Artist Residency in Motherhood | Week 2
This week it felt harder to consistently work, I definitely did not meet my goal of work hours, but I was also trying to work on a few things for my business that would bring in more funds for materials. I do think I made some progress in the work I’m making, and was able to take more photographs than I had in week 1.
I started off trying to re photograph some of the objects for my cyanotypes. After I made last weeks cyanotypes of the objects on our wood floor, I realized the reflections and texture of the wood became distracting, and thought using a white background would fix this. I re photographed these images on a white background, and actually became really happy with these images by themselves. Their quality feels very different, and I may try to re visit what making these objects in a more controlled setting might look like.
Once I made the negatives of these images and attempted to expose them, I realized I made a mistake.
This did not work.
I quickly realized that this would not work after I exposed the new negatives of the above image on my paper. In this process the white background became black, blocking the sun from the paper thus making the whole image white. It was a very dumb error on my part. But it’s definitely not the first mistake I’ve made in some process involving photographic negatives.
The following day I prepared more cyanotype paper, while I worked on websites and other admin tasks for my business and art practice. At this point I was feeling a little stuck in what I wanted to keep doing. I felt like I had wasted time photographing the images on white, just for my cyanotype to not come out at all. The following day I prepared more paper. and made a few more cyanotypes with a baby sock, and more produce nets. At this point I’ve been exploring textures and how objects look with this process, but have been considering how else I might want them to look and will be experimenting with toning the prints soon.
Alongside my many cyanotype experiments I am always taking photographs. I’ve been letting rolls of film pile up that I’ll be developing soon, but also wanted to make more polaroids last week. Here are the few that I took. I received four more packs of film in the mail and ordered more cyanotype materials to make higher quality prints that I’m excited to work with too.
My final cyanotype test of the week included attempting to re photograph some images after my failed tests on a white background.
I photographed two objects on black, printed my digital negatives, and exposed them in the sun for 8 minutes.
I’m really happy that this test worked, and I produced the two prints below. The object stands out in these compared to my original images photographed on our wood flooring. It becomes more about the object in the photograph which was my intent. I didn’t trim my negatives down that well, so the small slivers of white are some black areas I need to trim off. Going forward I will be making the negatives a little larger so they go over the whole treated area rather than being able to see the change in tone from where the negative was, and the border around it.
After my final tests of the week I’m happy that even though I wasn’t motivated to make work, or inspired this week, I still pushed through to make progress in the work that I was doing. With more supplied coming in, I hope to continue making this work and photographing new objects.
Last week I shared what I was thankful for on the first day of my residency. Today I’ll share what I was thankful for last week.
I am thankful for the time, and the materials I have to continue making my work.
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