Francis Schanberger: Photographing, Photographed

Wrapped in Plastic (the great saffron experiment III)

2012-01-25T08:52:00.000-08:00

This will be a bit of a strange detour for me. Doll clothes. Somehow in my search for sleepwear, a bathrobe for a Ken doll came up. That led me to pajamas for Ken which in turn led me to Barbie's Nightie Negligee. Despite the oddness of working with doll clothes, it did solve a couple of problems.

Scale. Making tests that would fit into smaller printing frames. Now I can try different plant materials on smaller sheets of paper before committing to a larger sized sheet of paper able to fit adult sized sleepwear.

Light Resist: The Nightie Negligee is interesting because of its transparency and opacity. It has distinct lines and a sheerness that will allow light to be held back or to freely pass depending upon the layers and folds of the garment. In other words, I don't have to cut it up.

: Paper with Ten Coats of Saffron and Barbie Nightie Negligee

: Print Frame, Anthotype with Light Resist, Wrapped in Plastic

The exposure begins today, overcast and twenty eight degrees Fahrenheit. The Anthotype (ten coats of saffron emulsion) should be safe from the elements. I've wrapped it in a plastic bag to protect it from the elements. There will be two more of these "tests". One will be the other half of the Nightie Negligee and the other Ken's Pajamas. One possible direction for this project might be homemade Ken and Barbie sleepwear. I need to sleep on it.

Regarding the title of the post, yes it is a nod to the name of the official Twin Peaks Fan Club newsletter.

the great saffron experiment, part II

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday and today I have been coating the saffron emulsion onto Fabriano Artistico Hot Press Extra White.

: zero, one, and two coats

: zero, two, and four coats

: zero, three, and five coats

: zero, four, and six coats

Some notes:

The emulsion was brushed on with a foam brush. Keep the brush as perpendicular to the paper as possible and don't apply too much pressure on the paper surface. The more coats applied, the more likely the nap of the paper will get pulled up.
The color is becoming more concentrated around the center of the paper. I believe this is because this is where I pour the emulsion on (about 6 cc per coat) before brushing outwards.
I will probably go through the entire 100 cc of emulsion I made on two sheets of 12" x 15" paper (and stop there).

the great saffron experiment, part I

2012-01-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

Today I began the Great Saffron Experiment. It will be great if it works.
My intent is to use saffron as an anthotype emulsion. This afternoon was primarily preparing the liquid which will be applied to paper as multiple coats to build up the color.
Below are pictures of the process.

: dried saffron

: saffron with hot water

: saffron with hot water, mortar, pestle and tea kettle

: regrinding the saffron before adding more hot water

: cloudy saffron suspension

As best as I can remember:

I used about two teaspoons worth of saffron. A little goes a long way.
Added hot water little by little, mortar and pestling (I hope that is the verb) the saffron leaves as they absorbed water.
Pulled off the liquid from round one of crushing the saffron in hot water using a transfer pipette. Filtered it through the mesh filter. I had about 70 cc of liquid at this point.
Re-pestled the saffron. At this point it was effectively a saffron poultice.
Added more liquid. Continued to mortar and pestle.
Pulled off the additional liquid and filtered it through the mesh filter.
Just as an additional experiment, I added a few cc's of Everclear (alcohol) to the remaining poultice to see if I could leach out a little more color. It helped a little but probably added to the cloudiness of the collected liquid.

From the pictures you should notice that I strained the hot liquid through a piece of a gold mesh coffee filter. The collected liquid did have a suspension which was too fine for the coffee filter but it did settle down to the bottom of the glass jar after a few minutes.

untitled (flattened cone)

2012-01-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

A new semester is approaching which may not leave much time for posting blog entries. Maybe. In the meantime here is the second of the new vandyke brown prints, "Untitled (Flattened Cone)".

specialist secrets

2012-01-11T11:43:00.000-08:00

untitled (cruciform), 16" x 20", vandyke brown print, 2012

Specialist secrets is a term I came across in reading a review of Thomas Struth's exhibition in Portugal (or was the review referring to a showing in Dusseldorf?). Is a term that stuck in my mind and I want to title a piece after it or a create a piece specifically for it. After a couple of days of sun and a suddenly cooperative NuArc plateburner, I have a couple of new pieces to push out into the world. Now the winter rain is back and I am finding myself with a weak but noticeable bout of season affective disorder (self diagnosis).

What are the secrets of this specialist? I am having better luck working without toning the vandyke brown prints (at least for the moment). It is easier working with the NuArc 261K than it is with natural sunlight for exposing the kallitypes. It is more romantic to work with sunlight (think Fox Talbot's Reading Establishment). The Forces of Nature images can be broken down into leaves, fruit, pollen, bark and roots. The bulk of these images are leaves followed by fruiting bodies.

and one more secret: I want to make anthotypes with very yellow tumeric.

Mr. California (from December 28th, 2011)

2012-01-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

I posted this from my iPhone on December 28th (the wordpress blog). Since this blog is the archive...

I’m currently visiting family with Bridgette in Dexter, N.M. This part of the country got over a foot of snow in time for Christmas. I’ve brought the pinhole cameras to photograph the pecan and cottonwood trees but I’ve been slowed down by a stiff lower back and lack of cold weather clothing i.e. gloves.

The images and posts will mostly be from an iPhone and are meant to be visual notes without a specific future project in mind.

Here’s example photographed earlier today. This a detail of a logo from a vintage box used to ship California oranges and repurposed to contain a present for Bridgette’s parents.

Anthotypists in the New Year (Part I)

2012-01-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

Here’s a snapshot of the larger framed anthotype that will be exhibited at Fort Hayes in Columbus as part of ImageOhio 12 organized by Roy G Biv.

Anthotypists in the New Year part II

2012-01-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

Yes, part II is being published before part I. I never claimed to be organized.

Malin Fabbi's book, Anthotypes – Explore the darkroom in your garden and make photographs using plants, has been published. This is a book that I was able to proof read and offer suggestions. Additionally, two of the pre-Boston Anthotypes included the faded and rained upon Clem Wolford Pajama Top in pokeberry (p. 83, 85), are included within the book.

Here's a link to the Amazon page (and my review): http://www.amazon.com/Anthotypes-Explore-darkroom-garden-photographs/dp/1466261005/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1325687752&sr=8-3
and the AlternativePhotography.com web page: http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/processes/anthotypes/anthotypes

Pecans and Pinholes

2011-12-30T11:22:00.001-08:00

This morning I got out on a walk to the row of pecan trees I have been photographing for the past three winters. Not exactly a morning constitutional, yet. It's about a mile and a half from the bunk house to this stretch of pecans.

I was passed by about four vehicles on the way to the trees; these were tractors, semi-tractor trailers, and maybe a passenger car. The first pickup truck to stop to check on me was driven by my father and law who asked if I wanted a ride. I got a sense that no one walks in Dexter, NM.

I photographed all fifteen of the original pecans. There are several rows of younger trees. I am interested in the original row because these were older trees that were pruned back and moved from another location. They are strange looking, almost Seussian in appearance and the first thing I truly recognize when Bridgette and I pull into her home town.

The photograph below shows the Holga 120WPC photographing the third pecan tree to the south. I'll be back out there with more film on Saturday and Sunday to photograph the rest in pinhole fashion.

framed fugitive

2011-12-20T19:43:00.000-08:00

Here is the cut grass sleeping dress anthotype, made during the summer in Boston and framed for the Roy G Biv ImageOhio 12 next month in Columbus.

The Color of Meat

2011-12-18T22:11:00.000-08:00

Early this year I thought I had reached a point...a point of no more making presents (at least gifting photographs I have made). Our trip back to San Diego two years ago netted a beautiful shot glass with metric measurements on it (useful in alternative processes) and a plastic bag from the butcher section of Keils grocery store. The plastic bag has a chart depicting the cuts of beef and where they come from on the steer (or is it a cow?).

My in-laws are New Mexico ranchers and Bridgette knew this would someday rightfully take its place as a Christmas present. This year it has. Printed in the gum bichromate process in flame red and carmine red gouache for pigment (on Fabriano Artistico Extra White Hot Press). The PVA size I used didn't prevent staining so the highlights took on a bit of a pink color. But as Bridgette remarked, it is very much the color of meat.

the pinholes

2011-12-16T23:40:00.000-08:00

Just a quick image of what I have been working with. Scanned negatives to follow.

in between Ranchita and Anza Borrego

2011-12-12T21:03:00.000-08:00

There are still a few minutes for archive Monday. Here is a palladium contact print from my San Diego days. Ranchita a few thousand feet above the Anza Borrego desert floor with my tripod from about 1996. Taken with a Rolleiflex Automat and repackaged HP5.

Illusion and Chemistry

2011-12-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

I have work in an exhibition of alternative processes organized by the Kiernan gallery and juried by Christopher James. The exhibition is scheduled to run from January 10th - February 4th. There is also an online version of the exhibit you can see at http://kiernangallery.com/3/Image.asp?ImageID=1402035&full=1&apid=1&gpid=1&ipid=1&AKey=8JMSW35S.

The exhibit consists of work from Tyler Suppha-Atthasitt, K.K. DePaul, Diana Bloomfield, Ronald Cowie, Emma Powell, Sarah Nesbitt, Susan de Witt, Scott Barnes, Edie Fogel, Michelle Rogers Pritzil, Liz Lee, Geoffrey Agrons, Ivan Bernal Palli, Aspen Hochhalter, Dominic Turner, Rheana Gardner, Peter M. Lindstrom, Andréa Brächer, S. Gayle Stevens, Lindsey Beal, Jenny Brown, Robert Alexander Williams, Timothy McCoy, Paul-Jude Guillaume, Jessica Somers, Michele Cole, Kaltes Klares Wasser, Jasmine Swope, Paul Karabinis, Dan Herrera, Karen Divine, Ryan Shelley & Elizabeth Herrmann, Molly Rapp, Clive Heritage-Tilley, Kristen Kay Thoen, Iciar Bravo, Marydorsey Wanless, John Shuptrine, Sally Ayre, Missa Coffman, K.K. DePaul, Patrick McNelis, Erin McGuire, Kate Shelley, Genevieve Neal, Genevieve Neal, Annie Hogan, Ig Mata, Donna Moore as well as University of Dayton alumnus Christine Zuercher (a former student of mine).

The gallery is located at 23B West Washington St., Lexington, VA 24450. Please visit the Kiernan gallery website for their regular hours and holiday schedule.

the night was mostly a blur

2011-12-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

My dinner with Bridgette, Jill and Tim. Much to the annoyance of my dinner companions, last Saturday I propped a white Diana Mini on our table at Woodberry’s and commenced to make long, time exposures while we ate and drank. There are two images by Tim Castlen and the rest are mine except for the last one which is also by Tim.

By Tim Castlen…

The rest of these should be by me but the night was a bit of a blur. Maybe everyone at the table collaborated on this.

One more by Tim.

picture(s) from "Transferred"

2011-11-30T14:16:00.000-08:00

Only two pictures to report from Transferred which ended it's run at the Torpedo Factory last weekend. All photographs by Tim Castlen.

That's me pointed to evidence I have a cat. To the left, Sacred Heart and to the right, Apple. Below is an image by Michele Cole's palladium print Stir.

Jane Reece vs. Dr. Frangst

2011-11-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

In the battle for supremacy, who will win? Will it be Ohio’s most famous pictorialist after Clarence White, Jane Reece? Or will it be Francis Schanberger adopting the guise of Dr. Frangst? Please visit the next exhibition by the Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors, “Past, Present and Future” to find out.

Ragweed Look-up by Francis Schanberger (left) and Children in Costume by Jane Reece (right)

gum over second layers

2011-11-23T11:02:00.000-08:00

Here are the next layers, ugly as they may be. I was searching for a cadmium orange to go on top of the cyanotype layer and not finding any mixed up something hideous. I also neglected to smooth out the brushed on emulsion creating the paint brush streaks. Maybe the students will like them but I don't.


Second layer of pink made using the black color separation with a five minute exposure.

Ugly orange red mix like Venetian Red on top of the cyanotype layer. Exposed for five minutes using the magenta separation.

gum over

2011-11-22T17:17:00.000-08:00

For the alternative processes class, a gum bichromate demonstration. The digital photo is from my wedding day (a walk before the ceremony) in San Patricio, New Mexico six years ago. The first print is a single layer of pink using a magenta color separation negative exposed for five minutes. The second print is cyanotype layer lightly exposed in the NuArc First Light for 15 minutes using a black color separation negative.

five minute exposure with magenta separation

15 minute exposure of a cyanotype layer with a black separation negative

Tonight I did two more exposures / layers on top of these but I won't be able to photograph and upload them until next Monday.

three tries

2011-11-19T17:41:00.000-08:00

Right now I am trying a few different approaches to creating photographs based on the trees of Woodlawn Arboretum and Cemetery. The pinhole, eight x ten and one other technique to be unveiled later this week (it involves spray paint!).

This one feels like winter and I just may photograph the pecan trees in Dexter this way. After one roll, I am in love with the Diana Mini!

Three attempts at photographing an ash tree and sky, Sunday November 13th.

got a gun

2011-11-14T07:47:00.000-08:00

Welcome to archive Mondays. I've got a gun or more accurately a photogenic drawing of a starter pistol. It is a palladium print on Crane's stationary from about 2007.

Images from Transferred

2011-11-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

The Torpedo Factory has images up for the work being shown in Transferred: Alternative Processes in Photography. Please visit the Target Gallery website at: http://www.torpedofactory.org/galleries/target2011/Transferred_Artwork.htm.

Participating artists are: Aspen Hochhalter, Erin Woodbrey, Alison Nguyen, Michele Cole, Timothy McCoy, Alexander Larson, Jonah Calinawan, William Fenn, Emily Barnett, Gary Salazar, Paige Critcher, Marydorsey Wanless, Therese Brown, Rebecca Sexton Larson, Scott K. Murphy, Angela Kidd, Alice O'Neill, Elizabeth Janis Sweeney, Lindsey Beal, Barbara Johnson and the two represenatives from Ohio, Tracey Longley-Cook and myself.

Painting

2011-11-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

It's time to make the switch from photography to painting!

Since ruby and amber lith are in short supply I took another route. Today I worked with red gouache in an attempt to create a red mask for a vandyke brown experiment involving an offset positive and negative of the Japanese Pear. I will post the (possibly fugly) results in a few days. Photo courtesy of Jenny Watercutter.

maybe number 102?

2011-11-09T05:40:00.000-08:00

"Apple" and "Don't Take This Personally" will both be included in the Ohio Art League's Annual Fall Juried exhibition. The juror this year is Liz Maugans, co-founder and Managing Director of Zygote Press, Inc. The exhibition is located at Schnormeier Gallery, 221 South Main Street, Mount Vernon, OH 43050 and will run from November 18, 2011 - January 7, 2012. The gallery is located on the campus of Mount Vernon Nazarene University. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, December 2, 6 - 9 p.m.

Maybe this is number 102?. The Ohio Art League began their juried exhibitions around 1910 and recently had their 100th anniversary Fall Juried exhibition in 2009.

making the laboratory romantic

2011-11-07T06:56:00.000-08:00

Going from an undergraduate degree in science (biochemistry) to an MFA (emphasis in photography and digital imaging), I often look back to how I became interested in science and what made me change careers. In explaining my initial attraction to the sciences I recall images from NASA's unmanned missions like Voyager and Viking, drawings of blood cells in a National Geographic, and an image of Marie Curie in her lab.

In the summer of 1999 I attended one of the Museum of Photographic Arts workshop lectures. Susan Kae Grant was the artist and in her talk she alluded to a record of Marie and Pierre Curie returning to their Paris lab at night and seeing a lavender glow on work surfaces in the darkened room. Photographs like the one above are probably a strong influence in my early staged images of Dr. Frangst.

Today is the 144th anniversary of her birth (she's about sixty years younger than her countryman Frederic Chopin). Madam Curie, thank you for making he lab space romantic.

a cosmological bent

2011-11-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest work print in the Forces of Nature series. So far this year I have created prints of an apple, which was one of handful Bridgette used for a drawing assignment, and a pluot, which I found in the cafeteria of Emmanuel College this past summer. This is a Japanese Pear, pyrus pyrifolia, which I spotted in the produce section of Dorothy Lane Market here in Dayton. All three have a cosmological bent to the image. My hope is that they are just as likely to reference stellar nurseries as they are the specific products of trees.

tree bark, take two, seeing what's on the ground glass

2011-11-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, for the first time in three years, I broke out the 8x10 camera. I gave myself a problem by loaning the 120 WPC (Holga) to a student and I found myself in need of continuing on with the new chapter in the Forces of Nature project, tree barks with shadows of leaves falling on them.

Here are the first two sheets of film processed on Monday. I feel like the lens is too long of a focal length which means finding a shutter for an old Goerz wide angle I have in my basement. However, it was nice to be using the view camera again, setting up the tripod and seeing what is on the ground glass.

I imagine the work being printed on a paper like Kozo, perhaps a toned Kallitype that ends up a neutral black. Here is what the cropped version may look like.

Book Cover

2011-10-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

I just returned from Boston fulfilling the last requirement for the summer residency, namely a presentation and workshop. There is a lot to process but it came at the end of a very busy seven days and the quiet time that followed was so welcomed.

Some of the art documentation work I do never gets much attention outside of applications for grants or faculty reviews. This morning I got an email from Ohio State University Professor Suzanne Silver that an image I took of one of her drawings will grace the cover of Michael Swartz' book, The Signifying Creator, and will include a photo credit. I love her drawings and look forward to continue photographing her work in the future.

Michael Swartz book cover of a drawing by Suzanne Silver.

Transferred at Fotoweek DC

2011-10-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

Target gallery, part of the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virgina will be exhibiting two prints from Forces of Nature along with work by Tracy Longley-Cook during the month of November as part of the exhibition Transferred: Alternative Processes in Photography. The exhibition, juried by Regina DeLuise, will open on November 5th and run through December 4th.

The exhibition is part of FotoWeek DC and a reception is planned for November 10th, from 6-8pm which includes a talk by Ms. DeLuise.

substitute distillation for abstraction

2011-10-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

The glow of summer is in the rear view mirror and it's finally cooling down here in southwestern Ohio. The Miami valley is probably about three weeks away from the trees of winter which means I don't have time to re-do the film developing mini disaster from nine days ago. The pinhole chapter of Forces of Nature has been pushed back slightly due to a rust in the water supply problem which struck the photography lab. I've been developing film on the occasional Saturday and decided to expose and develop four rolls of film on the same day. The same day the rust decided to show up.

To get to the point, the wash water for the film was full of rust which stuck to the emulsion. Too much to try and spot out in Photoshop. The film will have to be re-shot on the appropriate day that has directional, late afternoon sunlight. Bark, sunlight, and leaf shadows will make an occasional appearance in these images. I just need to figure out the optimum camera subject distance when photographing with the Holga 120WPC.

some secret notes to myself from last nights Lightbourne lecture at the Cincinnati Museum of Art:
Leo Rubinfien, Arbus, Sander, Sontag, photographs saying nothing and showing too much. People looking into the camera and away from the camera, color photographs influencing black and white. Most importantly, substitute "distillation" for "abstraction" when discussing camera based images. Writers of prose speak better about their photographs then photographers who leave the writing to the wordsmiths. At least from a sampling of one speaker.

happy anniversary baby!

2011-10-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago today I went on my first date with Bridgette Bogle. Happy anniversary darling!

color blind and home is where the studio is

2011-10-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

Last night I was able to re-photograph the red rose petal anthotype of Somnambulist #6 which is the only one I did on the back of Kozo Unryu paper. This one will also have the title of Blue Blouse although it is not blue in the anthotype and it isn't really rose petal red once it interacts with the paper.

Lot's going on in the home is where the studio is. I modified the Holga 120WPC which hopefully will eliminate the vignetting which was randomly cropping up. In the Woodland Cemetery I spotted some amazing tree fungi which will make it's way into the tree bark pinholes. I learned how to identify a new tree (for me), the sassafras, which is one of the first trees to change color in the cemetery. I may have also settled on a method / process to print these images. More on that later.

barking up the wrong tree

2011-10-02T21:20:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree. This work is very new and very early into the process. I still haven't determined scale and printing method yet. The only thing I know is I want it to be about texture and I want it to be these long, eastern landscape type rectangles. Hopefully I can take a handful of these to Boston at the end of the month.

PRC Auction

2011-09-30T07:08:00.000-07:00

While I was in Boston, I joined the Photographic Resource Center and took advantage of one of their monthly portfolio reviews. Glenn Ruga, the director of the PRC was the reviewer in July and he suggested I submit a piece for the annual auction. It's almost time for the auction and PRC has put every piece by every artist participating on line. Two Mushrooms with Eye is my contribution and can be found here at the auction website. The auction date is Saturday, Oct. 15 and doors for the live auction open at 5:30 pm. The exhibition and auction are taking place at 808 Gallery at Boston University, 808 Commonwealth Avenue,
Boston, MA 02215.

September Song

2011-09-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

Suzanne Silver's Soap House

Two days left of this month and, because it is my little obsession, hours to vote in the first round of ArtPrize. It's been a busy week which is my way of saying that I'm at a loss for time in the studio. Bridgette and I went to the Wexner Center for the Arts last Friday to see Guy Maddin's new movie Keyhole and the next day I had to photograph installation work by Suzanne Silver. Now the funny thing is that usually there aren't any happy coincidences but the Guy Maddin movie turned out to be the autobiography of a house and an installation Suzanne was working on in the Franklinton neighborhood near Columbus was in an old bare bones, abandoned house.

Things I'm am working on that need to get to the printed image stage ...the pinhole images of tree trunks to go along with the vandyke brown prints which make up the Forces of Nature and from walking projects. Additionally I have been picking pokeberries and getting some of them into emulsion form. More on that this weekend but let me say that Everclear is making a welcome appearance in the emulsion recipe. Thank you Nate Smyth for the grocery bag full of berries from your dad's backyard. It must be the mother lode of pokeweed.

the gardner in all of us

2011-09-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night I attended the Dayton Visual Arts Center annual meeting (for 2010 - 2011). The initial pull was a phone call from Patrick Mauk requesting my attendance to receive the Lombard award for apple which was the first place winner in the annual members show. These sorts of things don't happen very often for any artist and it really is due to the hard work of Bridgette Bogle that I had any work in this exhibition.

It was a chance to catch up with Tess Cortés (Netta Bits), Bruce Campbell, and Christina Pereyma who's works were also honored on Wednesday. But it was also a chance to see Jane Black one last time in her capacity of Director of Dayton Visual Arts Center. In a few months she will be co-directing the Dayton Art Institute. It was also a chance meeting with retiring Board of Trustees Secretary Anne Johnson who has an unexpected connection to an artist that I strongly admire.

During the reception following the meeting, Alice spoke admiringly of apple and then proceeded to offer me a copy of Plant Kingdoms: the Photographs of Charles Jones. It turns out her nephew in San Francisco has some of the glass plate negatives produced by this turn of the century English gardner who never exhibited his photographs in his lifetime. Her nephew is also a co-author of this book. I can't remember how I originally found this book but I believe I may have bought it in Half Price Books in Columbus. I was able to tell her that I did have a copy and that I did think that Charles Jones was an inspiration for my own approach to photography.

Now I have two tasks: Locate this book amongst my disorganized shelves and look up her nephew the next time I am in the bay area (perhaps a two week visit to the Headlands Center for the Arts).

this is only a test

2011-09-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

From last Wednesday afternoon while the alternative photo class at the University of Dayton was working with pinhole cameras I decided to try out a new one.

Lensless images will make an appearance in next fall's "Naturalists" exhibition at Dayton Visual Arts Center. Here is the starting point, a test roll with a Holga 120 WPC. I may play around with the shutter, the shape of which I believe is causing the semicircular vignette at the bottom of the frame.

domestic duties

2011-09-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

from Walking at the gallery of the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids

A day of rest would be today after all the printing, framing, more printing, painting magnets, painting push pins, more printing, cutting, transporting. ArtPrize is the last of the fall exhibitions I had on the burner. Besides preparing for classes at the University of Dayton, I have been working on the following: the Artist in Residence at Emmanuel College exhibition, the Photographic Resource Center Auction (happening soon), Texas State University San Marcos (Wild Kingdom), Bowling Green's Fresh: Ohio to the Faculty Exhibit at Sinclair College (I teach one class there) and ArtPrize 2011. It should be apparent I haven't had a day off in a while. While I do have to pick up Bridgette's work for the Rosewood gallery exhibition today, today is mostly free and I may actually get to some domestic duties.

ArtPrize, a blessing and a curse

2011-09-15T22:21:00.001-07:00

Up in Grand Rapids now to install work for ArtPrize 2011. Tomorrow, I'll shoot a pic of the trunk full of art. The "from walking" pieces are very compact and very time consuming to install.What you might call a blessing and a curse.

the faintest ink

2011-09-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here is an installation view, photographed by Bridgette Bogle, of Rose Red Pajama Pants which is on view at Sinclair Community College's Triangle Gallery. It is on view "sometimes", if one is willing to open the black curtains. This is an idea I appropriated from a traveling exhibition of William Henry Fox Talbot's Callotypes and paper negatives on view at the Museum of Photographic Arts in the late 1990's. There are hooks on either side to keep the curtains open so that viewers can step back from the work to get a proper view. In borrowing the Chinese proverb "the faintest ink is more powerful than the best memory, I will substitute fugitive or transient. Given enough time and exposure, these transient pigments will become the faintest of inks and may then be hardly better than the best memory.

sad state of disappearing

2011-09-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering, I have been caught up by the new semester and finishing up exhibition preparations for ArtPrize. I had to reprint three of the from walking pieces since they were needed for two concurrent exhibitions, one at the Greater Grand Rapids Arts Council gallery and the Ohio: Fresh exhibition. I have rethought the map pin method and will be using a slick magnet and nail head method introduced to me by Mari Lacure during the Boston residency.

On the anthotype front. I pulled out the large pokeberry pajama top with rain drips (Somnambulist #3, Clem Wolfham) and discovered it had faded badly. I suspect it might be the pokeberry pigment or its interaction with the paper. I will photograph its current state in the next few weeks.

As a response to this sad state of disappearing, I have installed black curtains over the Red Rose Pajama Pants on display at Sinclair Community College. I have to go back there tomorrow to iron out the folds in the drapes and install some hooks to allow viewers to view the piece unobstructed by the black curtains. I'll take a picture of the finished installation tomorrow. It is both censored and funerary in appearance but will visitors know they can look at it?

August Parting Shot

2011-08-31T16:08:00.000-07:00

Here are the four Dr. Frangst cyanotypes going to Bowling Green for Fresh: Ohio. Maybe there will be a return of the return of Dr. Frangst. The series has spent enough time in storage and the 8x10 Burke and James camera needs a workout. Pink ceramic skull gift of Konsuela (Konni Carpenter).

Correction: The pink skull was actually made by Kristi Bogle (sister of Konsuela).

excuses, excuses, excuses

2011-08-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

The two month residency in Boston is now in the rear view mirror and I am swamped with obligations that took a back seat to a very productive summer. I still hope to summarize the residency in an entry here before too many of the details are lost.

In the meantime, this wordpress blog is going to become a little less active as I work on the various printing, framing, and shipping tasks that have been waiting for me. In the meantime here are the excuses for my neglecting this blog

Exhibition news:

Wild Kingdom at Texas State University San Marcos School of Art and Design's Gallery I from August 24th through September 2nd. Four cyanotypes from the close-up world of dr. frangst.

Fresh: Ohio at Bowling Green State University's Willard Wankelmann Gallery from September 9th through October 7th. Three of the large scale Vandyke brown prints from from walking and four cyanotypes from the Return of Dr. Frangst.

ArtPrize 2011 at the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids gallery, 38 West Fulton from Septmeber 21st through October 9th. Selections from from walking.

Sinclair Community College Faculty Show from September 6th - October 6th with an opening reception on September 15th. One anthotype Rose Red Pajama Pants made during the summer residency in Boston. Please visit Sinclair Community College's Gallery website for more information.

video killed the alternative processes brown dwarf

2011-08-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

During the summer residency, I was able to work with Emmanuel College's Nick Pizzolato which resulted in three video shorts. Please visit http://www.vimeo.com/27244003, http://www.vimeo.com/27243664 and http://www.vimeo.com/27243001 to listen to me talk about vandyke brown prints, polaroids, and anthotypes.

Emmanuel College | Artist in Residence | Frank Schanberger from Emmanuel College on Vimeo.

It's my pants party part II

2011-08-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

Here is pants party number #2 which is an interesting creature. Part failure. Part discovery.

The yellow flowers I chose, Rudbeckia Hirta, surprised me. I had expected an image of a pair of pants in the bright yellow color of the flowers on a light ground. I got an image of pink pants with light folds and a medium density ground.The pigment faded to some degree and also changed color. There is also evidence of a negative image which is visible in the folds of the pajama pants and the less layered areas of the garment. The three areas of density are: the folds which are the least dense. The midtones which are mostly the bleached-away ground and the darkest areas which are the least layered areas of the pajama pants.

See the detail image below.

Pants Party

2011-08-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

Last night I did a bit of art documentation including a painting by Bridgette and lots of the anthotypes from the residency. Here is one of the more successful pants anthotypes made using rose petal emulsion on Arches Cover. The exposure was about 13 days (it came down on August 17th, a day before I left Boston).

male art or completion is in the eyes of the receiver

2011-08-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

Male art (I used ken doll bathrobe) or, more accurately, mail art is a fitting end to the residency. As part of an exchange with friends left back mostly in Ohio, I promised handmade postcards if they put together a mixed CD of what they were listening to. I got beautiful compilations from Dayton, Columbus and Baltimore which went a long way to making the tedious task of grinding plant pigments or meticulously washing Vandyke Brown prints more pleasant. I was at a loss for ideas. What should I send my DJ's back in return for their contribution. Initially the postcards were going to be small Vandyke Brown prints, then it became anthotypes, and then I just ran out of time and good sunny days with which to expose. Artists don't solve problems, they make them and sometimes, if they are lucky, they get someone else to solve the problem.

I sent my three collaborators a rose petal emulsion coated piece of Arches Cover covered by taped on transparency of an image appropriated from an Ebay auction. The image is a Ken doll bathrobe (in keeping with my somnambulist theme).

The mail art cards are a work in progress to be completed by the three recipients. They all need a little bit more exposure before the transparency is separated from the anthotype coated paper. Maybe another week in a sunlit window. Perhaps one or more of the three recipients will elect to not put the anthos in the window and not separate the transparency from the paper. They could be done, after all isn't completion is in the eyes of the receiver?

the grass is greener on the other anthotype

2011-08-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

Last night Bridgette and I got back into the big D (Dayton) after an art pickup detour in Columbus. It's all a blur from trying to get onto I-90 from the Fenway in Boston (my rudimentary navigating skills) to finding a motel in Bath, NY to the truck accident traffic 90 miles north of Columbus. We did get a chance today to visit the members show at DVAC on its last day. David Crowell's framing of "Apple" looked fantabulous especially the cream color of the support to which he floated the image. If I didn't say it before, I wouldn't have been in that exhibition if it hadn't been for the dogged effort of Bridgette convincing me to enter a piece, taking it to Custom Frame Services, and carting it over to DVAC (twice).

A couple of days ago I hinted at a discussion of the grass anthotypes or a least some better images of the two I made. I still need to properly light and document these pieces but below are the initial attempts at documentation. The first image is the grass emulsion brushed onto a cold press, heavy weight paper from Marco's dollar annex. I did push the exposure a bit far so it really reads as a ghost of an image, more drawing than photograph. The anthotype is of a Victorian sleeping dress.

The second grass anthotype was made by pressing wet clumps of grass (poultice) onto the paper. It is a contemporary mens' pajama top.

it's a family affair

2011-08-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, or rather today, is the last day of the residency. The four artists are scheduled for an exhibition (one day only) and reception from 4-7 pm on the fourth floor of the Administration building. I am showing five of the anthotypes including two of the grass emulsions which turned out very different from each other. I will elaborate in a post later this week, time permitting. In the meantime, here is a tease for the exhibition tomorrow: the rose and grass anthotype next to each other. Looking at all of the anthotypes on the wall, it is a family affair and they all are somnambulists.

introducing a new kallitypist

2011-08-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

first frame of Sasha Ndam's portrait session

Fewer days remain of the residency, especially studio days. Today, tomorrow, then clean up and pick up Bridgette (Bogle) from the airport. After that, except for the Emmanuel College Artist in Residence Exhibit on Tuesday, I will be a Beantown tourist.

Monday I was in assistant mode. I worked with Darien Johnson on a project in which transparencies are viewed simultaneously to deconstruct and construct the image for the viewer depending on where they stand to look.

That was early afternoon. Later that day I met up with Sasha Ndam who is a student in Cynthia Fowler's Contemporary Art and Artistic Practice class. She asked me to help her create a portrait of herself in Vandyke Brown. Except for the camera and Photoshop work Sasha chose the image and did all of the chemistry work herself. This in effect makes Sasha a new Kallitypist (vandyke brown is one of the kallitype processes). I was what could be described as her historical photographic processes consultant. In my dealing with the students in Cynthia's course, Sasha has seemed the most engaged with what the four of us artists in residence are doing (she asks good questions). Look below for an example of her work.

Partially in Print

2011-08-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

Since this blog is also an archive of my career in the arts (think scrap book) I occasionally will list articles and books in which I appear or exhibitions of which I am part (but maybe not mentioned). From last month is an article on the DVAC members exhibition titled Light reviewed by Pam Dillon (apple was mentioned) and Christopher Yates' review of the Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition 2011 (apple not mentioned but Amanda Tirey Graham, a grad school colleague, was).

http://www.daytondailynews.com/entertainment/ohio-theater-arts/imaginations-take-flight-exploring-light-theme-1219193.html

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2011/07/31/2-yates31-art-gt1dh2so-1.html

Look for a book on anthotypes by Malin Fabbri to be published soon. I may be in it if my publication permission forms make it safely to Sweden.

In case you were wondering...

2011-08-07T06:55:00.000-07:00

On my plate is the making of three postcards destined for friends who sent me a mixed tape (CD) to keep my ears happy this summer. Thank you for the tunes. I haven't forgotten my promise and that's what this entry is about...partially.

Anyone who dives whole heartily into the wonderful world of anthotypes will at some point wonder about their lifespan or more specifically, how ambient room light may affect the image. I decided to test out a fluorescent light fixture here in my studio by using the it as an exposure source for paper that has just been coated with red rose petal emulsion. I've stacked boxes on top of boxes on top of a cart directly below a ceiling light I can't shut off. The anthotype will get exposed to light around the clock, 24/7.

What is being exposed? Why the very postcards I promised at the beginning of my residency! What is the image of? Only the three people who responded to the Mixed CD request will find out. For a hint, see the picture below. Just in case this doesn't create much of an anthotype, I will also put an rose petal emulsion paper and light resist up in a south facing window in the science wing (or perhaps set up another outdoor frame). I'll know in 24 hours how practical the "stack o boxes" is going to be as an exposure method. Officially, I began the exposure at 6 pm on August 6th.

no plum puns here

2011-08-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

A little break from the anthotypes. Here is a companion Vandyke brown print for apple which I will simply title plum. Here is the back story: the fruit was rescued from the Emmanuel College cafeteria fruit bins. The freckled pattern seemed like it would be a good subject for the scanner and, eventually, the Van Dyke brown process. This is a test print (8.5 x 11) which has a strong contrast in the original which I've toned down a bit in the scan seen here. The final size will be approximately 16 x 20 inches.

Purloined and Purchased

2011-08-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

I think the hardest thing to admit to oneself is that it is OK to start over. The 8 layer purple is a case in point. I could pursue the repair of the water damage or I could gather up a 115 or so purple flowers and begin from scratch, mortar and pestle to the blossoms, and coat a new sheet of paper. Two days ago I would have been stubborn enough to keep going with the repair, and I did work on it Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Something has changed. A new love has come into my life and its name is Arches Cover, all 10 yards (by 52 inches). It was delivered about noon yesterday. Imagine me carrying it up five flights of steps with a purloined sandwich from an unattended lunch buffet cart because that’s what I did. There must be a punishment in Hades for those who steal sandwiches thinking it is part of their eccentric artist persona. If there is it must be carrying a roll of paper and a plate of food in one hand only to reach a summit, losing both and having to go back and attempt the task all over again. I got the lunch safely up the stairs, a half of a tuna sandwich on whole wheat, half a turkey and cheese on white bread, and some potato salad. The best part was that it was free.

The new paper works extremely well with the rose petal emulsion. It is buffered alkaline so it shifts the slightly acidified emulsion from red to a cooler red, almost fuschia. The density is beautiful. It looked great after two coats but then I went too far by making it a bit streaky with a third coat.
Now I want to try this new paper with the purple. Just a small sheet to start out but it would be nice to throw another purple in the window and take out the pressed on grass poultice anthotype that has been exposing for about six days. I predict a new round of gathering purple flowers is in my near future.

Chance Does Not Favor the Unprepared Anthotypist

2011-08-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

Today's report from Emmanuel College is bitter sweet (mostly bitter). I have been working with a purple flower emulsion obtained from an annual flower planted around campus (that's the sweet part; it is a really beautiful pigment) which I decided to combine with a botanical positive transparency of the actual flower. The paper I coated represents about 8 coats on a 16 x 20 sheet of paper (which used up about 100 cc of purple solution). A brief downpour while I was making green chile enchiladas for the artist dinner (my turn to cook) caused a bit of water to reach the paper inside a 16 x 20 picture frame and destroy the negative. I am attempting to recoat the paper to minimize the water marks but the negative will have to be reprinted. There was a barely visible trace of the anthotype image on the paper when I took the picture out of the frame to ascertain the amount of water damage. I am out of purple so it will have to be some of the red rose petal emulsion on top of the purple. More purple emulsion could be made but I am running out of days with which to make my exposures here in Boston.
I'll sleep on it. Pictures of the little tragedy and how my decision may have made things worse tomorrow.

Anthotypes Gone Wild

2011-08-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

windows as of August 1st

Down with the old. I will remove the yellow anthotype tomorrow. Not terribly optimistic about its success since the yellow ground has turned more orange instead of fading. Up with the new. The painted on grass emulsion with a vintage child's sleeping gown was installed at noon today. It is in the far left window, the middle yellow (pajama pants) one is at about two weeks and the right one is at two days exposure.

The painted on grass emulsion with a vintage child's sleeping gown

Green Go

2011-07-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

The wet grass poultice was directly pressed into the paper.

Here is the fourth anthotype; one of at least two made with grass pigment. This one is grass stained instead of a brushed on liquid due to the qualities of the paper. It was tedious but [I hope] it will introduce artifacts from the the hammering of the grass poultice directly onto the paper. The other grass anthotype to go in the third window (closest to the brick work in the last picture) on Tuesday will have a brushed on emulsion.

always greener on the other side

2011-07-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

You may be familiar with the expression "The Grass is Always Greener On the Other Side". Imagine a 40" x 36" sheet of paper in which the green of the grass stain is greener on one side. Imagine me in my studio wrestling with said paper. I've unintentionally created, at least as of this afternoon, an homage to Mark Rothko. Below is an image from last night.

As of a few minutes ago I think I corrected the issue. Now I just need to remove the larger chunks of grass that I don’t want in the final photogram. The rose petal anthotype came down last night. I haven’t had time to document it but take my word, after an 18 day exposure it looks fantabulous. During the class visit to my studio, Cynthia Fowler noted appearance of a family of anthotypes in the making.

Now for a little shameless self-promotion. The Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition is now open and will run until August 7th, 2011. Juror Eric Weeks has selected “Apple” for one of the three Juror’s Choice Awards in the professional division. For the complete list of award winners in both the professional and amateur divisions, please visit http://theohiostatefairfineartsexhibition.blogspot.com/2011/07/2011-award-listing.html.

Grass Green and a Fugitive Pigment

2011-07-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

They cut the grass on the Emmanuel College campus yesterday so I went into manic mode. Wet grass clippings is chance favoring the prepared studio artist.

Mainly pictures this today. After an initial success, I have been struggling with using grass as a pigment for the Anthotypes. The first one, because of the quality of paper and five coats, worked out well. This was coated days ago before the lawn mower cuttings became available (yesterday). It is just waiting for the subject to arrive in the mail which is the fodder for a future blog entry. The second and third attempts are another story. I will let the captions do the talking. Besides the green, I have a discovery to report. The rose pigment is very sensitive to ambiant light i.e. fugitive! Please see the last picture.

The first attempt at grass which worked out well due to five coats of emulsion and the quality of the paper. Note the two other anthotypes in the upper background.


The Utrecht drawing paper soaks up emulsion and shows streaks. This is actually grass poultice pressed on top of the paper. In the photo above you can see this along with the second attempt.

Red rose pigment exhibiting signs of pattern fading after two weeks exposure to room lights.

Experiments from the Garden of Roses, Part II

2011-07-27T06:58:00.001-07:00

Anthotype science. I like this kind of stuff.

The rose petal extract demonstrates a classic pH indicator color change. I wish I had a pH meter to compare my guesses but for now these estimates will have to do. I noticed that when I washed out anything that had been in contact with crushed red rose petals, it would turn the water blue which would be around pH 7. Last week when I suspected the leftover rose petal extract was oxidizing to a brown, I added a classic food preservative, citric acid, to the fresh rose petal emulsion. It went from a cool red (pink red) to a warm red (crimson). Yesterday evening I again added citric acid to the latest batch of red rose petal emulsion and saw the warm red effect. In washing out one of the beakers I created about 3oo cc of faintly blue water into which I added a pinch of citric acid. It shifted the water to a faint red before it went clear. Now the question is, what was the pH of the pinch of citric acid in water that I created? Probably pH 4-5.

In creating some green Anthotype emulsion from grass, I noticed that adding citric acid created more of a brown green or olive color and possibly contributed to flocculation. For the grass I am probably going to just use distilled water and crushed leaves (blades). As of yesterday, the sheet of paper I have coated has about 5 coats of green applied to it.

Pictures soon. Of immediate concern is tracking down some coffee this morning.

perhaps something in purple?

2011-07-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here is the second anthotype taken down from the window last Thursday. A few reviews alluded to drawing characteristics. It is a photogenic drawing (in purple). The iris petal emulsion was applied drop by drop (yes, I’m nuts) onto Kochi washi paper. Hence the pattern. The pajama was red fleece with trains and no name on it. If you have a suggestion for a title, I’m all ears.

BTW, I have been adding a dash of citric acid as a preservative to my latest flower pigment emulsions (in solution). Today I noticed that the red roses I was grinding up returned to their warm red shade with citric acid instead of the cooler red / purple with just water.

Mulberry Pigment Print

2011-07-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

This is the first anthotype to be completed at the residency. Mulberry pigment coated onto Utrecht drawing paper and exposed for 27 days (with about 5-7 cloudy days). Tentatively titled "Charles Tesconi". The yellow one is now installed in the window and appears to be fading quickly. The rose petal anthotype should be ready for unveiling next Thursday.

the opposite of instant gratification

2011-07-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Today I will budget in time to document the two anthotypes which I pulled from the window yesterday evening. For the record, the mulberry on Utrecht drawing paper was exposed for 27 days, just shy of four weeks. The iris pigment print (yes, it sounds like a confusing mixture of Iris print and archival pigment print) took 19 days.

In the meantime, I arranged the pajama bottoms on heavy weight watercolor paper coated with the Black-Eyed Susan emulsion. The yellow represents three coats of the flower emulsion (air dried between coats) on two separate sheets. First day of exposure is today as Boston gets ready to crack 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

An unveiling and the color yellow

2011-07-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and yesterday's yesterday.

I am at a loss for words but that's not unusual for me. I've had my focus on reprinting my Force of Nature images which I neglected to pack up for the trip to Boston. I managed to get twelve prints together which aren't entirely a motley crew. I met with Glenn Ruga, the director of PRC, and showed him the twelve prints as well as "Don't Take This Personally". Surface and texture came up. He found "Apple" initially perplexing and had some insight on installation of the assembled pieces that are part of "from Walking".

The next step is following up with our meeting. I don't think I can make it to the PRC's sixteenth juried exhibition "Exposure" since it overlaps my participation with the class at Emmanuel. The students are visiting the studios and its my first time with a class in the studio due to my presentation last week.

The day before yesterday I took a break from the tedious chore of printing Vandyke Browns to begin making yellow pigment from Black Eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, located around the Administration Building here at Emmanuel. The picture above shows one piece of watercolor paper (cold press, unknown maker bought at Marco's Paper's dollar annex) with one coat and a second with two coats. I will and finish this before class tomorrow so that I can install it as the fourth anthotype photogram following the take down of the older pieces in front of the class. Sort of an unveiling. I am not entirely optimistic for these two older pieces due to the paper I used. It's good to use a paper with both internal and external sizing. The paper used for these two pieces seemed to absorb the emulsion to quickly indicating lack of external size.

Expect low contrast, low "wow" images to be revealed.

darkroom (deceptively) in use

2011-07-18T11:40:00.001-07:00

It's going to get a little quiet on the blog as I feverishly work to put together a portfolio for a review on Wednesday. I think anyone at the start of a residency has romantic visions of creating new work that could not have been done anywhere else. or should I say, thought that way?

It seems like many of my manic habits are here in Boston. Reprinting things. Wrestling with humidity and the specifics qualities of the local water supply. Trying to print a specific size. Lamenting the way a printer lays down ink. Cursing myself for buying budget transparency material for printing the negatives.
The new challenge this time around: the only room I don't have key access to is the darkroom in which I print the larger vandyke browns and where I process the spent fixer. In order to prevent the campus safety from locking it (I have to walk up and down five flights of stairs to ask them to re-open it) I have resorted to deception. It has become a game of making the darkroom look like it's in use when I am in another room printing a negative or exposing a VDB, in the studio cutting down negatives or tearing sheets or working in Photoshopto get the scan into a form ready to print.

How do I deceive? Powering up a boombox that is tuned to WGBH (lots of jazz in the evenings). Turning the cylindrical darkroom door so that it looks like I have entered the darkroom. Finally, turning on the "darkroom in use sign".

Wall Power (while I’m away)

2011-07-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

Besides clearing out my old office, I managed to make some new Vandyke Brown prints before the long drive out to Boston. One of which is now in two group exhibitions. Apple is part of the Dayton Visual Arts Center’s Annual Members Exhition which has the theme Light. The exhibition opened last night and I was informed by phone that it won first place (the Lombard award) and was purchased. Perhaps this one has real “Wall Power”. Thanks to my partner in life, Bridgette Bogle, who convinced me to submit a piece (remotely) and ran the photograph over to David Crowell’s Custom Frame Services. Apple is also on display at the Fine Arts Exhibition in the 2011 Ohio State Fair.

I am sure Dayton Visual Art Center will have documentation in the near future of last nights opening. In the meantime you can see a simulacrum of Apple here.

words with dark pictures

2011-07-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

Feeling Gravity, Cyanotype, 2003

Halfway through the residency as of yesterday. I spent a good bit of the last few days preparing a talk for Cynthia Fowler's Contemporary Art and Artistic Practice class. My talk was perhaps a bit light on the Artistic Practice and heavy on "who's work I like to look at" and a survey of my own work. and it was long, at least an hour and a half without a break. In cobbling together the presentation, I rediscovered a bit of my own work and what I love about this medium. I also am kicking my self for not making the images lighter for the projector in the lecture room. I knew they were going to be too dark. Another project on the table.

and the strange green bell pepper allusion. Why did I bring that up? If you want the context "Cyanotypes are the green bell peppers of the photography world." I wonder what color the subject of Weston's Pepper No. 30 was.

Autobiography is present in some degree in all of my projects either as a documentation of where I live or a fictional construction utilizing pieces of my identity.

The Forces of Nature and from walking projects are far enough along that I can begin to see long term and more recent "concerns" in my own life that are shaping the choice of subject matter.
Finally, gravity. I may have posted this last week. If so it would be called something like grave matters. Gravity makes a recurring appearance in all of my projects. Am I too late to propose a residency on board the International Space Station?

a spectacle if you know where to look

2011-07-10T20:10:00.000-07:00


Emmanuel College Administration Building

Emmanuel College Administration Building, closer

Emmanuel College Administration Building, even closer

Emmanuel College Administration Building, closer still

Continuing with the "more pictures in the blog" strategy. I was reminded from talking with Darien Johnson about the spectacle of the act of photographing. He was being interviewed for a video documenting our residency here at Emmanuel. He was accompanied by Nick Pizzolato while he photographed outside the college for a future ceramic piece. Darien mentioned the conspicuous nature of pointing the camera at ordinary objects. His specific example was photographing a fire hydrant and thinking that the pedestrians on the sidewalk must be asking themselves why this man is photographing a fire hydrant and why is he being video taped photographing it.

The performance and act of photographing was the inspiration for "Sibling Rivalries" and it is playing a sneaky role in the pajama anthotypes. Except this time it is much more related to act of printing a photograph. Still making a photograph but over a very long period of time. How does 1/250 of a second compare with 150 hours? 1/250th of a second vs. 180,000 seconds. It's 45 million times longer.
Sneaky in that, if you know where to look, you can see everyday for the next three weeks the spectacle of making a photograph.

the third window

2011-07-09T22:57:00.000-07:00

Today's work in the studio followed a palatial dim sum brunch in Boston's China Town with the other artists in residence.

It's late and I don't think I can effectively comment on the latest anthotype. Just documentation of the work in the studio today and the utilization of the third window. Goodbye view of the grounds of Emmanuel and the skyscrapers of biomedical research. At least for three weeks or until the first finished anthotype comes down.

two examples of coated paper

The top sheet has been coated three times with rose petal emulsion. The bottom sheet has been coated just once with the same emulsion.

deconstructed garment

The garment is unsewn and cut in order to obtain of single layer of fabric for most of the object. This yields the most detail in the photogram technique I am employing for the anthotypes in this project.

placement of garment on coated paper

Strangely enough, I did place the garment in the window upside down. It was the best solution for keeping the work propped up against the glass with the 1" x 2" x 72" pieces of wood.

the contraption, studio view

What the visitor to the studio would see. It was a lot harder this time than the previous two anthotypes. I must have been taking a short cut.

I remember the first time…

2011-07-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

An overheard statement, incomplete, on my way to the rose garden behind the MFA yesterday morning, “I remember the first time…” Probably “I remember the first time I came to the rose garden” said by one gentleman, perhaps in his mid sixties to his companion. It is unlikely they will remember this day, the first time they saw someone in a public rose garden gleaning rose petals on the ground in between rain showers.

Today’s studio time was split up amongst various tasks, a video interview, cutting negatives down to print in the contact frame, tearing down paper, breaking up rose petals for their pigment, collecting the suspension, suspending blackout material around the overhead fluorescents that I can’t find the on / off switch for, coating Vandyke brown on paper, exposing VDB and putting a second coat of rose petal suspension onto the kozo paper I coated the day before yesterday. Now I have an idea of which I can’t let go. It is very possible to do multiple coats of flower pigment on this paper. The density builds up (slowly) so I should be able to layer enough coats from a yellow flower to get a strong enough of a contrast in a print. In other words, I think I can make a yellow anthotype. Might be from Black-eyed Susans or it might be from yellow roses. Check back.

Experiments from the Garden of Roses

2011-07-06T23:19:00.000-07:00

For my own notes. What follows is tedious paper + anthotype research.

I really didn't expect this to do what it did.

The anthotype emulsion, for what ever reason, is very sensitive to the paper it is applied to. The color changes in response to pH and, because the color you start out with is the color you end up with, coating issues related to internal sizing of paper are magnified. Two papers that I have tried, Utrecht drawing and the washi paper from Kochi didn't have enough size which created a problem with applying the emulsion evenly. It would soak through the paper before it could be spread out. Noticing that spilled emulsion would dry down beautifully on plastic spoons and varnished table surfaces, I decided to try something the exact opposite of an unsized paper, Yupo. This polystyrene sheet absorbs nothing. You are basically pushing around a liquid until it dries. I was hoping it would dry dark like the spilled emulsion or the emulsion left on containers and spoons.

The Yupo was extremely frustrating. It separated the larger pieces of rose pigment that had made it through the coarse filter from the liquid creating a speckled look. Where there was lots of homogenous liquid, it appeared uneven and lighter than I had hoped.

Frustrated with my attempts to let gravity pull the liquid over the surface of the Yupo, I went back to my dorm for dinner. I came back about two hours later to a lovely surprise. The emulsion had dried down darker. While it is still uneven and speckled, I am happy with the degree of color and will try once more with the Yupo, filtering the liquid through a finer mesh and perhaps applying the emulsion with a spray bottle.

A bit boring but a wonderful discovery to come back to after a day of limited success. It reminds me of the story of Marie and Pierre Curie returning to their lab at night following dinner to witness the beautiful glowing color of the room (from their research into radiation).

Gleaners of the Rose Garden

2011-07-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to work with our student assistant at Emmanuel College, Lauren Nauman. She has been working primarily with the 3-D artists of the residency, Drew Ippoliti and Darien Johnson, so today I wanted to get her out of the studio. We ended up going to the rose garden in the fens behind the Museum of Art. A bit hot to be gleaning rose petals at 12 noon, so we only spent 15 minutes there collecting what we could.

Even though I brought the camera to the rose garden, I neglected to take pictures. Blame it on the heat. In the future I will be sure to get documentation of myself or Lauren in the act of gleaning.

Returning to the studio, we began separating the freshest petals, the ones with the highest moisture content, from those a bit too dried out. Half the petals are getting the freezer treatment to break them up and create the emulsion; the other half we went about grinding up with tap water and our mortar and pestles.

South West not South

2011-07-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

The long term projects here at Emmanuel are the anthotypes. Each one will take about 3-4 weeks to expose which may be overkill. They are photograms so I am primarily going to gauge progress by the bleaching away of the ground by the sun. Without the benefit of a compass I estimated the windows were south facing. Going by google maps and the satellite images, I would guess that they are more southwest facing. Why is this even important? The anthotypes are getting a lot more exposure than is possible in my tree covered backyard in Dayton (pang of homesickness felt). This morning I got to the studio a little earlier than my usual twelve noon and noticed that the sun had not yet begun to strike the windows at 9:30 am. I went back later, closer to 11am and it looked like a good bit of sun was now on all three windows. So here is where it is important, I estimate from early evening observations that each anthotype is getting about 7 hours of exposure a day. It's now about 2 pm here and the sun is almost directly in front of the windows. Clouds and cloudy days do complicate things but I think the first anthotype may be ready to pull by the end of next week. I still haven't decided whether I want to introduce movement into the pieces. More on that later.

Two Windows on the World

2011-07-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

Danger looms ahead. My sleepwear project has descended to the level of cuteness and smallness. Children’s pajamas. Once I begin using onesies, I risk becoming the Anne Geddes of the alternative photography world. But not yet.

The unaltered pajama on top of the iris coated kozo paper

Today’s trip through the thrift store revealed a summary of consumer pop culture. Transformers, Tony the Tiger, Barbie, various Nickelodeon programs, Thomas the Train, Ariel the Mermaid as Ariel the Princess. I really don’t want to go down that road with this project. It is a little too locked into the late twentieth and early twenty first century.

pajama cut into a single layer on top of the coated paper

Two windows today, the world tomorrow. There are three of these south facing 40″ x 40″ windows on the fifth floor. Now two are occupied with anthotypes. The act of photographing and making photographs always has had a public spectacle component. A public exhibition of process.

The second anthotype waiting for some direct sunlight.

Afterwards, on the way to a late lunch (lunner), I walked past the Harvard School of Medicine Research Building along Louis Pasteur Avenue. I spotted a young woman photographing two of her friends pointing to signage on the glass windows near the entrance. I had to look. I had to see what she was photographing and how she adjusted her height to achieve the desired frame. I paid attention to the symmetrical finger gestures of her friends and their “tourists of the biomedical research world” smiles. I had to look. The act of every photograph being taken is a spectacle.

Just Don't Take This Personally

2011-06-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

Because sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand of my words and because I am too tired to edit my words, here is a snap of the completed "Don't Take This Personally".

art is not fun

2011-06-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those days. Last night was one of those nights. Too much time spent carefully cutting individual pieces. Too much time was spent pinning the work on the wall. Toward eleven I discovered that all of the careful cutting still led to problem areas where things didn't quite line up. It was one of those nights where I wish more people had been roaming the fifth floor. If someone had, they would have popped their head in the door of the studio and contributed their ideas for how I could more efficiently accomplish what I was doing.

Art is not fun. Art is tedious. Art is tiring. Most importantly, art is a time suck. Borrowing from something that Drew Ippoliti said two days ago, "Artists aren't problem solvers. They are problem creators!"

That's as close as this son of a sailor is going to get to using sailor talk. On a related note, the piece is done but no pictures. Before Darien, Drew, Mari and I go out for dinner, I should be able to properly document the piece. In the meantime, I present one of my few and far between attempts at drawing. This is a little sketch in my Rhodia pad mapping out where each of the sections should be pinned on the wall. Dark panels represent ground only sections. Brown represents the area I should have started at for attaching to the wall. Crappy image made using the MacBook camera and Photo Booth.

paper cuts and map tacks

2011-06-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

Works in progress. Actually pictures of works in progress. The 24 piece image "Don't Take This Personally" is getting closer to completion. Some of the pieces need to be reprinted due to overcoating of emulsion which creates different degrees of silvering. Each section will be cut on two sides and overlap its neighbor. I haven't decided left or right but top pieces will hang over the bottom ones. Last night I cut the bottom edges on the lower two rows. More cutting today.

Applying a brief lesson in painting from Bridgette (www.bridgettebogle.com), I hand painted 100 map tacks. Nine of which I created an off white paint form Titanium White and Light Burnt Umber acrylic to match the high key areas fo the final assembled image. Thanks for being my painting instructor last fall BBo!

ArtPrize 2011

2011-06-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

I will be showing work in Grand Rapids, Michigan this fall as part of ArtPrize 2011. The Greater Grand Rapids Arts Council will host the body of work "from walking" in their 38 West Fulton gallery from Wednesday, September 21st through October 9th, 2011. Other artists showing in the GGRAC space are Inja Cho, Clyde Gaw, Michele Shelton, John Corriveau, Ellen Stuckey, and Jodi Endicott.

For more information please visit the websites of ArtPrize, http://www.artprize.org, and the Greater Grand Rapids Arts Council, http://www.artsggr.org/.

file under research

2011-06-27T14:29:00.000-07:00

A slight detour form the goings on in the studio to report on a visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History, http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/on_exhibit.html. Another artist in residence at Emmanuel College, Mari Lacure (www.marilacure.com), suggested this visit a few days ago. We took the red line out to Cambridge, braved the Sunday crowds at Harvard Square and arrived at the museum with none of my usual "getting lost" mishaps (like last week's trip to the thrift store). The draw for Mari was the glass flower display which for me is a slight misnomer. While there are glass flowers are on display, the creations of this collection feature leaves, stems, fruits, and the nearly invisible parts of the plants needed for reproduction. The models were expertly created in glass by the father and son team of Leopold and Rudoph Blaschka. Almost all the items have survived the 125 years since their commission.

The difficult thing to express is that this trip was unplanned (at least until a few days ago) yet so beneficial to the work that I am doing at the residency. Looking at the models made by the Blashkas, struck a couple of notes for me. The first is that I know the structures that fascinate me so in this botanical world can be seen at many scales of magnification. The general shape of a leaf or flower visible to the eye or the forms contained within a younger structure that is much smaller and shorter lived, are all possible subject matter for my photography. Some technical hurdles lay ahead which will require me to leave my favorite imaging method of choice, the flat bed scanner, and work with photomicroscopy techniques to realize these smaller scales. The other “note” struck was a reminder of another reason for doing what I do, the slight threat embedded within these fantastical forms. They need to create a bit of fear in me because of their strangeness; a reminder of how I would sneak a peak out of my bedroom window at night at the risk of catching sight of some monster or alien being.

Last but not least some art history. My wife is a painter and she has shared with me her knowledge of the history of pigments. I had a small agenda going through the rock and mineral room. A whole blog entry could be written on magnatite and meteorites but it is important to go through that candy store of geology with a purpose. The purpose being to locate and photograph an example of Lapus Lazuli, the blue pigment of the ancients. So here it is, for Bridgette, one of three specimens in their collection but by far the one with the most intense blue.

Is that a pajama top in the window?

2011-06-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

As promised, a picture of the anthotype as seen from the outside. It isn’t the most visible window. One only notices what is attached to it from that stairwell and only then from the 3rd floor window and up. The good news is that the contraption has held for 24 hours.

Other news from the studio, I have begun printing the sections of “Don’t Take This Personally”. All twenty four sections will be in vandyke brown. Perhaps some pictures of this tomorrow. Today was taken up with coating all of the sections plus extra sheets for mishaps. I only began printing the images at around 8:30 pm.

If MacGyver was an artist…

2011-06-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

….he probably wouldn’t be making work like mine but I like to think there is a little MacGyver in all of us. Tonight I installed the latest attempt at an anthotype in the window of my fifth floor studio. The name of this image, if it survives the four week exposure, will be Charles Tesconi. The pigment for this image is derived from mulberries. Probably not the best combination of emulsion and paper. The drawing paper from Utrecht soaked up the chemistry as I applied it which means, I should choose a paper that is better sized. This image may end up being a bit streaky. Also, a repeat of what I noticed with the henbit emulsion, there is either oxidation of the pigment or some interaction with alkaline buffers in the paper that change the emulsion from a pink purple to a gray purple.

In and out of the studio today…

I searched for labeled sleepware at a reasonably close by thrift store here in Boston, the Morgan Memorial Goodwill which is about 1.5 miles away.

Coated the paper in the studio, fretting about the streaks and light spots. I could almost here Bridgette saying “Such a photographer!” i.e. let it be more painterly.

I scanned the label on the pajama and created a transparency which will be part of the photogram anthotype.

Installed the paper and garment with backing board in the window (see above).

Below is an image of the pajama top on top of the coated paper.

Tomorrow, a picture of how the anthotype looks from the other side. BTW, lots of sun forecast for the next week.

Yesterday, Today and Tonight

2011-06-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

I am almost too tired from a walk back from Chinatown (Boston) the long way to add much in the way of words to the pictures below. The sad truth is that I had a camera and I didn't photograph the four artists (Darien, Drew, Mari, and myself) eating at the Gourmet Dumpling House. Yes, we had soup dumplings.
I did make two exposures in Boston Commons and the public garden which were part of our route home but first, some evidence of my being a baseball fanboy.

Yesterday, Green Monster, Fenway Park

Today, rain on window

Tonight, solarized negative inverted, Boston Commons

a studio in Boston a.k.a. stairway to heaven(ly studio)

2011-06-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

A studio in Boston may not seem like a big deal to some but to an / photographer who has struggled with humidity in a basement work area…I’ve died and gone to heaven. Heaven if paradise was a studio with two 40″ x 40″ windows with about nine hours of sunlight a day and was perched 5 stories up. I’m taking the stairs which can be tough at times depending upon what I am carrying.

Which brings me to the building. It has a church in the middle as well as a five-story science center joined at one side. More on that in pictures at a later time.

The downside:

1. the sink in the studio is a bit small for doing processing, at least for anything bigger than 8×10.

2. the sink in the darkroom is much more accommodating but getting the rotating door unlocked is another hoop for me to jump through.

3. the vacuum blanket on top of the UV exposure is not sucking which is not a good thing.

And trays, I need flat bottom trays which I forgot to pack.

Those are the few shortcomings. I pride myself on being a problem solver. Deep down I know that I am going to get this heavenly studio to work out just fine.

a predilection for windows

2011-06-20T16:01:00.000-07:00

Here’s the view of my studio windows which are going to make the lengthy anthotype exposures possible. I spent most of the afternoon mashing and filtering the mulberries which, on the surface, seems like it should have been straight forward and quick.

It wasn’t. The tea strainer I have been using is too coarse. Fortunately Megumi Naitoh lent me one of Emmanuel College’s ceramic studio mesh filters that allowed me to get most of the fibrous matter out of the mulberry juice. It still took a while. For all of today’s time in the studio I have about 135 mL of mulberry juice to show for it.

Tommorow I’ll take some digital pictures of the anthotype mayhem.

and finally a picture (of sorts)

2011-06-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

Here is the view from my bedroom (O.K. it’s a dorm room) in Emmanuel College’s Julie Hall. This is the negative side of a peel apart fuji film magically transformed into a positive by the number crunching powers of the personal computer.

Today I am working on a multi section vandyke brown piece with the working title “Two Comets” but I am leaning towards calling it “Don’t Take This Personally”. It will be in about 24 pieces for an overall size of 65″ (H) x 24″ (W).

quite luxurious for the monk

2011-06-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I arrived in Boston. Officially, I am, maybe, six minutes away from Fenway Park.

The day started off cold in western New York and eventually got to be a 90 degree kind of day once I arrived at Emmanuel College. No pictures to show yet but today I should be out and about with either a digital SLR or the Polaroid.

Today was all about getting to Boston around 3 pm and navigating my way to Emmanuel College with google map directions. It worked out. I didn’t get lost but I did test the patience of Bridgette (Bogle) trying to have her direct me to Bed, Bath and Beyond via phone and her internet connection so that I would have a bath towel for a much needed shower. The bath towel is yet another thing I forgot to pack.

Today was also about getting an ID card, parking permit, access to an undergraduate dorm room, quite luxurious for the monk I will play for the next two months, appraising the studio situation and finally unloading my art making stuff into designated studio areas.

I am here. Please come visit me in Boston. I’ll take a pretty picture of you.

Close Encounters of the Deer Kind

2011-06-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

With the crazy manic day yesterday searching for a lost negative and trying to remember how to correctly print a Ware method cyanotype, no packing was done (by me) until this morning. Instead of leaving the house at 8:30 I got on the road in the rain around 12:30 pm. Still despite my late departure, I was able to drop off my framed photograph in Columbus for the Roy G Biv benefit Friday night.

Halfway to Boston and the drive was relatively uneventful. Remembering what I forgot to bring. Trays for processing prints. Hair clippers (strangely enough I remembered a hair dryer). Medium format film and cameras. Some expired paper for doing lith and lumen prints.

I did have a close encounter with a deer at 65 miles and hour outside of Salamanca. I think I swerved enough and slowed down enough that it was mostly a brush for both of us. The deer was able to scamper into the forest after appearing suddenly from the sunken median. I just used up all that good kharma from last week rescuing the woodchuck with the tin can stuck on its head.

The Burning Building Scenario, Just the Studio

2011-06-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

When packing for a two month residency one shouldn’t be rushed. There are important things to bring, first tier items that will keep the art and everyday needs to a minimum. So in order to prevent the burning building syndrome I offer myself and the visitor to this blog an idea of what I need to take along.

Just for Studio

Paper (Kozo Unryu) what ever is left

Gold Chloride Toner

Palladium Choride

Silver Nitrate

Tartaric Acid

Ammonium Ferric Citrate

Sodium Thiosulfate

Some sort of music (probably a CD player and a couple of CD wallets

Artist Tape

Trays

Beakers

Stir Rods

Gloves, disposable nitrile type

Brushes (Hake)

Brushes (Foam)

Kimwipes

Dropper Bottles

Premixed Vandyke Brown (to hit the ground running)

Inkjet transparency film (17 x 22 and 8 1/2 x 11)

Printing Frames for the nice weather printing days

Stouffer Step Tablets

Framing supplies (no)

Mat board (no)

Straight Edge

Another Straight Edge

Clothes Pins

Clothes Line

Hair Dryer

Anthotype Materials (Currently Mulberry)

Everclear (in case Massachusetts makes it hard to find).

Mortar and Pestle

Strainer

Coffee Filters

Digital Camera and Memory Cards

Card Reader

Hard drive with current work

Polaroid ProPack camera

SX-70 camera

Instant Film, Fuji and Impossible Project

to be continued

In All Fairness

2011-06-12T11:48:00.000-07:00

In all Fairness, what is known as the Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition is happening once again and Bridgette and I have work in the professional division. I use this venue as a deadline to create new work in the weeks following the end of the spring semester at the University of Dayton. Bridgette has a painting titeled “Particle” which you can see on her blog http://bbogle.blogspot.com/2011/05/ohio-art-league-100th-annual-spring.html. I will have apple and sacred heart on display.

Other artists included in the exhibition:

Amateur Division:

Timothy Albon, Prem Balson, David Barnes, Darlene Beiter, Kevin Benson, April Bleakney, Karrie Caryle, Rob Cook, Marilyn Curry, Kit Daily, Sharon Daily, Beverly Darwin, Pamela DeLay, Barbara Doll, John Enterlin, Juli Fogt, David Ford, Jules Garel, David Gentilini, Helen Golovin, Dennis Gordon, Samuel Hairston, Jr., George Halbert, Tom Hart, Judy Hazen, April Hernandez, Bethany Jozwiak-Butler, Dylan Kasson, Paul Kramer, Bradley Laxton, Elaine Libbey, Kristane Murray, Elizabeth Nelson, Sarah Ockuly, Larry Owen, Alyssa Petrosky, Tara Potts, Douglas Reeder, Julia Relick, Marisa Rence, Melissa Ritchie, Brenda Ruegsegger, C. Guillot Ryan, Molly Savage, Jerry Seabaugh, Owen Simonson, Aaron Skapik, Isaac Smith, Jim Snyders, Laura Stewart, Rebecca Taft, Sharon Telatnik, Craig Wales, Kimberly Webb, Nova Weller, Cherry Williams and Judi Young

Professional Division:

Janet Adams, Brandon Antczak, Laine Bachman, Lawrence Baker, Ben Barnes, Art Beery, Catherine Bell Smith, Bridgette Bogle, Carol Borham-Hays, Rick Borg, Undine Brod, Adam Brouillette, Kevin Buckland, Julie Bryne, Karen Campbell, Matt Carmean, Elizabeth Chrisman, Georgie Cline, Susanne Dotson, Jeff Douglas, Diane Dover, Paul Emory, Gary Engle, Frederick Fochtman, Chad Fogt, Kelley Folger, Elaine Freeman, John Freiman, Angela Gage, Bill Glaeser, Jim Glover, Beverly Goldie, Amandda Graham, Tracy Greenwalt, George Gregory, Carol Griffith, Michael Hays, Bryan Heyward, Nicholas Hill, Andy Hudson, Andrew Ina, Morris Jackson, Tamara Jaeger, Dale Johnson, Marty Kalb, Kevin Keiser, Lori Kella, Virginia Kistler, Kristi Kloss, JulesKnowlton, John Kortlander, Bernice Koff, David Lane, Nicole Langille, Linda Leviton, Michael Loderstedt, Fran Mangino, Michael May, Juliette Montague, Emily Moorhead, Sherry Mullet, Paula Nees, Ardine Nelson, Dana Oldfather, Jeffrey Owen, Christine Pereyma, Tara Polansky, Jose Luis Quinones, Katelin Reeser, Stephanie Rond, Mark Rosen, Debbie Rosenfeld, Jason Routson, Nikos Rutkowski, Eliana Sarri, Francis Schanberger, Daniel Schreiber, Jenny Scanto, Michael Sheets, Ashley Shellhouse, Mike Siculan, Carol Snyder, Alissa Sorenson, Grace Summauen, Joan Tallan, James Trout, Crystal Tursich, Barbara Vogel, Melissa Vogley-Woods, Linda Wesner, Paul Wilbur, Eileen Woods, and Dennis Zimmerman

The Ohio State Fair Fine Arts exhibition will run from July 27th through August 7th with an opening reception on July 26th from 6-8 pm.

ROY GOES TO CLINTONVILLE FUNDRAISER

2011-06-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

ROY GOES TO CLINTONVILLE FUNDRAISER

Roy G Biv Gallery for Emerging Artists will be hosting an event a little bit north of their digs in Columbus, Ohio on June 17th. Look at all the names of these contributing artists (including me)! Laura Alexander, Michelle Amos, Kyle Boganwright, Molly Jo Burke, Kate Dowell, Rachel Heberling, Andrew Ina, Tony Mendoza, Jesse Mills, Scott Neal, Amy Niewirth, Ryan Orewiler, Stephanie Rond, Boryana Rusenova-Ina, Nikos Fyodor Rutkowski, Francis Schanberger, Cameron Sharp, Aimee Sones, Jeremy Stone, Aaron Troyer, Melissa Vogley-Woods, Ryan Walters.

Please visit http://roygbivgallery.org/events/?event_id=5 for details.

Although I will be settling into my residency in Boston, I will be dropping off a new, "nutty" piece, toned in palladium and gold, just for this one night only event.

In Progress

2011-06-05T21:01:00.000-07:00

Fortunately the severe weather and flooding effecting much of the U.S. has only been a minor inconvenience here in Dayton. We have had a lot of rain this year which translates to a bit of water in the basement which is where I do most of my work. I have always thought that my work was immune to the vagaries of humidity often blaming the poor quality of prints on the water supply or old chemistry. This spring has been a learning experience. I now know that when the relative humidity climbs into the 70 or 80 percent range, it is pointless to coat and print paper. In a couple of days I'll upload two versions of "Apple" ( I wish I had a more romantic name) that were printed at 80% RH and one from two days ago printed at about 65% RH.

Besides the weather, my NuArc 26 1K plate burner has been a bit unpredictable, sometimes taking 2 hours to ignite the bulb. Perhaps it is the basement sending me signals that I need to clean up the office upstairs with all the piles of old and new Polaroid and Impossible Project photographs I have been scanning.

In progress. This week I will give this image the vandyke brown treatment, possibly outside or inside depending upon the NuArc and the weather outside.

From my walks this week, mulberries are on the ground. Possible anthotype pigment and the Catalpa trees are dropping their white flowers. It's already one time around the sun since I created that image!

Ten days until Boston. What kind of work will I be making there?

Impossible Project Color Shade

2011-05-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

Here (below) are scans of the same instant photograph created on different days to keep track of a cyan shift in the image area of the Impossible Project's PX 70 Color Shade First Flush. Although it is a touchy film, I am learning how to maximize images made with this material. Testing, although the material is expensive, is the key to succeeding with instant photographic materials from the Impossible Project.

From left to right: 8 hours, 29 hours and 48 hours after exposure.

Pictures from Belgium

2011-05-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

Last fall's the Art of the Photo Archive was photographically documented. The exhibition at the Free University of Belgium was organized by Roger Kockaerts of Gallery pH 7.

Additional installation views can be seen at:
http://www.permadocument.be/texte/YRK/RFK/RK/170%20years.html

Look But Don't Touch

2011-05-23T09:42:00.000-07:00

Both Bridgette (Bogle) and I have a morbid fascination with toxicodendron radicans. Bridgette just created an installation based upon the characteristic leaf shapes of poison ivy base upon her view of it just outside her studio window. I have scanned it as a potential subject for the forces of nature series and lately have turned to it as a subject for the Impossible Project film I have recently acquired.

Below is Look But Don't Touch and below that, a view of her Poison Ivy Room at Sideshow 6.

The Eye of the Dayton Sideshow

2011-05-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

It's been more than a week since Urban Nights and the 2011 edition of the creative collective known as the Dayton Circus Sideshow. This year they took over the Yellow Cab Co. building across from Garden Station. The building is a wonderful resource and record of that buisness that once was based near downtown Dayton. Amidst the installations and exhibit spaces was a carpeted room with couches, security camera monitors and what I understood to be the real eye of the Sideshow 6.

newly emerged from the catacombs...

2011-05-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

Some new Vandyke Browns I've been working on are visible below. The first has the incredibly provocative and imaginative title of Apple and the second, Knarled Nut. These are small work prints of about 9 x 9 inches done to determine exposure. The final scale should be either 20" x 20" or 24" x 24".

Attack of the Poor Pods

2011-05-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

It finally happened. A bad pack of the Silver Shade Black Frame UV+.

Below you will see the progression and finally a good pod instant photo. BTW, Bridgette is a fan of the poor pod look. PAINTERS!

Bridgette and Bridgette II, Exposures 1 and 2.

Bridgette's Apron and Poison Ivy, Exposures 3 and 4.

Poison Ivy (Again) and Chasprix, Exposures 5 and 6.

Poor Pods, Black Frame, Instant Gratification

2011-05-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

Ryan Adrick photographed by Francis Schanberger

I have succumbed to the lure of the Impossible Project. Last week I received an email about problematic Silver Shade 600 film being sold in packs of six. I've been fighting off the urge to use their film due to the expense but there was no way for me to resist. Six boxes of 8 sheet instant film for 36.60 plus shipping. Le't say it was about $45 in total for about 48 sheets. The less than a dollar a sheet threshold had been crossed.

At College Park Center, Studio 238, home to the University of Dayton's Photography and Visual Communication Design facilities, I met up with Ryan Adrick and Christine Zuercher for some instant gratification. Here are the first three sheets from the black frame poor pod lot. All developed perfectly protected from light in an empty 4x5 sheet film box.

Studio 238 R by Christine Zuercher

Untitled (CPC Visual Arts Facility) by Ryan Adrick

OAL's 100th Anniversary Spring Juried Exhibition

2011-05-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was the opening for the Ohio Art League's 100th Annual Spring Juried Exhibition, juried by Todd Slaughter, which is on view now through June 24th.

There are pictures from the opening which can be found on Flickr by going to the following link http://www.flickr.com/photos/55867923@N02/5719069849/in/set-72157626594581503. Today, the Columbus Dispatch published Christopher Yates' review of the exhibition which can be also be found online at http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/arts/stories/2011/05/15/league-turns-100-with-style.html?sid=101.

Off to UDF to pick up a copy of the Dispatch.

Dayton in the House

2011-05-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

Below is a link to the 2011 Governor's Awards for the Arts. I'll post images to the event as they become available. It was well documented and a good part of the four hours Bridgette and I spent in Columbus were dedicated to getting photographed including one with Ohio's First Lady, Karen Kasich.

Dayton was well represented hence the need to buy a new suit and bow tie. During the lunch we were serenaded by the Stivers School for the Arts Jazz Orchestra and as Michael Lippert, winner of the Arts Education Award, stated in his thank you speech, "Dayton in the House!"

http://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyle/state-arts-awards-bear-daytons-stamp-again-1160694.html