Douglas D. Prince / self portrait
This portfolio has given me the opportunity to reflect on my five visits to photograph Francesca Woodman in her studio while I was at RISD, 1976-1979, where I taught Graduate and Alternative Processes classes. While I never had Francesca in a class, I came to know her as a friend and fellow artist.
Environmental portraits have long been a part of my photographic pursuits wherever I lived. I am fascinated by the ways an environment, the placement of the subject, their relationship to the objects, space and light in that space can project qualities of the personality. I made many environmental portraits of people I knew in Providence, Rhode Island, including students. I was particularly interested in photographing Francesca because her unique lifestyle was such rich visual territory and an integrated part of her art-making. Her clothing and living situation incorporated the opulence of Victorian textures coupled with the ever-present evidence of entropy. This was a genuine projection of her persona and not some "style" or device put together as a prop for her own photography.
While my first response was to resolve images of the artist in her space as single-image, straight photographs, I was also interested in making images that I could use as elements, levels in the three-dimensional photo-sculptures I was creating at the time. I did succeed in using some of these images in the production of three different photo-sculptures. A few silver prints were also made and most of these were given to Francesca as complimentary prints.
Today there is obviously a strong following of Francesca and her work. I think her photography continues to resonate with viewers because of the directness and accessibility of the iconic truths in her vision. This directness is reinforced by her casual camera and printing technique. She projects a haunting melancholy along with a playful, often sensual, acceptance of being captured by the entropy of living.
As I work on this portfolio, it is hard for me to believe that her death was thirty years ago. Her loss has been an inexorable punctuation to her career, and has influenced the public's perception of her photography. My enduring perceptions of Francesca are based on these visits to her studio and I will remember her as a youthful artist with a rare creative passion.
Douglas D. Prince, 2012
FWs 01 1976
FWs 02 1976
FWs 06 1976
FWs 08 1976
FWs 13 1976
FWs 20 1976
FWs 23 1976
FWs 24 1976
FWs 26 1976
FWs 27 1976
FWs 28 1976
FWs 29 1976
It's a bit unsettling to see her through the eyes of another person after having been familiar with her self-portraits for so many years. In afew of them she resembles her persona as she chose to project it through her own photographs (she was accustomed to posing, for sure) and in others it's a Francesca without artifice. Very interesting.
Sandy Agrafiotis
