Kitchen Table Series - Dominique Ciaffone

 On photography -

Quote 1 -“What is written about a person or an event is frankly an interpretation, as are handmade visual statements, like paintings and drawings. Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire.” 

Reaction: The idea of visuals such as pictures or paintings/ drawings only being an interpretation is refreshing to know. Pictures don’t only mean one thing, and don’t have to even make a specific “statement.” They are always up for interpretation. This just makes art seem overall more fun and interesting to me. I like that there truly aren’t any rules, and you don’t have to feel the same thing as others when looking at art. In Carrie Mae Weems kitchen table series, she photographs many different events at her kitchen table for people to create their own meaning to.  

Quote 2- “Photographs furnish evidence. Something we hear about, but doubt, seems proven when we're shown a photograph of it. In one version of its utility, the camera record incriminates.”

Reaction: This quote makes me remember that there are so many different reasons for photographs. Photographs can make you feel something, and they can also say 1000 words. They are also great at harnessing evidence, which makes them useful as well as beautiful. 

Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems’s Landmark “Kitchen Table Series”-

Quote 1- “Initially, there is the span of a romantic relationship: at first warm and intimate, then cold and wanting. Across the scenes, Weems changes roles as others join her in the room. She moves from lover to friend to mother and to herself, alone.”

Reaction: I like this quote because it is amazing to me how pictures and art can portray so many different things, all within the same theme. From being a mother, to being a lover, Weems captures the beauty, power and struggles through it all. She isn’t necessarily saying one thing, but she is surly getting her point across within her pictures. 

Quote 2- “Everyone can relate to this work,” Sann said. “It’s not just Black women; it’s white women, Asian women. Men can see the women in their lives—memories from their childhood or scenes from their marriage or their family life. It’s so universal and yet representation like this is so rare.”

Reaction: It is beautiful that Weems art was meant to target everyone, not just a specific race or gender. I think this is a big reason art is so wildly loved around the world. No matter who you are, or your race/background, art can speak to you. It has power, and doesn’t discriminate.