| The photographs in my “Double Duty” series started as key events and characters from my fantasy life as a child, representing the expression of emotional attachments that are still publicly unacceptable. The scale places the viewer eye to eye with these 12-inch dolls in a believable human environment. These large-scale photographs are not a representation of reality. Rather, they are inspired by times in my childhood when I escaped into a fantasy world of dolls. When my circumstances were difficult, my imagination wrested me away from whatever hardship I was enduring and placed me on the doll’s level. |  |
John Trobaugh
The photographs in my “Double Duty” series started as key events and characters from my fantasy life as a child, representing the expression of emotional attachments that are still publicly unacceptable. The scale places the viewer eye to eye with these 12-inch dolls in a believable human environment.
These large-scale photographs are not a representation of reality. Rather, they are inspired by times in my childhood when I escaped into a fantasy world of dolls. When my circumstances were difficult, my imagination wrested me away from whatever hardship I was enduring and placed me on the doll’s level. I let no one in on my secrets, of abuse or play, yet other kids and family sensed my vulnerability. Using these memories of both childhood fantasy and reality childhood, I began the body of work titled, “Double Duty.”
These Polaroid images evolved from a series of experiments in which I photographed dolls in real-world settings and then digitally removed manufacturing imperfections, such as plastic seams. Printed on 40 by 30 inch chromogenic paper and mounted to Plexiglas, these precursor images captured the ambiguity and emotion of my childhood memories, but were limited in impact because of scale.
After working with the Polaroid 20 by 24 inch camera through the Society of Photographic Education regional conference at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, I realized that this large-format camera offered perhaps the opportunity to evoke the full power of my memories with life-size doll images. I traveled to New York in 2004 to work at the Polaroid Studio, and the results were not disappointing.
The idea for this set of images began when I imagined what a “Hunt Club” would be like in my childhood fantasy world. The series of images with the dolls are called “Double Duty,” but this particular set of Polaroid images is the “Hunt Club.” Most of the images incorporate my paintings as a backdrop. I paint 5 by 6 foot canvases with memories of favorite landscapes as a guide. They are more expressions of emotions than they are true landscapes. These paintings are big and wild and will never be shown, except as backdrops because they are so raw.
Like the images, the titles are layered with meaning. I want the titles to add to the image, but none of these images actually need a title to understand the content. Often the title is a way to add levity to a tough subject. These images straddle the fence between pubic and private, causing one to question preconceived notions about male relationships.
Richard Meyer, Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Southern California, stated that this work “challenges a common concept of masculinity, not because of any graphic depiction of sexuality,” but because they overlay ordinary scenes and ordinary-looking men with a suggestion of homoeroticism.
The censoring of my work from a faculty exhibition served to illustrate this point because administrators “loved” the images, yet the president of the college removed the whole series. People ask why would I want to show my work in the South anyway? I was raised here, the fantasy world was created here, and the images are made or based in the South. Why shouldn’t the South see what the South created? I wish I could get curators, who love the work, to take a risk.
