The end of Miss November

Sadness is sinking in. I am not ready to take Miss November off. In fact, I have been feeling anxious for the past hour knowing that going to bed is inevitable. I keep telling myself that change is good, but what I am learning about myself is that I would prefer to resist change.

On the upside, I am happy to know that I stuck it out a month wearing the same dress. I thought it would be hard, but I think as long as I continue to take this project one day at a time and moment to moment I will get through it.

I took the final pictures of us...Us, yes, us, two personalities. I leave in this dress part of my personality. What part? I am not sure...it feels so disconnected and yet connected, pulled together by thread. I wonder if I will feel this way at the end of every dress cycle? Just as it was getting good and comfortable it is time to switch.

Photography has been on my mind. I received my B.A. From The University of Chicago in visual arts withal concentration in photography. As a result you would think i would have nailed down my documentation strategy by now. However, I have not and I am beginning to think that this might be ok. As I have reorganized my images and really spent time looking at myself and the dress and the juxtaposition of the dress against my environments, I have been going back to look at photographic portraits. Specifically, I have been looking at Cindy Sherman, Anna Mendiata, Francesca Woodman, Dawaud Bey, Mark Seliger, and Roni Horn. I have really gone back to look at the composition, lighting, and "snapshot" quality of some of these photographer's work. I am drawn to the immediacy of the point and shoot digital camera. Impulse impulse impulse. It is easy,and instantly gratifying. I know that each of these dresses will eventually be professionally photographed for my portfolio, but i feel the images I have been posting are adequate for documentation, and blog documentation. I am thinking of the format of documenting objects in a persons life via social media like Facebook or Twitter or Blog spots etc. They are usually snapshots, snippets into a life, a point of view of how the person who hosts the site sees themselves, or really how they want people to see them. I guess it is all about self promotion and self perception. So I am utilizing these methods form my own documentation. Does that mean certain things get censored or edited? Maybe, and maybe more so unconsciously.

Following this post will be a whole bunch of images. Some of them are starting to mimic the styles of other documentary style images. I find it interesting as in hope the readers of this blog will too.

So for now, I will say goodnight and thank Miss November for a fantastic and wild first month. I wasn't expecting to feel the difficulty of moving on to the next dress, but it's here, like a lump in my throat. Nancy Reddin Keinholz once told me that when a work of art is finished, it must be able to live in the world without me. It kind of reminds me of child rearing; you have to let out the apron strings further and further until it's time to cut them loose. Miss
November, I may not be ready, but you are.