A sensitive man

Yes. I am a sensitive man. Last month I ran into a lot of trouble trying to ship Iris Peignoir with Hidden Shorts to Arizona in a frame. I packed it so that it would be within UPS's height and girth restrictions but my avoidance of dealing with the UPS store resulted in a lot of driving around and a lot of packing and unpacking of a large box with a smaller box in the parking lot outside the UPS customer center.

Severely defeated, I called up Gina at Art Intersection who gave me the go-ahead to send the unframed piece in a tube. When considering fourteen dollars vs. 200 plus dollars and all the heartache, my artistic vision is compelled to be OK with hanging a fugitive work on paper on the wall unframed.

Which is how it is being shown at Light Sensitive on view at Art Intersection now until April 19th. The exhibition juried by Tom Persinger of f295 is billed as a celebration of images from the darkroom. There is nothing dark about the grassy area I exposed this piece in during three weeks of Vermont sun. But it is light sensitive.

Red Tulip part II

The two red tulip anthotypes were exposed for about the same amount of time. I estimate about nine days give or take a rain day. 

If you look at the lower right corner you can see rain did make its presence known despite wrapping the "contraption" in plastic. The contraption is usually a thin sheet of OSB, the paper coated with pigment, the garment, and Plexiglass all held together by spring clamps. The spring clamps show up occasionally around the periphery of the finished anthotype. Bridgette has described them as giving the finished piece a rhythm. I use to hate the artifacts they left behind, now I am kind of digging them. 

This anthotype was made with the same emulsion as the "Little Gown" anthotype but I kept the red tulip color by adding a bit of citric acid to the emulsion. Normally this paper (Arches Cover) and Fabriano Artistico have a bit of buffer that pushes the color to the blue end of the spectrum. Flower pigments act as a pH indicator for naturalists. I have even made purple iris pigment red. 

This is "Red Tulip (acidic) Peignoir #1". 51" (H) x 42" (w).

Speaking of iris pigment. I raided the last ones today. I have a bit frozen away and two sheets already coated one of which is exposing right now. I see plenty of purple gowns, peignoirs and pajamas in the future.

sheer sheerness of it all

To begin with some disclaimer, I am not entirely sure how I ended up here. I know there was never some end goal to work with lingerie. I do feel like the sheer sheerness of it all is promising to create some intriguing anthotypes for the Somnambulist project.

This is an extension of the sleepwear. Two, maybe two and one half, years ago I began using pajamas as a light resist. The reason was a memory of my father when he was in the hospital sometime in 2004 wearing pajamas, which brought up a childhood memory of seeing him late at night in pajamas in his rocking chair, cocktail in hand and my mom lying on the sofa. Both of them watching the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. It was their time. We, the brood, all nine of us, were supposed to be in bed. It was the parents time to unwind.

So here I am at nightgowns and peignoirs, a word I only just learned. The trajectory has been this: pajamas, Ken pajamas, Barbie Nightie Negligee, nightgowns (plural) and now peignoirs. The success (exposure-wise) of the Barbie Nightie Negligee probably sowed the seeds of my destruction. An Ebay search for mid-century women's sleepwear.

To spread out the documentation I'll just include images of the assembly of the peignoir anthotype. Tomorrow I'll post about the nightgown, a sixty year-old nightgown. The discoveries of this project so far:

• I need to do a better job organizing my spring clamps (there must be a second stash somewhere).

• I need to acquire more large, clear plastic bags to weatherize the anthotypes.

• I need even more Plexiglass.

• I am in touch with my feminine side.

• The first arrangements of each light resists are usually the best. Please see the illustrations(s) below.