New Prints and New Considerations

I have created some new works, which I am happy to be doing. This weekend was full of glorious sun, which allowed me to print, which is great. I have been absolutely fascinated and entranced by baby dolls and have been doing prints of them:

a small porcelain doll

baby doll with clothing

creepy oversized troll doll

two similar dolls next to one another

another baby doll

What was most interesting about the new set of prints is the shadows they cast. Because the object cast a shadow to the side, the prints have a very eery and surrealist quality to them. I think that it is interesting to do these photograms of the toys because it is a way of memorializing childhood; of putting importance into these objects that we forget about, but which have so impacted our development.

I also was able to do a full size print which turned out like this:


I really like how this turned out; I quite like the two pieces separately; there is a sort of disembodied quality to them. The scale, however, is my favorite part. I think they are very impactful on a large scale. Doing this print makes me think about issues of scale and number of bodies and the form the bodies take. How they interact and if there are two bodies vs. four vs. more. There is a lot of potential here and I am excited to see how I can push this. There are certain variables that I simply cannot control, so that adds an entirely new element of surprise. Things like water drips and other things are not things I can control, but they impact the piece very much. This weekend, I am going to try some of the fabric pieces and see how those go. I am excited to see how the fabric reacts and what the color quality will be. I will be in Cincinnati until Saturday, but I will still have some time to get these pieces rolling (before the all student show? fingers crossed....)

Observing your surroundings....

Today I was walking to class and I saw how they rake the leaves on campus. It is not, in fact, small men who come with rakes while everyone is sleeping. There is this moving vehicle with a giant vacuum attached that goes around and sucks up the millions of leaves that are all over the campus ground.

My thought was.... where do i get one of those?

And what else could I suck up (besides leaves)?

toy giraffes, body parts, and apple tarts

ever working, never writing....

i have failed in my bloggerly duties. but i am back on board and am excited about some work i have been doing as of late.

i am trying to master the process and the technique of the cyanotype. i want to master the basics so that i can really work with the process and test the boundaries. i have done several tests with different objects/subjects:


the body; or at the very least, a body part. i think this appears a little eerie; sort of strange. a little titanic or x-ray. i am not sure how i feel about this arm separate from the body. i am thinking about what it means to separate the body parts from one another and why that would work and not work.

the body is a very important part of my original concept; one of the main reasons i began pursuing alternative process and specifically, the photogram. i wanted to make people themselves become a part of the art. however, i am not sure how crucial or realistic this is. this is one of the many questions i am asking myself at this point. how important is the physical human aspect and how do i make that work? especially as it gets colder and the light sources are limited, i am analyzing whether or not that is the core of this work.



a test using chain and film strip; perhaps a tid bit over exposed. i am especially fond of how the chain looks.

testing how paper cuts work with the process. not bad, but a little too clear for me. leaves out the mystery that i believe exists in a sincere photogram...

exposure study meets the rain; that's what the lovely drip to the left and the white speckles throughout are.


family photo from 1915 turned into silhouette cutouts, tested with differing exposure times. i need to start printing photos on mylar and transferring into cyanotype.


this one is my favorite test. i love the mystery and the nostalgia that appears in this image of the toy giraffe. i think this one gave me some great ideas for where to go next. i am going to start looking at the childhood toy and doing some more prints like this little giraffe friend.

endi also suggested that i start looking at scale. so now that i have scanned these little tests in, i can start to play with how they might appear. i have been focused on the process and getting the science right. but i need to start to shift to the content of what i am trying to say and in what way.