jewelia (jewelia@erols.com)
Wed, 17 Feb 1999 09:17:04 -0800
i think this thread started with a person puzzled over what is the rule: my
rule is to stay puzzled -- healthy and art is more interesting that way, at
least i think.
besides aesthetic visual considerations, i think of my edges more as
carrying poetry and history--to me as i do for my images in general and
living life as an artist the reasons for doing the alt processes i do and
how i do them i think in terms of metaphor--so the struggle here is to
derive meaning from my work and images--so we might say that my work in
landscape for instance is symbolic of the landscape of my mind
an image is a container of what is inside the edges or what is usually
called the frame--within this frame there may be other bodies distinguished
by line areas of tone, artistic treatments to be swift, etc... more edges
occur on many levels--at the stage of framing with the camera-giving you one
edge--the edge of your negative. then--in alt process you have the
potential of the edge of your "coating" - more edges are the edges of the
paper, the mat, the frame, and the context you might put it in. and so on.
i came back to photo after a rather dramatic life in oh say 92--printing in
silver gelatin from 35 mm negatives--the decision that is the popular tussle
at that level is whether you print full-frame or crop? of course stay
puzzled ultimately or completely ignore it are the two most just ideas i
think. but in thinking about this popular "dilemma" i began to focus on the
notion of how a photograph is constrained and in that sense every image is a
body. this i connected to being what is generally considered a "person
trapped in a wrong body"--so i became obsessed forever after with
photography at that point and in particular the edge of my print--what was
left out as well as what was left in and likewise for the plane--depth of
the print. one way to expand the capacity of the print--i decided was to
change formats to a larger negative and change media to alt
process--platinum--into my life in 94 came gertrude --my 8x10--and platinum.
i learned to print platinum w/Palladio--figured since i had to teach
myself--best to not have to worry with coating at first--and i became very
enthused about how i could expand and work with the tone in Pt, etc... but
what to you do with the edge of a precoated paper?--part of the choice was
what looks best and in general i liked a --i dunno-guess about 3/8" black
border around the edge of the entire negative and the mat leaving about the
same around that so the edge layers were quite evident--but in another sense
this edge thing really bugged me--the trapping of the image was really
evident to me (now understand that the dysphoria was really kicking in --
but art & photo had always encouraged this -- thus my long in and out love
affair with art/photo--i mean darkrooms are handy dandy places to cross
dress too--(which i admit can be a problem as well as a relief). anyway,
back to the edge--i was really bugged how this black edge trapped my
image--which i had already become enthused by thinking of it as a metaphor
of myself--now when i say bugged--i mean disturbed way beyond any emotional
state most people imagine regarding art--but pretty close to Van Gogh and
his thing with his ear--i'm not sure which of us was worse! so in 95--out
came the coating rods and brushes and i got to know B&S. changed my life i
know!
i tend to work in seasonal cycles--just can't seem to break out of it--but
what has happened is that i have treated the edge--i think taken it to
another level but this is relative to my own work and not a value
judgement--every year. 96 was the year of what i called at the time a "more
organic" edge which was still a black edge surrounding the entire image but
what you might call a more "expressive" one made with a coating rod and
thinking this way i learned to use it freely but in a way that it seemed to
add something to the image i was working on--so i began to develop a
self-similarity within a body of distinctive individualized prints--thus
more organic or natural seeming to me as a population i suppose you might
say. (by this time i had also "mastered" several other alt-media.) btw: i
had begun to come out in late 95--to my spouse (now not then) susan.
one year later--after the 96 prints were done--i had my big coming out
party. and my work, the edges and tones took a quiet peaceful turn--i began
to try to make prints having sort of an infinity in a very narrow range of
tone-- i would also guess that figuring out how to print in Uranium
influenced this also--Ur has a narrow range of high key tones and no "B"
contrast solution that i know of--i began to control contrast in the paper
using different papers and sizings--some of this know-how translated into
pt/pa and jewelia learned a lot about paper and sizings this year including
making both washi and western paper herself. anyway, i was able to make a
different sort of Pt image this year that have a different way of being
powerful than the usual Pt drama--i would admit they are easily overpowered
in the company of these usual full-tone beautiful prints--but of course the
intent was partly to admit of my own vulnerability--part of how i
accomplished this besides making especially soft prints was to move the edge
of the image inside the print and to shift to using a gentle brush--not too
much of those hair strokes at the edge of the print in mine and using starch
i would almost work up a multiple edge of tones in the froth of starch and
gum sizings i would incorporate--this is all very subtle and quiet as is the
nature of the prints--some are high key and some are dark--together by
themselves i think they work very well--in the company of "mainstream" art,
photo, or alt-process photo they tend to bet trampled on but this
willingness to succumb to that seemed very appropriate to me.
97 ended in a lot of turmoil for me--several long stories though that i
won't go into now--but what happened is that i began to see myself as having
many possibliites to be a person, an artist, or for any print--and although
i am entirely happy now to be who i feel i am despite others might think i
am wasting my life being both or either an artist or woman--i began to think
about how to make art about this--so now as an artist--i am well at least 6
artists--i am my own art movement in fact-i even have my own curator who
trys to explain my work-- M. Imagine Mei -- this person is androgynous and
much more able to discuss this mad hatter's tea party than jewelia is and in
fact she is writing all of this out for you now! other artists in the group
include Richard--who is a voice of the past who is the technical master
preoccupied with reinventing uranium printing processes and he just slaps it
on the paper--very messy edges that he overmats and he's cheap with the
paper too--just big enough--he overmats the print so no edges show--neither
the coated or negative edge--so there is just the edge of the mat--he needs
to work on his content though--to much like jewelia's at the moment-i could
go on more about him--later some day. then we might say at the opposite
extreme is j.c. P-C who is what you might call a more ambitious feminist
artist who tends to prefer working digitally and gives jewelia a really
tough time for working with the ol' romantic, historical alt-process
stuff--another long story about the Wonderland of very large art schools
these days could be told her but another day. poor jewelia is caught in
between but ignores them both mostly and has taken up working on
copper--which introduces the edge of the sheet of copper--thinking of
whistler this allows other opportunities to think about those edges--but
enough for today--ultimately you just gotta see to believe i guess.
so there is a history now in my edges--not apparant from looking at one--but
when the whole trail is looked at it is apparent that something is happening
there at the edge and of course, like most art--to understand why you would
need some words like here, but in that way--like wampum they have a
mneumonic character--so we have sort of a epic based on history that carries
a poetic meter in the edge? i dunno??-anyway--i am hoping this might add
something to the discussion as to how to think of the edges of your prints.
if you are really stuck--you might try cross-dressing while you print--see
what happens--just don't hold me responsible-you are at your own risk here.
as for me--i have a license to be a nut authorized by 2 shrinks not just
one--can come in handy in the case of bathroom confusions--which so far
haven't happened. oh, and one last thing--credits are appropriate--and i do
grant B&S full credit for enabling my wonderful life as a woman--thank you
Richard!
warm regards and good humor to you today--jewelia margueritta cameroon
my edges carry a history in themselves as do the images as
now being at least 6 different artists in one--i am striving to match Rabbit
Howls at 92-in-1 myself---i tend to do it different for different
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sat Nov 06 1999 - 10:06:51