Back Porch (left),” along with its counterpart ” Back Porch (right),” appears to be a version of ” Backyard (Original) ” edited for presentation as double projection, in which the left and right portions of the film would be presented side by side simultaneously. In the film, JoAnn Elam documents the gardens, neighbors, and views
This 8mm home movie from the JoAnn Elam Collection shows Elam gardening outside her home in Chicago around 1984 and captures Elam’s interest in gardening, farming, and nature in general. The relationship of the film to ” Ice Lakes – Garden 1 ’84 ” (F.2011-01-0104) and ” 84 Garden 2 ” (F.2011-01-0103) remains unclear, though
Through a series of pans around what appears to Elam’s Logan Square backyard (a frequent locale in her work), “Winter Garden” meticulously records a fresh blanket of snow. The virgin snow fragilely lies as the camera skims atop recording dead plants and planks of wood that poke through. The majority of pans remains slow;however, as
“Garden ’82” studies what appears to be Elam’s Logan Square backyard, a locale frequently used in Elam’s work. The footage focuses on the space of the garden: sequencing together various vantage of the garden-the camera either fixed or panning steadily and slowly and concluding by taking note of the garden’s vegetation at an eye level
Following a garden’s progression from dormant to hospitable,”Armitage & Western” utilizes sharp cuts to communicate the passage of time and to record the toiling of hunched-over women whose hard work fostered such transformation. Elam concludes the piece with a car parallel-parking in the background, visual focus placed on a blossomed flower in the foreground.
Elam’s “Janssen Porch/Garden ’79” opens bewilderingly focused on wavering tree branches. Panning away, the camera, from high a vantage, notes the environment, e.g. neighboring buildings and the garden below (this is seemingly the same Logan Square garden that frequents Elam’s work). The camera, focusing on blossoming flowers and vegetables, descends to the garden and proceeds
“Back Porch” surveys a backyard, seemingly the same yard depicted in Elam’s ” Backyard (Original) ” and ” Back Porch.” This particular rendering distinguishes itself for the patience the camera exercises as it spatially defines the porch: nearly the entirety of the first three minutes catalogs the ground, walls, and ceiling of the structure. As
“Back Porch” surveys a backyard, seemingly the same yard depicted in Elam’s ” Backyard (Original) ” and ” Back Porch.” This particular rendering distinguishes itself from other pieces under Elam’s “Back Porch” mantle due to its focus on the view from the porch and the yard’s content, opposed to the point of perspective, itself (as
Summer flowers, Maine.