Artist Residency in Motherhood | Week 5
Last week I felt so great about the feedback I received from my critique group, I thought this would motivate me to dive back into work. But last weekend, and early into this week I felt pretty drained mentally. This whole week has been a bit of a blur, as each week day I thought it was a completely different day. I also thought that it was the last week of April…There’s still another one. But, I do think I made some good progress with my cyanotype work. And took some time to do a few creative things outside of my art practice that I’ll share later.
On previous weeks blogs I mentioned that I wanted to make this work about the objects my daughter leaves on the floor. It may have been a couple months ago that I was picking up a lot of little toys around the house after my daughter had gone to bed, and said to my husband “picking up these things constantly is tiring, but they also make me really happy”. The act of picking up these little toys is a reminder of our day, what she’s found joy in that day. And maybe one day I’ll long for the time after she’s gone to bed, that I’m picking up troll dolls, left shoes, and ponies that hurt A LOT more than legos when stepped on.
By photographing these objects I am creating a log of what Ariana spends her days playing with, and at the same time the labor I put in as her mother picking up her toys. I could archive these through cell phone snap shots, or through higher quality images of them alone - which I explored a few weeks back. But, by turning them into cyanotypes - an alternative photographic process, I am taking more time with each of them, turning them into a more precious, and time intensive process by taking the photograph, editing and creating a negative, coating my paper with the UV sensitive chemicals, and exposing them in the sun. This is all done while my daughter is napping each day, usually the only two hour window I get alone to work each day.
On Tuesday, I collected and photographed 21 items that Ariana had left on the floor. Wednesday I spent made a couple negatives and test prints. Thursday and Friday I did the same and was able to make 10 new cyanotype test prints of these subjects. I have not yet been able to create more negatives and prints, as I ran out of ink for my printer on Friday afternoon.
I’m so happy to see this collection of prints growing and to start thinking about it’s potential scale as the series grows. I hope to make a representation of at least a week of what I’m picking up from the floor.
For now their size, borders, and chemical coatings are a bit messy as I’m testing the work. But, I was able to try some new paper, and editing for the negatives that I think is helping in the print quality overall.
Thursday morning I took this Polaroid portrait of us too, and throughout the week took a few film images as we played outside with the warm weather, and set up her small pool that the dogs seem to be swimming in more than her. Hopefully I’ll be finishing up another roll this weekend and be able to develop them early next week to share.
While i definitely took less photographs this week, I think I made some great progress in my work and got to think a lot about the directions for what I’ve been making.
A few more things I did this week…
Monday I had little motivation to work on my art practice, but I did get to be creative by participating in an instagram challenge by Brooklyn Film Camera to re create an image of Edwin Land, the founder of polaroid. Though I didn’t win the challenge, I still had fun working through some technical difficulties with my broken polaroids and ended up with a few fun photographs of myself.
Throughout the week I was also able to submit my work to a few opportunities, and I’m happy to be a part of a couple online exhibitions during this time where I can’t go out and show work in person. Links to online exhibitions and publications can be found on the home page of this website.
I also recognized that while making new work has been wonderful, I just didn’t feel up to constantly working like I usually do, so I spent some time playing my guitar this week, and listening to music more rather than trying to read, or always hopping on my computer to complete website or business work. It was really nice to take some time away from the routine I usually put myself in.
I’m going to keep working with the materials I have on hand, and hope to acquire more funds for materials soon. At the moment I can’t make negatives due to running out of ink.
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