"I Can If I Want To" by Arnold Lazarus Ph.D and Allen Fay M.D.
What makes you tick, what floats your boat? What do artists look at for inspiration? I asked L.A. artist Alyse Emdur to toss over a few images that rock her boat, and she sent me five zingers. Her current project examines portrait photography studios in American prisons. She’s interested in how scenes of landscapes and cityscapes are used as backdrops for photographs of inmates. Currently, she is working on a book, Prison Landscapes (Four Corners Books, 2012), that includes both portraits made in prison studios and photographs she made of backdrops in the visiting rooms. Alyse draws inspiration from images and ideas that humanize political struggle through self-empowerment; here are some of the ones she shared:
"The Great Escape Race IV, Jackson Prison" by incarcerated photographer David Wells, 1983.
"Self- Examination by Jean Raisler" from The New Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women. Updated and Expanded for the 90's.
"Ohio Valley 1971- 1972" by Chauncey Hare from Protest Photographs.
"I.V.A.W. 2006 You Can't Return Fire on an I.E.D" by Michael Patterson Carver from Free Speech Zone.
