Openings Connecting: in response to La Serena's ten thousand miles

Monday, March 9, 2009

in response to La Serena's ten thousand miles

for La Serena

that phrase:
"ten thousand miles away"
brings a familiar feeling to me.

it's the same feeling in the
wind howling tonight
as it carries
the long, low whistle
of a train to my window.

it's taking sleepy travelers
away,
or back again.

someone like you might be on it..
someone leaving the rhythm
of their heart
ten thousand miles away.

someone like you
having a heart
wide enough to open
in more than one way.
more than one place.

touch the milagro you brought back.
inhale the lilacness of that memory.

1 comment:

Renee HowellMarch 9, 2009 at 5:02 PM
OH - such a nice photo memory! Thanks. just the right touch of gentle and peace.
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FOUR DIRECTIONS/FOUR VISIONS: Two Graces: First showing for me, JUNE 3, 2011

With no directions home, I found Taos in the late 60s. It felt like home immediately. It still does. I know this sentiment is familiar to countless others.

The mountain stopped me in my tracks, and I stayed for several years. Since that time, I circle back annually.

To me, that circle is symbolic of this body of work at Two Graces. This is a time in my life when I've been fortunate enough to experiment with art making. Not surprisingly, I found myself drawn back to the images in the Ektachrome slides that I'd taken in the early 80s of Chaco Canyon, the San Francisco de Asis Church, dusty roads, and the ever changing skies of Northern New Mexico. The spirit of this adobed land lingers in my core and manifests itself within these works.

This past Michigan winter was spent creating enlarged negatives from my thirty year old slides, pulling part of my past into the present via today's tools of scanner and computer. Using traditional silver-gelatin darkroom processes, these resurrected and modified negatives acquired a new life. The majority of these prints are the result of this mediated reincarnation.

The smaller images took me into photographic processes from the mid-1800s. These handmade platinum/palladium prints are created coating vellum, for translucency, with these metal salts and exposing them to ultraviolet light. They are then bathed in the alchemy of the darkroom. The tonal qualities are unique in each print. Finally, 24k gold is layered to the backs of the prints, emanating the warmth, glow, and depth of these beloved places.