#altprocessphotography

My Artist Talk is Live on YouTube!

/ kallitypegirl

On May 31, as part of the May Artist Talk Series sponsored by the Flower City Arts Center, I delivered a short lecture on my journey as a kallitype print maker. It was a great experience, and I was thrilled to be a part of it and to share this process that I really love!

During the talk, I showed some of my past alternative process work leading up to my  focus on kallitypes, plus I illustrated (through GIFs) the kallitype process, and shared recent work. I spoke for roughly 40 min and then there was another 20 or so minutes of Q&A.

Here is the link if you missed it and would like to watch:

The rest of the May artist talks can be seen on the YouTube channel for the Flower City Arts Center. Click here to see the recordings of presentations by Fernando Muller, Linda VanArtsdalen and Jonathan Merritt.

The Artist Talk Series continues in June with more exciting artists! If you’re interested to sign up and attend, they are free, but you do need to register. Click here to read more about the upcoming talks. To sign up, just scroll down on the page and click the ‘Register for this Class’ link!

If you have any questions or comments please let me know! You can email me directly at kallitypegirl@gmail.com.

Artist Talk – this Sunday, May 31!

/ kallitypegirl

Hi everyone!

Just a quick reminder that this upcoming Sunday, May 31, is my Artist Talk, which is the final talk for the month-of-May-Sunday-Afternoon-Artist-Talk series sponsored by the Department of Photography and Digital Arts at the Flower City Arts Center. 

We will start promptly at  1:00 pm Eastern Time. For those of you in other time zones: this is 10:00 am Pacific Time / 11:00 am Mountain Time / 12:00 pm Central Time /  18:00 pm British Summer Time / 19:00 pm Central Europe Summer Time.

These talks are free and open to the public, no matter if you are local here in Rochester or somewhere else in the world. You just need to register so you can receive the Zoom link to join in: https://www.rochesterarts.org/classes/artist_talks_online_spring_2020/

 

My plan is to present for 30-40 min, show new work, talk about the kallitype process, what inspires me, and my current projects. Then we’ll have a few minutes for Q&A. We should be finished within an hour. I’ve really enjoyed the other artist talks in the series, and am excited to share my work and this process with you!

During the talk, I’m also hoping to show a few short kallitype process videos I put together on Youtube. I’m not confident the audio will work through Zoom, and depending on your connection the video may not be super clear, so I’m including this links here too in case you want to watch before, during or after!

PS – We are planning to record the session, and as soon as the full talk is available I will share a link to it here as well.

Alternate Paths Exhibit – Coronavirus Update #2

/ kallitypegirl

Well folks, we are just a day away from what was to be the closing reception for the Alternate Paths group exhibit (scheduled for this Friday, May 1st), but since we are still under the New York State on Pause executive order, it isn’t happening. Not tomorrow anyway…

Not gonna lie, I am feeling bummed that no one can see the work in person. But, to help share it virtually, in addition to the 7+ minute video tour I shared in the last blog post,  I’ve made a few mini videos spotlighting the work of each artist in the show. They definitely don’t do the work justice, but they are better than nothing! And if you’ve been following me on instagram, you’ve probably already seen them (albeit, chopped into pieces)…but here are links to all the full videos for reference:

Now that we’re at the end of our 7th week of self isolation, with non-essential businesses still closed, people are starting to feel the crunch, and artists are particularly hard hit, as educational institutions where we teach and take classes, galleries where we exhibit, studios where we make work, etc., are all closed. But many of us are still making work at home and selling our work online as best we can (more on what I’ve been doing in the next post!).

As a reminder, all of the works in this exhibit (except for the pieces by Bill Bates), are for sale. If you’re interested in helping us out by making a purchase, you can:

PS: we are still in talks with the folks running the Nu Movement Studio gallery to discuss extending the show so that ‘when things finally open back up’ (will this ever happen??), we can have a small reception before we de-install. Another idea is to do a ‘live’ virtual reception that you can see via video afterward…..Stay tuned!

Alternate Paths Exhibit – Coronavirus Update

/ kallitypegirl

Friday, April 3, was supposed to have been the opening reception for the Alternate Paths group exhibit…..but no.  As with the rest of the world, our community has been impacted by coronavirus, and though we are not exactly on lock down here in Rochester, NY, the ‘New York State On Pause’ executive order has required all non-essential businesses to close, and has prohibited public gatherings where social distancing measures aren’t possible. Thus, no opening reception.

The Alternate Paths promotional postcard

The show was installed a couple weeks back, on Saturday, March 14, which was just days before things started closing down locally. (Seems like ages ago now though….) We actually briefly debated if we should put the show up or not; the crisis was just emerging which made everything feel up in the air, but the studio was still open. So we decided to go for it.

Everyone pitched in and the show went up pretty easily in just over an hour. Considering we had work by five different artists, of all different sizes, and that we hadn’t seen each other’s work before we got to the gallery to install the show (thus it wasn’t pre-sequenced), this was a feat. And if you’ve ever installed a show before you can appreciate this!

Special thanks go out to Danielle at the studio who helped with tools and hanging, so we were all able to split up and take different walls. Here are a few photos showing us installing the show, the gallery lighting and the space.

As soon as the exhibit was up, in anticipation of the fact that we might have to postpone or even cancel the opening reception, I did a Facebook Live video of the show, and then made a short iphone video to share on Youtube (7:22 min).  We were all in agreement that if it made sense to cancel we’d cancel, but we still wanted to have a way to share the work.

In the end, the studio closed about a week later, and though the show is up now til May 1st, there’s no way to see it in person. We are still hopeful things will improve so our ‘closing reception’ (scheduled for that Friday, May 1st) will give us the chance to celebrate the work together, in person, with all of you.  We are also talking about possibly extending the show a little longer, and I’m working on making more videos to highlight the work of each artist. Stay tuned for more details!

In the meantime, hope you are all staying safe and healthy out there!

Save the Date! “Alternate Paths” Opens Friday, April 3

/ kallitypegirl

I’m super excited to announce the upcoming exhibit Alternate Paths, a group show featuring new work by photographers Pat Bacon (photogravures), Marianne Pojman (fiber prints toned with tea, coffee and sepia), Bill Bates (lith prints), Jon Merritt (cyanotypes) and me (kallitypes). It will open at the Nu Movement Studio with a reception on Friday, April 3, 2020, and will close with a (2nd) reception on Friday, May 1, 2020.

For this exhibit, I asked a few of my friends whose work I admire if they would be interested in doing a group show…we started talking about the concept in the fall of 2019, and after they all expressed interest, I went back into the darkroom to make some new negatives and test my old chemistry. I was pleasantly surprised that all of my silver nitrate, ferric oxalate, developer, fixer and toner was still good, after it had sat all summer with no love!  So I was able to get right to work with a new group of images, this time focusing on doors, windows, architectural details, and because I can’t help it, more botanicals! Here are a few draft prints that I’ve been working on:

A few of my recent works

Have you been to the Nu Movement Studio before? It’s a great little space that is typically filled with yoga and other fitness classes by day/night, which uses their wall space to support local artists. Exhibits are installed roughly a month before the opening reception, so artists get exposure for a two-month span through folks attending classes and events, and through the two receptions that the gallery allows the artists to run.

A couple views of the Nu Movement Studio with different exhibits

They don’t charge to use the space, don’t take any commissions on sales, and they assist the artists with printing of statements and labels and with the installation of the show.  They have receptions for their exhibits on the first Friday of each month, usually from around 6 to 9  pm. It’s a pretty rare opportunity for artists, and one that is greatly appreciated! Here’s some info on where they are located:

I’m hoping to share another post as we get closer to the exhibit, but for now, just a little teaser to get you to mark your calendars!

 

Photo Book Update #2 – Order Your Copy by Fri, March 15

/ kallitypegirl

Hi everyone!

The second version of my Blurb photo book arrived and it is much much better! Want to see it? Here is a link to a YouTube video I made where you can see more of the book:

Photo Book Demo

The final book is 12×12 size, with a dust jacket over a black linen cover, approx 35 pages printed on high-quality 140-pound proline premium paper. This size allows for a really close representation of the prints, which were all roughly 8×10 size, and the matte finish and heavier paper weight allow for thumbing through the book without reflections on the paper and without wrinkling with handling. Here are some still pics:

 

I had to make a couple small tweaks to a few photos, but I am ready to put in a bulk order!  I currently have 7 pre-orders but if I get 10, we get a 35% discount; if we order 20, we get 40% off. My estimate is that the book will cost about $75 with tax and shipping.  If you are interested in purchasing a copy, please let me know by this Friday, March 15, 2019.

 

 

Paper Experimentation

/ kallitypegirl
Hi everyone!

 

If you’ve been following my Artist Residency blog over the past few months you know that my residency officially ended last Thurs, Feb 28. I have cleared out my drawers, brought home all my leftover supplies, and sadly, handed in my keys.

 

But before I did that, I was fortunate to have a little time to experiment with some sample papers gifted to me by my friend Bill, and make more prints using my aging sensitizer and existing negatives. The results were pretty good!

 

The first paper I experimented with was Hahnemühle rag, which I have been looking forward to trying for over a year. It is renowned as a ‘perfect paper’ for hand-coating processes. The very-smooth surface is similar to the Stonehenge printmakers paper I used while learning the kallitype process.

 

To coat the Hahnemühle, I decided to use a little more sensitizer (more drops) and let it sit on the surface and soak in, rather than my ‘usual’ vigorous brushing technique where I really work the chemistry into the paper fibers. I had been doing the latter with the Fabriano watercolor paper I used for my exhibit, but for the smoother papers, this technique seems to negatively impact the surface, and results in a less-sharp print and often times, a lot of visible brush strokes.

 

hahnemuhle rag

Hahnemuhle rag paper in the developer – the tones were slightly warm and very dark

Funny enough, after printing with it and comparing it to the other papers, turns out it is my least fave. This is primarily due to how flat it looks when dry, though the resulting tones are actually pretty nice.

 

The next two that I tried were different Awagami washi papers – Gampi and Mitsumata. These were actually pretty weird to work with. While dry, they have a ‘right side’ and a ‘wrong side’ and when wet, they are slippery and easily crumple up on themselves.  In the developer and other baths, they either became translucent or partly translucent, and they were so thin that picking them up and letting them drip to transfer to the next bath was tricky – they kept slipping out of my tongs.

 

wet mitsumata

The Mitsumata paper turned translucent in the developer!

But they dried down nicely with interesting surface textures – the Gampi was shimmery and almost metallic:

 

Gampi dry

Shimmery finish on the Gampi paper

And the Mitsumata dried as solid white but with a slight see-through look. The dried-down tones were also warmer which was a surprise, despite having used the same chemistry and the same exposure time. I had 5 sheets of each and used them all.

 

Dry mitsumata paper

Mitsumata paper dried down, slightly warmer tone, but solid white

The last paper I tried was Arches Platine. This one was amazing!  The prints had very dark, rich  blacks, very cool grays and were just gorgeous. It almost made me wish I had done more paper experimentation during my residency! I used all 10 sheets of the sample pack and made new prints of some of my favorite negatives, with excellent results. This is a paper I would definitely buy again!

 

My next goal is to make more new negatives of different images and get back into the darkroom later this spring. For now though, I am taking a break from the Darkroom, hoping there is still some winter left, and looking forward to more xc skiing before spring is truly here!