Sadie Benning

Today I've been swept away by memories of a couple of films that I saw when in art school. Sometimes you only have to see something once and the impression is just left in your mind to influence you artistically forever! Today I wanted to share the work of the wonderful Sadie Benning(click the camera for video clips). Was the first one I ever saw 'A Place called Lovely'? or maybe 'Girl Power'? The youngest artist ever to be included in the Whitney Biennial, at age 19, she had already been creating fantastic videos since her father gave her a toy Pixel Vision Fisher Price camera at age 15. (The Whitney Biennial just opened for the year, btw, so if you are looking for a person to go with, gimme a call!)
Anyway, back to the camera... The fisher price Pixel Vision recorded very low distorted quality black and white movies on AUDIO CASETTE TAPES!!! It's lack of quality made it an instant flop to consumers and a favorite of artists. Now these cameras are very hard to find and usually need to be specially rigged to be compatible with standard equipment. But I'm already begging my husband to give me the okay to add one to my wishlist! The effects are so amazing!!! Somewhat similar to a Super 8 camera but even more raggedy.

Sadie Benning was born only a few years before me, but when I saw her work in college, she became an instant pop legend in my heart. One of the biggest ways she influenced me was through her use of text... She liked to use still frames of her own handwriting, like snapshots of lines of her own poetry. The use of her own handwriting gave such a nice energy and flavor to each piece. She would allow the camera to shake and scroll across the words (see the examples in the links above)...

Sadie used her camera to make visual diaries about being a teenager, her angst, lesbianism, humor, love of punk music, and relationship to her parents. She eventually incorporated rough animation, bits of live action, and moved on to use a Super 8 camera. (Usually this camera is not thought of as an 'evolution' for most folks, hah!) Sometimes Sadie's most eloquent moments are when she simply points the camera at her face. When I saw her films as a freshman in Susan Anker's art appreciation class I felt an intense jealousy of her mind and wanted to swap minds with her to steal a little bit of her genius!!! Her talent was so raw and unhampered. I feel like my true feelings are so untapped, always kept so safe under lock and key, maybe I can blame my mom for raising us six sisters to be like Victorian little ladies and always making 20 varieties of tea available at breakfast???

It is with deep regret that I say I will probably never get to watch all her videos, they are squirreled away by Video Data Bank and you have to be with an organization to order them... maybe someday when I am a teacher? It's a plan!

This movie is ABOUT sadie benning, created after her style: very informative...