Openings Connecting: January 2011

Saturday, January 22, 2011

What WOULD we do without WOOD?

WOOD, to celebrate

WOOD, to honor

WOOD, to last

to shelter

to protect

to love

to share

to withstand weather

for 'reflections'

'warming us'

to carry us

for creating

comfort and beauty

for latillas, a rainbow ceiling for dreaming

WOOD...to ponder

   to remind, represent

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

2011 SPARE PARTS, SKETCHBOOK PROJECT...finished my way!

DISCLAIMER: having to let go of preconceived notions w/ the 'fear of drawing' ever present,
'sketchbook' was an uneasy self-assignment. in the beginning, i loved developing the idea of SPARE
PARTS, scraps, fragments of my former attempts coming together w/purpose and this helped me
avoid 'actual drawing', which gradually warmed me to a place of comfort: i'll accept it all as process, but begin to CLAIM PAGES 45 and on....

this is being sent, one of 28,000 worldwide to the sketchbook project in brooklyn...check it out for next year
at http://www.thesketchbookproject.com/

and thanks to renee for keeping me moving on~~~~

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.