joel lederer (lederer@netvision.net.il)
Thu, 18 Feb 1999 00:28:42 +0200
Hey Jewelia,
It was nice reading your post. The group has been filled with such junk and
aggression these past weeks that I've been staying out. I appreciated your story
and wish that more list members would write up their personal accounts as you
did; it puts all the tech talk in perspective.
You struck a nerve when you said "stay puzzled". I remember an apifinal
moment of mine, borne out of confusion and the illusion of needing direction
when it occurred to me to "stay a weirdo". It has helped me to accept the fact
that I'm not going to be doing things the easy way and that as long as I realize
that the good stuff is beyond words and cognition that pictures (photographs)
are my way of dealing and well ,uh , I lost my train of thought, but I have the
feeling you know what I'm talking about...
Anyway. Just wanted to say HI.
Joel Lederer- Tel Aviv
jewelia wrote:
> 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
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