Openings Connecting: ARCH distraction

Sunday, January 1, 2012

a new cycle: the arch and the year

MY Arch

My 'roadside' attraction, my arch,

hadn't been visited by me in some time

Being the first day of our new year

I felt it was time.

A short drive, really.

No texting while driving

but 'shooting' the road

was a must.

documenting

often my forte'

Cold rain, with an occasional snowflake,

gave the weathered basketweaving

a certain sheen in the dreariness.

I wondered if my camera would be

all right in this wetness as I pondered:

Nature has its way of deepening thoughts,

of warding away concerns and time.

The arch pulls me in.

It stands tall through the years.

Grasses were not cut in front of it.

I wondered if the road crews had ever

considered cutting it away.

Should I inquire?

Fate can't always be trusted.

There are a few older posts of this arch in different seasons from the last couple of years. Enter 'arch' in the search box, or click on the titles in the Labels box right below this.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

NOT Another Roadside Attraction

May Day Manifestations got me out with the camera to check on the winter arch, posted MARCH:ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION.
After watching this curving vine all winter, usually with deep snow mounding around it, I photographed it and then, coincidentally, saw a very similiar one at our art institute the next day, but made of steel links! alas, the dualing arches.

Soooooooo, i thought i'd check to see if it had begun to SPROUT, to MANIFEST itself for our mayday.....and it had. BUT, as i started to drive away, this circular ORB caught my eye on the other side of the road. it was surrounded by open space. ORBedBARBedWIRE. it won't be disintegrated any time soon, but i will keep a watch on it to see if it somehow disappears some other way!

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.