Openings Connecting: camera as a tool to avoid "REAL PAINTING"

Friday, June 19, 2009

camera as a tool to avoid "REAL PAINTING"

WHAT WAS I THINKING?
"Plein aire?"..wasn't thinking. drawn to the idea of floating around the Fetzer Institute's lovely grounds for a week with lovely lunches served at one's leisure. i did manage a couple of little postcard sized images with my oil sticks...which i will pick up today. and had plenty of weather! and some good demonstrations. and lots of angst over my inexperience.
aw. another lifetime. i'm just a photo junkie and dis-co fan right at the moment, at least!!

5 comments:

Caterina GiglioJune 19, 2009 at 5:53 AM
Neva! your photos are brilliant! sorry the plein aire was not all that you thought or didn't think it would be! I think you might wanna eliminate the word, "just" from your vocabulary!! your pix are visually chewy!!
ReplyDelete
Replies
Leslie Avon MillerJune 19, 2009 at 7:06 AM
I know how it is, but really - just keep painting. A lot. Paint, paint, paint. Its all good.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Renee HowellJune 21, 2009 at 10:20 AM
nice pics (Jaye agrees). Photo junkie and dis-co fan - me, too. I also enjoy smearing paint - not a paint brush in site!
ReplyDelete
Replies
nancy neva gaglianoJune 21, 2009 at 10:59 AM
VLL, and extended virtual-support-group!! no more whining, i-am what i-am!! happy lightest day of all!!
ReplyDelete
Replies
Not the early birdJune 24, 2009 at 3:07 PM
Gorgeous pictures. Light and details are exquisite! Painting with light! Kathie
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

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.