59, 57, 55, 53, 51 by Summer '07 contender Liz Kuball .
To kick off the review of the Summer 2007 Hey, Hot Shot! entries, I've been looking at the work of Southern California-based contender Liz Kuball. Liz, who was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in suburban Michigan, writes that her photography "explores the excesses and deficits, hunger and satiety, loneliness and community in urban and suburban living."
Whilst roaming about her dedicated photoblog, I ended up traveling to the website of a collaborative project she participates in (along with many other jb artists) called A Field Guide to the North American Family. The project is both a published novella, written by jb friend Garth Risk Hallberg, that features photographic contributions from a list of artists including Kuball, herself. The work can also be viewed on the website under different tags associated with North American family life, like adolescence or boredom. This project aptly fits Kuball's work, which is filled with questions of suburbia that pertain to the North American family.
Looking at her photos, I am reminded of growing up in Los Angeles, a city of suburban culture built into urban sprawl. Her photos explore the concept of "storage space"--alloted plots of land or closets that we claim as our own in order to ensure a place for the maudlin junk we cannot bear to throw out, yet have no sensible place for in our daily lives and homes.
Between 1985 and 2007, the square footage of self-storage facilities in the United States grew 740 percent, and driving the freeways of Southern California, this growth is evident. This incredible expansion has been spurred by Americans' accumulation of things, gluttony of the material form. As I drove by storage facilities, I started thinking about what was behind those garage doors and padlocks. It occurred to me that the warehouses weren't full of meaningless "stuff"—they were the repository for all kinds of memories that people weren't willing to part with. Old furniture inherited from the recently deceased. Boxes of old love letters. Books and LPs and photographs. In this ongoing project, I look for the beauty in these places, imagining what's behind closed doors.
Well, that's it for today's featured contestant. All the rest of you better start jumping the gun, because the earlier you apply the better chance you have of getting some sweet words laid on you right here at the Hot Shot blog by yours truly. Enter now!