90 days

Well, there are 90 days until my Senior Exhibition and 100 until I graduate from Georgia College. I have been looking into entering a few Photography Contests so I can get my name out there.  I would have to say that my biggest fear is graduating from college and just failing at life.  I know it sounds stupid but honestly this economy is no joke and I am an art major, photography at that.  I feel like the only path I have is to go to grad school but I don't want to do that right now.  I would like to have a year or two to explore.  Explore myself, explore the country, explore the possibilites that are out there for me.

Who knows, maybe after I graduate I will get lucky and get noticed by some famous collector and won't ever have to worry about all this.  One can dream right?....

Format I want to use for a cyanotype - two similar images on top of each other

At a Loss for Words

I have come to realize that I suck at writing about my...well anything. 

I have so much going on up in my head that when I actually try to write about something, I can't. I get frustrated from all the different ideas and viewpoints and research that I just quit.  Instead of writing a neatly organized intellectual paper, or an artist statement for that matter, all I find myself able to do is write messy scribbles of random thoughts out on a piece of paper. I literally have about 10 pages of randomly organized messy notes pertaining to my art and why I do what I do.  But am I able to form all that into a simple 1 paged artist statement? Heck no.  Even with all those notes in front of me I still feel overwhelmed and under prepared.  I have done about 8 months of research and still feel like I MUST do more. I know that one can never do enough research, but I mean really.  I have a time limit here and need some desperate help.

I never thought it was possible to feel so out of control when you try to stay so overly organized.  It seems to me that I am SO organized and too prepared (research & studying wise) that my brain doesn't know what to do.  Allow me to have a conversation with someone about my photographs & I can talk for hours but the second I have to write it down all neat and well prepared I am done for.

Bleh.

Well here is some food for thought:

"Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion,
you ruin what was almost ripe. 

Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course.
He remains as calm
at the end as at the beginning.
He has nothing,
thus has nothing to lose.
What he desires is non-desire;
what he learns is to unlearn.
He simply reminds people
of who they have always been.
He cares about nothing but the Tao.
Thus he can care for all things."

- from the Tao Te Ching

Kodak 35mm - Milledgeville, GA  

Where to go from here

Here is my first 22x22 inch Cyanotype, nicely pressed with my new iron :)

Tomorrow I want to make this same image on Rives BFK and again on Arches Platine but with less chemicals to avoid the puddles I got last time.  I also want the brush strokes to look more whisp like, hair like.  Right now they are too bulky for my liking.  It was the first time I had ever used that brush so I believe that has a major part to it.

Currently I feel stuck.  I do not know where to go from here.  I know what process I want.  I have over 500 pictures.  But I don't feel like the majority of my pictures are what I want to display at my show.  Maybe I feel this way because I have been staring at them for months on end and they just don't jump out at me anymore.  I don't feel any special meaning from them anymore.  I don't have time to be feeling like this.  My show is in 96 days.

Kinda starting to freak out here.  Any suggestions out there?

Huge digital negatives

I am going to share all the steps I have to go through to make a huge digital negative.
First, you have to scan in your negative. Then, you must adjust the levels and curves to your liking. After that is the fun part...cleaning off dust. I currently have my image allowed zoomed in 100% and it is 22x22 inch image. I think it is amazing how you can see all the little silver pieces it takes to make up this image.
This is what that looks like:

After I printed out the large negative I had to venture on over to the Printmaking Lab so I could make my Cyanotype.  First, I coated a 22x30 inch piece of Arches Platine Watercolor Paper with 30mL of chemicals (15mL of solution A & 15mL of solution B). **Note to self, use 20mL total next time because 30mL was too much for that piece of paper.  The solution started to puddle in certain spots because it couldn't soak in.

My piece of coated paper in the lab

Next I made some test strips to determine the correct exposure time for the final print.  I tested three different times: 10 minutes (way too light), 20 minutes (still not enough exposure), & 28 minutes (I needed a little bit more time to get the effect I am going for).  I printed the final print for 35 minutes.  I think I need to adjust the time to 40 minutes and then I should get what I am looking for.

UV Vacuum Box where I expose my prints

Cyanotype directly after it was finished being exposed to light.  I have to wash it for 20 minutes after exposure to remove all the excess chemicals. 

In the middle of me washing my print - you can see the yellow from the chemicals.  All yellow will be white after it all gets washed away.

Exposure: 35 minutes
Cyanotype on the drying rack.  I would be much happier with this print if it was darker so tomorrow I will make one with an exposure of 40 minutes  

Inspiration

I met with Emily today, my professor/advisor, and I believe we had a pretty deep conversation about the meanings of my work. I am still not ready to open up quite yet but I think I am coming closer.  When I asked her what she saw in my images she nailed it on the head - a sense of emptiness, the feeling that something or someone is missing.

Tomorrow we are going to print out a 22 x 30 inch digital negative and make a huge cyanotype.  I am so excited to finally get this thing going.

Emily introduced me to a new artist - Edward J. Steichen.  Wow.  I can truly say that his works & ideas behind his works are so close to mine.  I will be researching him in depth to see if I can get more ideas.