This is Moira. She was created when I had an assignment to make an image with the theme of “Lines” in one of my art groups called Wisconsin Visual Artists - Southeast Chapter. I wandered around my house looking for things with lines for inspiration. I saw my black and white striped shirt hanging in my closet, and a black and white necklace with matching earrings in my jewelry drawer. In the dining room I found the black striped dessert plates and serving bowls from the a set of stoneware we received as a wedding gift. I had a floppy sun hat from Goodwill that I could darken to black. I grabbed a large magnifying glass from my desk (not really thinking of a purpose but just in case). An idea was beginning to form in my head of a woman like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
I played around with setting up what I had gathered so far on the dining room table’s white tablecloth. I found that inverting the serving bowls and putting a dessert plate on top of each one made an interesting shape. I circled that with dessert plates. I put the magnifying glass on top with no real reason yet. Just a why-the-heck-not kind of thing.
I set up studio lights and my camera on a tripod between them. Dressed in my outfit and armed with the camera remote, I started posing while clicking the shutter. Occasionally I’d hop up and check what I had. Hmmm, my hands need a different position…hmmmm, they still look odd…what if I hid them and let the lines take over, odd but ok. Each time I hopped up to check, there was something not right. My eyes, my hat, my shirt, some glare. Change this, oh that’s good but can I do it just like that again when I sit down? Up down up down up down. I needed an assistant!
Side Note: I was still very belligerent back then about doing it all myself without help in order for the photograph to be considered my work. I had yet to learn that many famous photographers have a staff! Isn’t that cheating?
Once I had the pose I wanted (37 shots later), I got busy with the post-production work in Photoshop. Online I found a black striped ball that I copied and repeated on top of the plates, tipping it and resizing it. I found a herringbone fabric sample to put behind me as a backdrop. I painted in shadows and tweaked all the blacks, whites and contrasts to be the same.
By now I liked the magnifying glass there but there was glare on the glass. I took one more pose with no studio lights that caused the original glare, simply to grab the glass inside the ring that distorted the stripes of my shirt, and dropped it in the final image.
I called her Moira as a take on the "moiré effect".
Side Note #2: Susan Cadkin, an artist friend of mine, makes 3D collages from discarded photograph prints and other sources. I gave her a print of Moira that had some mistakes in it and she made this striking piece called “The Crooked House” (a political statement on the corruption in politics).
I love Moira and I love The Crooked House. Happy Thanksgiving!