Playing catch-up

The last month or more has passed in a fog that coincides with the annual Studio Tour. A late rush of printing starting in the summer and early fall are followed by a few weeks of show prep in October – matting,  then milling and constructing frames, then coloring them before assembling all the parts into a finished piece.

And then there’s the two weekends of opening the house and studio up to the public. Twelve hours of show time each weekend that span the entire length and breadth, the ups and the downs that go along with putting your work out there for others to see.

I don’t live in town like the bulk of the 70 artists that participate on the tour. There’s a furniture maker a mile or so down the road. And a water colorist lives a mile or so in the opposite direction. My closest neighbor Scott, a painter, has been on the tour for several years but he didn’t participate this year.

Drive a mile or two in any direction in town and you’re likely to pass 20 or 30 participating studios. Drive a mile or two in any direction out here and you’ll pass more cows and horses than artists. 

All of this is to say that I’ve never gotten the kind of traffic that town artists get. On good days, 50 or more people come out. A good day for a town artist means closer to 100 visitors.

This year, I didn’t have that many people stop by over the first weekend. That made for two long boring days. But the second weekend was nice and lively. A good, steady flow of traffic both days and thankfully, quite a few sales.

And then there’s the morning after all of that. That’s the Monday after the second tour weekend. That day starts a little slower than usual. Slow sips of coffee. A little extra reading. And then I walk around the house and yard with a notepad, writing down all the chores that have been neglected for several months. That list is always long. It can run to several pages -- this year's is 3. Checking things off that list is what I’ve been busying myself with the past couple of weeks. Cut, prep and install shelves in bedroom closet, Clean solar panels before winter sets in,  are two successfully completed tasks. Another is: Clean basement. Not as of yet. But from here I'll spread the remainder of the list out over time, with less rush to scratch than three weeks ago. 

Along the way, I went through and selected five photographs from Ireland, 5 from my Manbites Dog Series, and 5 of a more local or personal nature to occupy the coming winter. I've just begun the process of making enlarged negatives from each of those photographs. Scanning the original negatives is next up for most of these though I've already got the manbites scans on file from last year's book project. Here they are, ready for inversion to negative.

While scanning the others, I can begin to print these. The darkroom beckons!

Matting and Framing

Matting and now framing have pretty much defined the past few days around here. 15 prints in all.  Matting was really frustrating at the start as I worked with some new, harder mat board. I was ready to go shopping for new mat cutting equipment. Then, I modified the way I was holding the cutting tool and it made all the difference in the world. Funny. After years of holding the tool in a certain way I discover that moving one of my fingers from here to just slightly over there, and the consistency of my cuts improves.

Today, I started with a stack of stems, 60 in all, that I ripped, planed, and cut to length yesterday. Today, working at the table saw with a dado blade, channels were dug out of each stem. By the end of the day, all 15 frames were assembled. Tomorrow they’ll be sanded and, if all goes well, at least some will have a first layer of color added to the surface.

Teaching photography

I spent a couple of mornings last week guest lecturing a course entitled “Art and Technology," offered at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. The course surveys the relationship between those two most human expressions of creativity – art and technology.

I was there to talk about “How we got to photography.” I showed lots of slides and talked about vision theory through the Renaissance, the development of optical tools like mirrors and lenses, and the important role played by the camera obscura in the history of optics and in the development of art, hundreds of years before photography’s announcement in 1839.

Reading history is a favorite leisure activity. I have certain times and places that always interest me, none more than early photo history through the Pictorial period. There's so much going on during those years. But that interest has led me to looking into the pre-history of photography to find out why all the parts of photography were in place – the optics by the 15^th century and the chemistry in the early 18^th century – nearly 100 years before anyone thought about photography. But then between 1802 and 1839 there's a tidal wave of activity with at least 24 separate claimants around the world who can carry the mantle of proto-photographers. 

Talbot's camera obscura ca 1830s

I brought in a camera obscura to let students peer inside, to see for themselves the ephemeral magic that inspired William Henry Fox Talbot in 1831. On his honeymoon that year, he tried making some sketches only to be frustrated by the effort. Later, he wrote in his journal, “How charming it would be if it were possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves durably and remain fixed upon the paper!" By 1839, he announced the results of his experiments and photography was born!

I’ve always loved teaching and I’m grateful for these occasions to share my enthusiasm for the subject.

See my website:  woodsedge.net

Sizing

There are a lot of variables in gum printing, a lot of ways to manipulate your final image. Some serve to benefit the finished print and some do not. Controlling those variables is one of the keys to good printing. The one that starts the ball rolling one way or the other is sizing.

Sadly, frustratingly, it’s also been the most confounding over the years. How well I’ve done these past couple of weeks will have everything to do with the quality of my prints in the coming year.

Sizing doesn’t mean measuring the paper. It means preparing the surface of the paper before printing on it. Most gum prints, including all of mine, are made on paper designed for print makers and watercolorists. Using those papers un-sized, the image will sink into the fibers of the paper. Staining becomes a real issue as well.

A properly sized paper keeps the image and all its detail on the surface of the paper and prevents staining as well. Even factory-made, store-bought paper is sized. Starch, egg whites, and gelatin are the most common materials used. But for the gum process, which tends to be pretty rough on paper, only gelatin is hard enough to withstand the abuse.

Sizing isn’t that great a job. More like a necessary evil.

With print side up, the paper is drawn carefully over the top edge of the vat.

Once a year, in the summer, I mix up 2 pounds of gelatin powder in 8 gallons of distilled water and heat to 125 degrees. Then 48 sheets of 22” x 30” paper are inserted into the bath and then removed from the bath and hung to dry. (The screen porch allows 6 rows by eight sheets, 48 in all.)

That process is repeated two more times on subsequent days depending on the weather and other circumstances. On the last day, 37% formaldehyde is added to a more diluted gelatin bath to harden the surface of the paper further and protect it from growing tiny life forms.

A gas mask is used on formaldehyde day.

All of that usually takes three or four days but I’m sizing a little more than twice as much as usual this year and that has really stretched the time uncomfortably close to Autumn. I had hoped it would all be done by now but the weather turned on me a couple of days ago. It has been a little too breezy and cool but tomorrow is supposed to be a little warmer.

Gelatin left in the vat overnight and scooped into the cooking pot.

See my website:  woodsedge.net

Back to printing

Got back to printing full time in the darkroom this week. It feels like forever since I’ve been at it. Or at least forever since my intention was anything other than trying out a new script. Settled for now are the countless negative adjustments that have been driving me crazy since before the summer. For now, I’ve made my peace with the digital part of my old school process.

When I was at Rehoboth, a neighbor at the Art Show mentioned the Analog Photography Users Group. And he added that I wouldn't be eligible to join since I'm a hybrid. It startled me at first. I had no idea. A hybrid.

The gum bichromate process was developed in 1855 but my negatives are digital. Which reminded me of the two kinds of wet plate photographers. There's the Sally Mann types who let come what may and the other type that dress up in Civil War outfits. Photography is the most democratic of arts!

A few weeks ago I printed 3 negatives using a script that I thought might be pretty close to right. Prints from two out of three negatives were excellent. So with a vague sense of confidence, I launched 8 new negatives earlier this week using that same script. I’m not convinced I won’t continue to tweak but … honestly, I just had to move on and get back to making prints. Enough with the digits already.

As usual, the first few coats are used to build shadow detail and not much more.

Those negatives represent a couple of different series I’ve been putting together over time. 3 images are from Ireland, adding several new images from my 2012 trip there.

Also, a new series taken from my theater work with Manbites Dog Theater Company over the past 25 years. I’ve thought about gum printing a select few images for a while. I’m aiming for a dozen or so images that transcend their theater origin and speak to more universal human experience.

Starting to look like photographs

See my website:  woodsedge.net

My Big Beach Show Adventure

Got back yesterday from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware after participating in the Rehoboth Art League’s 40^th Annual Outdoor Fine Art and Fine Craft Show. I’d been in a couple of small, local tent shows here in Chapel Hill years ago but this was something of a different order.

The League is situated on a large, beautifully maintained lot only a few hundred feet from the ocean. You can’t see it or hear it, but you know the ocean is nearby. You see it in the sand-and-surf-tolerant plant life. You can feel it and smell it in the wind that blows through the pines, and grand oaks, and magnolias that shade the RAL estate. More colorfully, I experienced the ocean through the dress and mannerisms of the hundreds of beachcombers, both resident and vacationer, that paid $5 to walk through the show.

From the look of it, Rehoboth Beach draws a fairly wealthy crowd of folks. I won’t try to guess how many pairs of poodles both large and small that pranced past my tent. But there were more than I’d ever seen in a two-day period. Maybe ever.

Over 100 artists showed their work over the weekend – all under their own 10’ x 10’ white tents. For the most part, the work I saw was good or a little better. There weren’t as many fine and talented artists as I had hoped but there were enough. Most seem to make a life if not a living, travelling from place to place, weekend after weekend, selling their work at similar events.

I imagined them a band of gypsies pitching their treasure tents each weekend, selling their art, and then breaking camp to work in solitude throughout the week. And then packing up their work, their tent, their display boards, and hand outs, and driving to the next venue where they rejoin the tribe and do it all again.

To me they were friendly, serious folks and I enjoyed getting to know them the bit that I did. I say “the bit” because mostly, everyone stays tethered to their tent at these events to talk to visitors/hoped for buyers.

Gum prints aren’t that common so more often than not, whenever and wherever I show, the most frequent questions are “What is it,” and “How do you do it.” Occasionally there’s more -- aesthetics and art talk are always welcome -- but mostly people ask, “What is it” and “How do you do it.” The first question is easy enough to answer. People who ask that one just want to know if it’s a photograph.

But the second question is a real challenge: how to do justice to a printing process that is both arcane and seriously slow in the making without making it too long or complicated for the person asking the question. It’s a balancing act that I’m always modifying and tweaking.

And on that note, back from my big beach show adventure, I return to making new prints to show somewhere down the line.

See my website:  woodsedge.net