Remember: Sept. 27th is picture day!

I've been collecting school pictures for a long time and am still figuring out what I like about them and how they are a part of my artist practice. I spent the morning today scanning them in to my computer and photo-shopping them together-- an incredible amount of struggle and an arduous confrontation with a steep learning curve. So what can I say about these? I like the faces, I like the collective experience of getting ones picture taken, I'm humored by my memory of that experience and appreciate the formal repetition of shape and size of the actual objects. I like that they are made to fit in wallets, in your hand or pocket, as a bookmark. I like their precarious balance of being a product of both uniformity and personality. I once saw an awful movie called Palindromes in which the main character is played by 7 different actors and actresses-- a precursor to that new Bob Dylan movie, perhaps. I think that casting of those movies was driven by the same reason I am interested in these pictures-- I am not literally in these photos but part of me relates to each one. We're united by our all having grown up, having changed in a changing world, and each of us have many identities.