The nature of a darkroom in many ways mirrors a traditional séance parlor. Shielded from external light, and dimly illuminated from within; both are liminal spaces where a productive atmosphere can be destroyed in an instant by the presence of white light. With an intentional return to the darkroom (away from the digital and multimedia approach in previous projects), I summon the particular synchronicities that only a darkroom can provide.
exercises in surrender and precision
"In a work of art, chaos must shimmer through a veil of order." -Novalis
These mixed media works deepen the intention of an earlier series, We Are Here, which emerged in response to my initial experiences with the study of mediumship. This unseen, intensely interior process has something in common with art-making. These works consider the qualities that both activities share, the liminal conditions that both require, and explore the idea of creative activity itself as a form of spirit communication.
With access to a darkroom made impossible during the pandemic, in a strange twist of fate, the summer sky became an essential tool.
Let’s go.
With this work, completed in the pre-A.I. image-generating years between 2008-and 2015, I was innocently exploring the limits of human credulity and the experiences of wonder and belief (with Photoshop.) From my current vantage point, these images feel less innocent. For the record, they are and remain a tribute to all of the Experiencers throughout history who were not believed.
The space between bounded categories of identity is fertile ground for exploring the intersection of artistic expression and spirit communication. Over time, and with deep attention, the reciprocal gaze between artist and subject reveals a narrative that I have retold through a distinctive visual language of (time)lines, dots, and symbolic elements. The cleaving of collage and photography echoes the unbounded and absurd atmosphere that mediumship can sometimes illicit.
Some trance experiments- asking, listening, receiving.
In the practice of Victorian era Spiritualist mediumship, women often exerted a galvanizing influence from principal positions. With a nod to this tradition and in response to my own study of the practice, the intention here is to communicate our continual connection to certain histories, remote yet accessible.
Objects can serve as focal points, or paths of entry into personal insight. Powerful and meaningful, these insights will not reveal themselves overtly. To know them, you must notice deeply and contemplate the messages they offer. These images are the boiled up, sublimated and refined remnants of portents and symbology hidden within my day- to-day experiences.
In hindsight, I think this series was the product of post-9/11 emotional processing. The discord of the wrecked buses implied a kind of violent, visceral experience, which felt very satisfying to scatter in the cold and detached hush of "space." The images seem also to serendipitously document strange, supernatural and/or celestial events, which are themes that recur in my work.
Past experiments, ongoing projects and ideas not yet fully formed.
cliche-verre process
wet plate collodion on hand-made fused glass plate
encaustic process
Crypt Camera image (Green-Wood Cemetery)
grave dirt chromatography
detail of installation (Old Frog Pond)
cyanotype on porcelain
fused glass powder
pigment print and ink on hand-marbled paper
plasma (neon) in blown glass form
fused glass and ceramic experiment (aka happy accident)
plasma (neon) in blown glass form