Weather Patterns

So. A year ago, if you had asked me what I do, I would have said that I was a photographer. If you asked me today, I would say that I am primarily a photographer.

A camera is a machine. I look. I see. I frame. I capture. Paintings use the whole body. More than my eyes and my brain and one finger. You use your whole arm, you can be aggressive or gentle, you can express a mood with a single brush stroke or by varying your impasto. You can eliminate and add content at whim. You can layer, and layer and layer until you are pleased; simplify down to basic shapes, or work in elaborate detail. Paintings require more work, more consideration, more awareness of color and feeling. When I paint, I feel alive.

When I work with a camera I can make things look perfect, every blade of grass is represented exactly how it was when I pressed the shutter. There has been a long and brutal competition between photo and painting. The idea that an academic painting was praised for being like "looking out a window," and that photography was in fact, a window was a part of many reasons why stylistic movements started shying away from photo-realism.

And after so long of making exact renderings with my camera I was very hesitant to draw and paint because I felt whatever I made wouldn't be "good" enough. Wouldn't be exact enough, and that would be frustrating. This year I realized that I should embrace the paint for what it is, a form of free expression. It's opened up a ton of doors for me and not only have I improved my basic drawing skills but I have begun exploring many loose styles of painting to see what I like most. It's a nice break from photo but also informs my art in all other areas, from drawing to sculpture. I learn by seeing, by creating, by doing.


Detail of the wing.

Propped on an easel in studio. Please note that there are two separate panels that ideally will be hung an inch apart, creating a crop in the midsection area. It's kind of bowed in the picture because they are resting on top of one another.

Detail of the end of wing and tail.

Detail of eye and head.

This bird is for my Exploring the Series class that I'm taking under Ron Janowich. It's part of a series called Weather Patterns I'm making that I'll post the artist statement to in a later post. For now, just know I'm interested in repetition of mark, the iconography of nests, and the migratory patterns of birds. Feedback is much appreciated!

Filth

Filth... oooh, don't you feel kinda grimy reading the title? I hope you do or my whole concept for large format is KAPUT!

First let me say that large format is the most challenging line of photo work I've ever done. The camera is beastly heavy. It's a pain in the butt to set up because I can only use a 210mm lens on it (that means I have to pick up the trip-pod and move the whole camera to get the frame work I want.) You compose your image upside down, get everything in focus under a dark cloth, tighten down your tripod and then pray that nothing moves so your focus stays. I shoot 4 negatives at a time and usually only 3/4 come out in a usable condition. That's two hours of work before developing the negatives, and then developing the prints! FOR THREE IMAGES.

Quick rundown on film development. Mix your highly toxic chemistry, make sure it stays at a constant 68 degrees throughout your process, take all the trays into a pitch black room. Take your film out without seeing a thing, try not to scratch it with your nails, slip on a glove, dip at various times through all your chemicals. I use Diafine because it is fastest and gives a little extra clarity to the 4x5's. For that it's 3 minutes in Diafine A, 3 minutes in Diafine B, 30 second water wash, 5 minutes in fixer (which stops the silver halide from devloping and hardens the negative) and a 5 minute water wash. Fixer is the stuff that we NEVER put down the drain because it causes mutant animals. It goes into a big silver recollection tank that sounds like a train. Chuggin along, just like me.

I've been working my hiney off to get solid work! And I am! It may be that I have the most patient, gorgeous friends in the world, or the god's are smiling because I'm trying so hard; but these have been the most successful art making months of my life. Picking up my paintings today and I'll post some of them later in the week.

For now, just a few of the images I've been working on. To see them all you'll have to come out to see my show or get a copy of the handcrafted book I'll be making these into! ;)


Intentional finger print at the top, btw.

Weird refraction at the bottom of this image, there was no camera shake and she didn't move. Of course this was at a scary abandoned trailer park that had burned buildings and spiders so maybe it was a ghost!



Fin- for now.

Filthy things that have happened to me lately: some very funny person in my apartment complex rubbed their pork fried rice, lo mein and some brown poop like meat into the windows of my car! :)

Filthy things that have happened to me not so recently: while blissfully enjoying the salt water and mid-sentence to my lion a tiny baby fish jumped up and slapped me in the eye.

High-five,
Shannon