Sewing Experimentation for final piece-Melissa Zexter...

Melissa Zexter was born in Rhode Island, but currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a BFA in photography from the Rhode Island school of design and an MFA in photography from New York University. She works a lot with mixed media and incorporates textiles into her own pieces of work.

I chose to look at her work as part of my Personal Investigation as I wanted to do a similar thing with sewing into my images of my families old formal photographs. The reason behind this is to illustrate the idea of 'family ties' throughout the photo album, rather than them just being plain black and white images. I also wanted to incorporate some texture throughout the album and bring a story behind my own family photos. The thread will show how the family is portrayed in the photograph as being close through blood and genetics which ties each family member together. It will also illustrate a sense of a story line from one image to the next as they are all following on from each other through the sewing. 

This is a mock up of what my final piece will look like. I will sew into each of the old family photos to symbolise the idea of 'family ties'. I am presenting these photographs into an old family album as I want this side of my final piece to depict the formality of family life and how when portrait photography wasn't as accessible families would store the unrealistic versions of their family within a family album, which despite being personal, is a staged and strategic representations of themselves as well as family life.

This presentation will contrast with the presentation of the 'through the doorway' series which portrays the family in a candid and realistic view, which presents them as they are behind the view of old fashioned photography and without their knowledge of a photo being taken.