The Art of the Personal Project: Deanna Dikeman

The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist: Deanna Dikeman

Relative Moments, a series I began in 1986, chronicles ordinary moments of my extended family’s activities. I am interested in the significance of the commonplace routine of their lives—the personal moments that define for each of us a sense of home, security, and belonging. I began by photographing my parents’ home in Iowa. It was a personal documentary effort, starting when my parents sold the house we lived in when I was a child. They moved, and subsequently I realized that their new house was now home. So, I took pictures of that. My scope expanded as I started taking pictures of my aunts and uncles and their houses and yards. After my son was born, he appeared in the images too. Although the project started out as nostalgia and documentation, I discovered that the pictures comment on more: a glimpse into an intimate detail of an everyday world that otherwise might go unnoticed. This project captures a visual history of one family’s life, yet I feel there is an ongoing narrative embedded in these photographs that conveys larger, more universal truths about American culture, familiarity, and the endless source of everyday wonder that surrounds us.

To see more of this project, click here

To purchase the book “Relative Moments” click here

And is endorsed by Vanity Fair purchase through Amazon link

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NOTE:  I featured Deanna “Leaving and Waving” in 2022 on this forum.  It found its way recently on to an Instagram reel and went viral on TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

She was recently featured on CBS Nightly News and Inside Edition.  This is why personal projects are so important.

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world.  She has been involved in the photography and illustration advertising and in-house corporate industry for decades.  After establishing the art-buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999.  Follow her on Instagram