Work in progress
Here’s a short piece on the Orleans House Gallery website about what I’ve been working on for the last couple of months during my residency in the woods in the gallery grounds.
I will be writing a longer post here at some point that will go a bit deeper into things. Could take a while though.
My loft//studio space now has a wonderful new drum kit majestically installed right next to my desk and I’ve found this is working out quite nicely.. because I’ll go up to play the drums and end up doing some work, or I’ll go up to do some work and end up having a good practise session instead. My procrastination has been tricked! I went up yesterday to practise, and the typewriter was still out from something I was doing last week so I ended up doing some of this instead.
I have been working on this print on and off for the last few months. It’s proving tricky to get the exposure times right. And I’m not the most methodical person, so my experimenting is a bit slap-dash. I might be getting closer though..
My phone gave up the ghost last week. I cannot describe the overwhelming feeling of joy and relief when I saw that flashing glitching apple logo. I've had seven glorious days of freedom. No email, no text messages, no to do list reminders, no alarms, and no surprises. I've read so much. I've done my work. I've got so much work done.
Here's a quick and scrappy cyanotype from the end of a long day of experimenting. I've been working on another image for the last few weeks but it's taking longer than expected to get right and I was starting to get impatient so I did a quick test print of this negative instead just to see how it might come out. Took a guess at a 14 minute exposure. The highlights are a bit blown out, so I decided to stick it in a bath of tea.. All a bit slapdash, I think the tray might probably have had some soap in it which might explain these errant blue blotches. Which I kind of like. And the vertical stripes are from the print lying facedown on the bottom of the tray and not enough agitation. I guess they shouldn't be there either. But I like the glitches. And I really like the colour of the toning. Iron gall. I shall write a bit about the science and history behind that at some point.
Anyway. This is a rock from Rannoch Moor in Scotland floating above Lindisfarne, Holy Island in Northumberland.
