> Hi Judy,
>
> In your last message to alt-process you wrote:
>
> >For both plusses and minuses the analogy I'd make would be to Polaroid
> >transfer.
>
> Could you clarify? What do you mean exactly? (I do Polaroid transfers, so any
> rare mention of the process on this list captures my attention. ;)
Karen, it's my understanding that the Polaroids you're transferring aren't
fully archival as we use the term. Perhaps someone on the list has or can
refer you to better & more updated information, but when I asked a
Polaroid rep about archivality at a demo a couple of years ago, all he'd
say was "we're working on it." I don't know the nature of the degradation
either and would suggest you conduct your own test. Make a Polaroid
transfer on the paper you usually use, put the print half in/half out
of a book or half under a black cardboard, and leave the package on a
sunny windowsill for anywhere from one to six months. Then open the
package, compare the two halves..... and share your discovery with us!
The other part of my analogy was that I see Polaroid and the Epson printer
as having a kinship in offering a kind of fun, easy, and *seductive*
practice... If you disagree, I'd be interested to learn why.
> The issues of looks-vs-the-real-thing and new-technology -possibly-
> undermining-the-old have started to bother me lately. Maybe it was the
> discussion a while back about faking cyanotypes digitally, using PhotoShop and
> prepackaged edges. (It shocked the hell out of me, I love working in cyanotype
> and plan to put my images on the Web soon.)
All's fair in love & art. Sometimes when I get (by accident) a really
straight edge on a gum print, I fake it in development, fuzzing it up with
a brush to look like the "natural" spreading of the emulsion. I understand
that years ago Steven Livick, Canada's legendary gum printer, had brush
marks put in the negatives for his color separations. The interesting
part of course, is that as soon as it becomes standardized -- as with
Photoshop today -- it loses appeal. I used to print in b&w by a highly
evolved form of Sabattier. I've lost interest in doing that, at least in
some small part because of the APS "solarizing" filter.
>
> On another list there was mention of how laser printers are overtaking the
> realm of "copier art/xerography". It got me thinking about the ways in which
> I'm changing how I work. By and large though, the processes and the messes are
> still important to me.
I agree entirely... and note that *art* evolves even as we make it, in the
way that *language* evolves, even as we speak.
cheers,
Judy