darkroom time

Some initial darkroom prints from waxed paper negatives:

paper writing

This is what the beginnings of paper writing looks like. 

The end is much messier.

In addition to working on writing my third paper I also looked through 9 more boxes of my grandfather's slides this week. More projection images to follow hopefully soon!

sketches

Here are some sketches from this week. Different versions of the same map, experiments in material (drawing paper, transparency, grid paper, charcoal, pencil, sharpie)  and line (dark and light), which I then turned into wax paper negatives and cliché-verres. I brought these into the darkroom yesterday to make prints and will post updates as soon as I pick up the dried prints. I am very excited to see where these maps will lead.

time

I haven't posted any images in a few weeks and I would like to be able to say that I have been working on something grand that just hasn't been ready to be revealed. Alas, I think I have just been feeling very stuck, mostly stuck in my own head, but also stuck in the middle of this first semester. Time is starting to  become less of a luxury as the January residency gets closer and I am feeling pressure. 

Two weeks ago I met with my mentor for the second time and I thought it was a great meeting. I left feeling inspired and excited about the direction of my work. Later that week I was speaking with fellow  group 1 students who have been struggling with the demands of the program. At that moment I was thinking that I am in a great spot and started working on my second paper. (I will post the paper later for anyone who is interested, it will be on the right side of this page). And sometime after that I got stuck.

I tend to over think everything I do, and this is definitely the case with my art. For the past two weeks I have been getting stuck in a thinking rut. I am still very excited about the work I am making, I just need to find a way to get un-stuck so that I can actually make it. I have been reading lots and trying to sketch out ideas I have, so hopefully I will have more work to post in the next few weeks.

With my mentor I spoke mostly about the projections of old slides I have been doing and the memory maps. Both need a lot of work and I need to decide what exactly I want to say with each of these projects and how I want to portray them. I am still also working with fuji film and emulsion lifts and will hopefully be building some light boxes soon to display them in layers. 

The maps and projections go hand in hand for me, and maybe they will be combined into one project eventually. I have been thinking a lot about nostalgia (the topic of my second paper) and trying to figure out why I often feel nostalgic, what I feel nostalgic for, and how that effects my every day life and my art. I don't have a complete answer yet, but hopefully these projects will get me closer to one.

The following images are very preliminary sketches. Based on the original memory map I posted a few weeks ago, these are pencil drawings that are less exact and more descriptive of a path. They are all real walks I took as a child, but the maps are drawn from memory and may not be accurate. I think the titles need to be in a combination of German  and Swiss-German, but for now they are written in English also. I am not sure if I want descriptive titles in the final pieces, it just made sense to have them in my sketch book. The grid paper has a nostalgic quality for me, though I have visions of large scale paintings of these drawings on canvas. I will also experiment with more mixed media and adding photographs or transfers.