Round One of the Mirror Wing

So the lovely Hannah came to visit and it was a very productive weekend full of photographing, seeing art, and eating good food. Her company is always welcome. The first test run of the broken mirror wing (still thinking about a title) began Friday and was taken down the next afternoon. (Special thank you to Blake for bringing his brother to open the garage door!)

Needless to say, it was a learning experience and I have plans to do it at least once more. It also felt like a performance piece for the entire neighborhood. Probably not something they see everyday. Here was my lovely setup (taken on Saturday):

The weather was perfect, surprisingly. Friday was nice and sunny and the next day it rained and the wind swept petals across the mirrors. Strange because I had been thinking I needed to do something with the petals for a photograph and then this happened.

I can only hope the weather will be like that again for the next round. Here's a shot on Friday from the ladder:

Now to edit the images with Hannah in them. Hopefully I'll be able to post them in the near future.

The Pieces

I've noticed I have a fondness for destroying specific objects. For some time now, I have slowly been collecting old, cheap, often digital film cameras and taking them apart in various ways. Currently, I have a couple drawers and a shoe box full of the pieces from many different cameras (I've lost count now). This destruction began for a variety of reasons; once I started though, I found I couldn't stop.

I knew I wanted to do something sculptural with the pieces. I tried a few things, experimented a little while in school, mostly failures. Lately, I've been trying to push myself. Eventually I want to make work that's more 3-D instead of simply gluing the pieces to a surface. Still, I'm happy with how this one turned out (finished a few weeks ago):

Smaller scale this time around (unlike this one), the pieces are glued to a 7" x 5" piece of Plexiglas. It also made for an interesting negative for cyanotypes. I'm excited to take this work further. Now I just need to figure out how to obtain larger quantities of cameras.

Mirrors and Wings

One of my current projects at the moment has involved breaking mirrors and a lot of strong words in the process. The end goal right now is to create a photograph with my friend, Hannah, as a model. Perhaps it will turn into something else as I go along. Here's the initial sketch:

The scale is approximately 9' long and 3' wide. I've had this idea for a while now, I think since high school, but didn't have the time or the drive to do it while I was in college. But it was always in the back of my mind. When I shared this sketch with Jacinda, she reminded me of this sculpture that I'd seen before (probably in one of her lectures) and had forgotten by Anselm Kiefer, Book With Wings.

I happened to find two 3' x 3' mirrors with someone's trash on the street where my parents live. The reflection of the sun caught my eye as I was backing out of the driveway. The mirrors would remain in my trunk for a few years. Until recently.

I learned, especially with these mirrors that were 1/4" thick, all the right and wrong ways to break mirror. It did not break exactly how I wanted, so I had to improvise. And only nicked myself once in the process. Surprisingly. Here's the rough layout at the moment:

Hopefully I'll be able to do a test run before Hannah arrives at the end of the month for a much needed visit.

The Color Red

And so I begin this blog with these words (thanks to Jacinda, the continual sender of all red quotes):

"Red is the most joyful and dreadful thing in the physical universe; it is the fiercest note, it is the highest light, it is the place where the walls of this world of ours wear the thinnest and something beyond burns through." -G.K. Chesterton

I've started a project on the color red. Inspired by Maggie Nelson's book, Bluets (more on that later) and because Jacinda said I should write the red book when I told her that it was my favorite color. Still uncertain of where it will lead. Hell, I'm uncertain of a lot of things at the moment. Right now, I am currently fascinated by this bright developing tray that has yet to be used for its original purpose. It seems to be a reoccurring shade. This image was made for The Postcard Collective last summer.

Hopefully things will soon change and I will have a dark room again. Oh how I miss it right now.