message. I was inspired to make a piece that had a similar feeling. In my piece you are looking very closely at someone who is looking at something hidden from view. It is a record, but an incomplete one that answers no questions. By placing the image at a lake and naming the figure M I was interested in creating a fictitious archive which places Martone himself as a witness to his own creation while also implying a new narrative in which he is a character.
Responses to Michael Martone's Work
Laura Shipley
Lara Shipley is from rural Missouri and currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas. She is an artist who primarily makes work about people and their relationships with the out-of-the-way places they call home. Her work has recently been exhibited at Project Basho in Philadelphia, The Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, the John Sommers Gallery in Albuquerque, the University of Arizona Art Museum in Tucson and in a solo show at Northlight Gallery in Phoenix. Lara’s photographs have been published in newspapers and magazines such as The British Journal of Photography, Slate, Ain’t Bad, The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, La Nacion in Costa Rica, GOOD, and Fraction. She was a photography producer for National Geographic and a freelance photographer in Washington D.C. She received a Masters of Fine Art in photography from Arizona State University. She currently teaches photography at the University of Kansas.