Putting it all together.
Ephemera and inclusions. Dad’s prose poem, wedding souvenirs, messages to loved ones, pressed blue flowers from Dad’s funeral…..
Making a Box and locking the treasures away.
And finally; Making.
Print Outcomes.
I am truly delighted with the way these have turned out and frankly rather embarrassed by the number of oos and aahs they are provoking in the studio but, I suppose that helps me to evaluate them less subjectively. I pinned them up on the wall next to my studio space (they’ll take ages to dry and the drying rack is full). I must admit, I was quite startled by seeing them from the outside of the studio window when I was stuck at the traffic lights this morning. The series certainly seems to have impact.
Never mind how startled I was, …… nothing compared to my husband’s face (no clue about the prints in production) when his image suddenly appeared on Instagram! #foundation.carlisle
Extension Activities.
- I have been asked (told) to think about how one might mount/present/hang these, following a lengthy but spontaneous ‘crit’ with PT and KT about them.
- Learning the force of ‘the hovering hand’ : KT has found it difficult to restrain herself from ‘dabbling’ in this print process ha! ha! Oh well there you go – the down-side of teaching lol. But words emanated from the mind that was controlling ‘the hovering hand’ and her comments resulted in me doing some ‘scrapping’ off the ‘spent’ printing plates – sort of frottaging bits of them with a baren.
This playful extension may have been a bit inspired by the frottage I did of each board before printing from them. It seemed a nice way to preserve the virgin plates in a bit more interesting way than captures from the photocopy platen.
Workshop: Print Making 27th-28th September contd.
Yesterday, the discovery of collagraph printing – wow. Today, continuing to carve plates at home – portraits to include in my ars moriendi book I hope.
I have selected a group of photographs to work from. My paternal grandmother, my maternal grandparents, my father, husband and daughter. (The loved ones who will feature in my book.) It has been interesting to note the different poses and photographic intentions across the pictures. My maternal grand-mother’s is very formal but beautiful, taken in the mid 1920s (possibly for her 21st?) My Father is extremely formally posed in his air-force uniform c. 1948 and most certainly reflected, with gravitas, through the poignant lens of the regimental photographer – that uncomfortable feeling that this may be the last photo to be taken ….. the one that remains…! My grand-parents pose stiffly but, smiling proudly in their best dress, being photographed at my parents’ wedding in the mid-50s but it is not as disciplined as the previous two. Finally, and contrasting by way of not being professionally shot, a lovely, relaxed, smiling picture of my husband an informal pose in the sense that I called to him and said ‘smile’ and a gorgeous ‘snap’ entirely un-posed, of my daughter enjoying the hilarity of watching her girlfriend trying to learn how to spin plates (in a breeze) at a music festival. My intention, in using this range of pictures, is to reflect ‘passage of time’ and ‘moments captured’ on a genealogical time line that echoes (in human terms) the passage of time in the landscape and biologically, – referenced by the old deeds I am using and the elder tree (I grew and planted) that is a theme for my poem.
The process of cutting the plates is slow but extremely enjoyable – I like the clean, meticulous, methodical activity of it just as a complete contrast to (the equally enjoyable and delightfully messy) freer work we did the other day with mono prints. The plates are things of beauty in themselves. It’s almost a shame to ink them.
