Chapter 15

Contemporary Cyanotype Artists

Figure 15.2. Ecotone #04 (Bainbridge Island, WA 03.19.15, Rainstorm, One Hour and Thirty-seven Minutes), unique cyanotype, 42″ × 96″ © Meghann Riepenhoff 2015

Writing—or editing as the case may be—this final chapter is the fun part of creating a book. I get to see into the minds of the artists and how they think and work and make art. We all are driven to do this thing called “art” for myriad reasons, and we work in myriad ways.

Each artist was sent a questionnaire asking for an artist statement, biography, and answers to these questions about process and creative practice: Why cyanotype, in general or in specific for this work? What is/are your favorite paper(s) for cyanotype? How do you make your negatives? What cyanotype formula do you use, classic or new? What exposure device do you use, and approximately how long do you expose? What is your development process? Do you tone cyanotypes and if so, with what toner, what formula, and how? Do you have any favorite ways of matting, framing, and/or displaying your cyanotypes? Describe any cyanotype problem(s) you have had, the probable cause, how you solved it. In what unique ways are you using cyanotype? If you are printing on alternate surfaces like wood or fabric, how? If you are doing the process in a different way, how? Do you have any cyanotype advice to share? Describe anything about your creative practice as an artist that might interest/be helpful to a reader. Each artist could choose to answer concisely or elaborately, some questions, none, or all.

I edited out the questions, and intervened only minimally in their words so the artists could speak for themselves, in their own voice, and with their particular syntax. It is important to me that their works and their personalities are represented as one.

The reader will note the wide range of cyanotype practice from traditional to contemporary, abstract to representational, 2D to 3D, printed on various surfaces, and installed in numerous ways. We are all working with two chemicals that, when combined, make a light-sensitive substance, but often that is where our commonality ends.

Artists are presented democratically in alphabetical order in 2-, 4-, or an occasional 6-page spread, depending on the length of submitted essays and number of images submitted.

I thank these artists for taking time out of their lives to share their passion as I know it is yet one more commitment in already busy lives, and with no remuneration besides the pleasure of seeing their creative talents come to fruition in print.

Figure 15.3. American, lumen print of chrysanthemums with contact printed negative, classic cyanotype, multiple toning (gold, selenium, Dektol, peroxide, Halochrome) on expired Ilford Multigrade IV WT RC Deluxe Glossy paper, 11″ × 14″ © Mariana Bartolomeo 2015

Mariana Bartolomeo

Figure 15.4. Mi Sueño de la Noche (from photo-narrative Widow’s Work), classic cyanotype, double coated, contact print of a negative and photogram of lace and bottle, collage, encaustic, Rives BFK, 42″ × 14″ © Mariana Bartolomeo 2014

Process

My MFA is in Printmaking and Book Arts, so my life is paper galore. I use many different papers depending on the effects that I want to achieve. Overall, I love using large papers that can handle 2–4 coats of cyanotype chemistry: Rives BFK Heavyweight, Arches Platine (both weights), Canson XL, and Canson Bristol.

When I apply multiple coats of cyanotype I am looking for Dmax, the deepest, darkest (almost cobalt/ultramarine) blue possible…Nearly black. It allows me to make multiple, long exposures with different overlapping elements (plants, negatives, textured glass, lace, etc.). They afford me the ability to experiment as I work.

Medium weight papers such as Hahnemühle Sumi-e also produce rich, deep blues, but on projects that are less brutal. Canson Montval produces a more true cyan blue, more on the cold/acidic side of deep aqua. Japanese/Thai Unryu is a good choice when I want to work in cyanotype collage or chine collé.

If I want to contact a negative with significant sharp detail I refer back to etching/intaglio/letterpress papers such as Fabriano Tiepolo, Arches 88, and Canson Bristol. I am really searching for a 100% cotton paper that will produce image sharpness from a negative. One on my list to try is Rising Stonehenge.

Practically an anathema in printmaking, I have used cyanotype on non-rag, fiber-based paper, specifically the same Ilford Multigrade FB and RC glossy papers that I often use for lumen prints (see the print to the left). I discovered that Ilford darkroom paper produced a dreamy, almost misty image akin to dusk on the ocean. It is useless for all sense of detail, but it turns a contact printed bottle into an image that looks far away, the edges blurred and eyes squinting to clarify, with a gentle, glowing light effect that is likely very difficult to reproduce on any other paper. The only real difference I found between RC and fiber is that RC is a colder acid cyan and the fiber is a bit warmer blue. A lot of my cyanotype work is experimental. I often combine contact printing with lumen printing on various papers as in American.

Another way of working cyanotype is a multiple day exposure. My process is similar to “wet cyanotype” but I let the paper dry in-between repeated exposures, the use of various salts (besides just iron), and repeated developments. My effort is to create as much depth of field in an image by increasing the tonal range in stages from darkest to lightest. This is not easy at all!

Figure 15.5. Féin Portráid (from photo-narrative Widow’s Work) classic cyanotype double coated, developed in hydrochloric acid and tannin, alka seltzer, peroxide, on Arches 88 paper, 8″ × 12″ © Mariana Bartolomeo 2014

One of my experiments was with Arches 88 paper which is traditionally for silk screen. It is completely unsized and highly absorbent, almost like blotting paper. First, I triple coated the Arches 88 (42″ × 30″) with classic cyanotype and added oxalic acid 5 g/liter. While the treated paper was drying I had the following chemistry on hand during exposure: 10% potassium dichromate, vinegar, glacial acetic acid, 10% ferrous sulfate, caffenol, 1% hydrochloric acid, household ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, magnesium citrate/carbonate, table salt, potassium chloride, potassium phosphate, in separate plastic bottles. I set these out on a bench next to the garden hose.

I have a 4′ × 4′ work table outside with a piece of plate glass on hinges attached to it. I placed the paper on the table and on it a large dried palm leaf skeleton, soaked in water to make it soft, with fruit seeds removed. I spritzed the paper with water and then lowered the plate glass to hold it in place undisturbed for an hour. Then, the paper was spritzed again, also with cyanotype solution and the glass was lowered again. This was left over night. The next day I repeated the wetting process and sprinkled the paper with magnesium powder to impart a grainy effect. On the third morning, I removed the palm and washed the paper with water and treated it with peroxide to see what I had in the way of an image. Working in full sun, I used the various toners “à la poupée” (printmaking style), washing and toning and then let it dry. I wanted a deeper blue black in the corners and some elements of the composition so I painted on some hydrochloric acid (1%), then the cyanotype solution, replaced the palm, spritzed the glass, lowered it and let it sit for another three hours. I removed the palm and washed the paper again, but this time I poured on the peroxide full strength and watched it foam up and disperse. I repeated this action 4–5 times in direct sun, then let it all sit again for another hour.

Two things happened: First the paper solarized in some areas leaving a metallic sheen, and second the paper began to break down and flake apart. Panic! I took a piece of blotting paper, laid it over the Arches 88, lowered the glass and clamped it. After two hours, I was able to slide a piece of blotter paper under the Arches and remove the top blotter. I used a bone folder (book-making tool) to press the large flakes back into the paper itself. All cotton and fiber papers contain a certain amount of glue in the plant chemistry, so it is mostly possible to repair tears or other paper problems (like falling apart) by pressing damp paper back together. I still wanted a more granular effect, so I lightly spritzed the paper with peroxide and vinegar and sprinkled areas with magnesium and sodium chloride powder. I pressed it again. I did not wash this off after it dried. Over all, I had a cyanotype lumen print that had many layers and tones of blue and was solarized. I don’t have any idea if I can repeat this outcome.

Creative practice

My interest in cyanotype goes back to 1960 when my father gave me my first camera, a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye and a roll of blueprint paper. He was a CPA and had a fascination with architecture. He built our house in 1947 and his own office building in 1960 and that is when I learned how to transfer a drawing to blueprint paper using wax paper, a china marker and household ammonia. I also experimented using my negatives from the photographs I took, although it was a really primitive effort and looked more like a contact sheet. But, my interest in cyanotype is an actual extension of my childhood experiences.

Artist statement

Widow’s Work is a photo-illustrated, autobiographical publication about my mystical experiences related to my husband John’s (also known as Don Juan) death on December 20, 2007 (The Winter Solstice and our 25th wedding anniversary) and spiritual transformation to the present. He died from lymphoma due to exposure to Agent Orange in the Vietnam Era. The text includes haiku and other poetry inspired by visions of a Dimensionless Light and our intertwined threads of existence.

Figure 15.6. The Stone (from photo-narrative Widow’s Work) contact print with two negatives, classic cyanotype, double coated, lower figure was printed first and then upper portion of the paper was bleached with sodium carbonate and re-coated to print the second negative and toned with Dektol and tannin, Canson Montval, 8″ × 11″ © Mariana Bartolomeo 2016

Biography

Mariana Bartolomeo has been a professional artist for over 40 years. She works across mediums depending on the subject matter including: historical photographic methods, darkroom and digital processes, printmaking, narrative documentary, and handmade books. She exhibits her work internationally and is represented by Primo Piano Livingallery in Lecce, Italy. Collections include: The Cathedral Foundation, Beijing Natural Cultural Center, Gvyllm Family Trust, Center for Fine Art Photography, and Yale University/Beinecke Library Archives. To see more of her work visit marianabartolomeo.com.

Figure 15.7. Teviot 4, classic cyanotype toned with bleach and tannic acid mounted to birch plywood panel, 22″ × 15″ © Jennah Ward Bentley 2015

Jennah Ward Bentley

Figures 15.8 and 15.9. Left, Teviot 10; right, Teviot 1, classic cyanotype toned with bleach and tannic acid, mounted to birch plywood panel, 22″ × 15″ © Jennah Ward Bentley 2015

Process

The paper I used for this work is Strathmore 500 Series Bristol Vellum. I like the smooth, soft surface. The formula I use is the classic formula from Bostick & Sullivan. I mix equal parts of 25% green ferric ammonium citrate and 10% potassium ferricyanide and coat the paper once with a brush. The emulsion is extended past the edges of the paper so that the entire sheet is coated. Sometimes I coat the paper a second time in specific areas to emphasize variation in depth of the Prussian blue color of the cyanotype.

I don’t use an exposure device per se. To make an exposure, I lay the paper on a surface in a space. The windows and doors of the space act as my aperture. The exposure times range from 30 seconds to 6 minutes. Typically, I make 2–4 exposures on each paper. With each exposure I rotate or move the paper. After exposing the paper, I fix and wash the print in a running water bath for approximately 15 minutes. I dry the prints face up on paper towels.

The Pico and Helen cyanotypes are not toned. With the Teviot series, I partially toned the prints with tannic acid. I used a strong bleach solution in certain areas of the prints using a wide brush, then rinsed them in a running water bath, and lastly immersed them in the tannic acid bath. While the tannic acid changed the tone of the entire prints, areas that were bleached also had a change in the image structure as some of the original detail was intentionally removed.

Figure 15.10. Teviot Studio, chamfered birch plywood panels that Ward Bentley constructs for her prints © Jennah Ward Bentley 2018

To finish the work, I mount the prints on handmade birch plywood panels. The panels extend from the wall about 1″ and are chamfered at the edges so that the image appears to float.

I had difficulty with some fine details washing out during the running water bath. I experimented with various papers and found that the smooth, soft surface of the Strathmore vellum works best to retain detail. I also had difficulty with getting really consistent results during the toning process. I don’t recall that I ever got to the bottom of this problem.

Creative practice

I work within the boundaries of what defines photography. While most photographic processes utilize a camera and digital sensor or film, this work uses neither. The work is more in line with the process of a photogram, but rather than place objects on the paper, I record the light and shadow play made by the windows and doors of an interior space.

I use the cyanotype process for this work for several reasons. Technically, since the cyanotype is primarily sensitive to ultraviolet light, it suits my intention of recording the light and shadow of a specific site. Also, since I make several exposures per print and the exposures are not usually predetermined, the long exposure time of the cyanotype allows me time to move the print around in the light. Conceptually, I chose cyanotype because it was historically used to produce architectural blueprints. My work nods to architectural blueprints in that it records the light delineated by an architectural space.

Figure 15.11. Helen 3, classic cyanotype mounted to birch plywood panel, 22″ × 15″ © Jennah Ward Bentley 2014

Biography

Jennah Ward Bentley is a Los Angeles-based photographer. Her work has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions throughout the US and internationally. The work of Ward Bentley resides in private and public collections, including at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, the California Museum of Photography, and the Museum of Fine Art, Houston. She earned her BA at San Francisco State University in 1999, and her MFA at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, in 2011. To see more of Ward Bentley’s work, visit jennahward.com.

Figure 15.12. Helen 7, classic cyanotype mounted to birch plywood panel, 22″ × 15″ © Jennah Ward Bentley 2014

Figure 15.13. Cuba Downpour, Triptych, cyanotype and Vandyke brown © Laura Blacklow 2018 (author of New Dimensions in Photo Processes, newly revised, a must-buy). “If I start with a normal or slightly underexposed regular-strength cyanotype (processed and dried), I apply regular-strength Van Dyke over and use a normal exposure to produce a brown so dark that it looks almost black. If I start with a double-coated or dramatically (!) overexposed Van Dyke (processed and dried), I can make a slightly underexposed cyanotype on top to produce a greenish-blue. If I expose normally with cyanotype, I get faint traces of the brown, almost like a shadow, with a predominant blue print. I usually go back and forth at least four times and never size in between. However, I have noticed that fixer remover will bleach the blue print while clearing the Van Dyke. So, after fixing and clearing the Van Dyke, I do a brief wash in running tap water, then put the whole print back into hydrogen peroxide to intensify the blue without affecting the brown. Where I live and teach, I have to limit a final wash to 5–7 minutes before the city’s additions to tap water start to bleach back the entire print.”

Laura Blacklow

Process

Because I coat, expose, and process many times on the same sheet, I need a strong paper. I am fond of Rives BFK (which also imparts a slight green tone). I also regularly have used Fabriano Cotton and Magnani Pescia, but Pescia does start to tear after two layers and can show finger or glove prints when wet. I am pleased with recent trials on Canson Special and Strathmore 500 Series.

In the summer I use Bostick & Sullivan’s pre-mixed cyanotype because it generally is slower (which I compensate for, by direct exposures in the sun) but more detailed. In the fall and in the winter, under UVBL, I use Photographer’s Formulary pre-mixed cyanotype because it seems to be faster. I try to avoid mixing raw chemicals as much as possible, due to health concerns.

I have found cyanotype to be sensitive to both heat and light. Therefore, in the summer, I set up a sandwich of plate glass>coated paper>botanics>plate glass, which warms up in the sun, and I overexpose—even for hours—depending on the depth of color I want.

To develop, I first lean a piece of Plexiglas in the sink and wet it, then I suction my exposed print to it. I gently hose the print with cool running water, allowing the unexposed solution to wash off. I wash the print in a tray with running water for 3 minutes, turning it from face down to face up. I evenly slide the print into a tray of 1 tablespoon hydrogen peroxide to a liter of water, then I rock the print for about a minute while visually inspecting the change in tone. I let the print drip before moving it to the final wash, in a tray of running water, for 5 minutes. My city uses chlorine in the water, and longer wash times will bleach the print.

Sometimes I start with an overexposed Van Dyke and do a regularly exposed cyanotype on top. Sometimes I start with a deep blue cyanotype and do Van Dyke on top. If I am not satisfied, I will do a third coating and exposure and development. I am now experimenting with using both processes at the same time, such as coating Van Dyke and gently pouring cyanotype in parts while the first layer is damp.

Figure 15.14. Brìgham & Women’s Hospital © Laura Blacklow 2018

Creative practice

I handmake books, and the tactile printmaking papers plus the pliable cyanotype process, are perfect for pages. I also make larger prints and collages, which I usually mount on colored archival mat board atop neutral pH foam core. I do not over-mat but I do frame with uv protective Plexiglas. Of all the historical processes, cyanotype is probably the most forgiving, so it allows me to feel free from concentrating on numerous technical details, and that enables me to experiment.

Biography

Laura Blacklow is the author of New Dimensions in Photo Processes: A Step-by-Step Manual for Alternative Techniques, 5th ed. (Focal Press, 2018), the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowship, St. Botolph Club Award, Polaroid’s Artist Support Program, and Harvard’s Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Grant. Blacklow teaches at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University. To see more of her work, visit laurablacklow.com.

Figure 15.15. Illuminated, from the series Out of The Blue (Part I of A Million Suns), collaged cyanotype with digital drawing, 17″ × 11.2″ © Jonah Calinawan 2013

Jonah Calinawan

Figure 15.16. Adrift, from the series Out of The Blue (Part I of A Million Suns), collaged cyanotype with digital drawing, 8.3″ × 17″ © Jonah Calinawan 2013

Process

I use cyanotype for its emotional expression. I think blue is a very introspective color and that supports the intended outcome of my work in A Million Suns, which tells a story of a man looking for his future. To think about the future, one must look inward, to one’s hopes, fears, and dreams. And I think blue, which some have regarded as a thinking color, supports my intent. I use Arches 140 lb hot pressed watercolor paper, print digital negatives using the Precision Digital Negatives system, and use the classic cyanotype formula from Bostick & Sullivan, mixed equally at time of use. I have a vacuum uv box and I expose for 12 minutes, and then wash for 10 minutes in 70° tap water. I tone with 3 g soda ash dissolved in 600 ml of water, and hand brush it in areas of the cyanotype. I hand-cut my cyanotypes and float mount them to emphasize the physicality of the print. Problems I’ve had: loss of contrast is one problem and it frequently means the cyanotype paper (with the dried up chemistry) is too old. I just mix a new batch of cyanotype chemistry and use it immediately. I also try to keep the water temperature the same (about 70°). If the water is too warm, I find the highlights wash away faster and the image is flatter. Of course, if I want a very clean highlight (paper white), then I might brush hot water in that area.

Creative practice

Why specialize in one color? I find that blue is a very mysterious color. All the themes that show up in my artwork—such as identity, purpose, free will, and destiny are mysterious concepts. Of all the colors, I find that blue, depending on how light or dark it is, is the most mysterious. I think of infinity when looking at a deep blue color.

Figure 15.17. Message in a Bottle III, from the series Out of The Blue (Part I of A Million Suns), collaged cyanotype with digital drawing, 15.5″ × 17″ © Jonah Calinawan 2013

Blue is also a very introspective color, a quiet color. It makes you think about things. Cyanotype leads the viewer to contemplation.

Furthermore, having been an accountant for 25 years, I knew that specialization was important. I’m finding that what is true for a career is also true with art. The only way to get noticed, the only way to compete, is to specialize. Specialization is key if you want to compete.

Specialization makes me more creative. Instead of going from one technique to another technique and never being an expert at anything, by limiting my choices (like cyanotype), I get to push against those limits and hopefully come up with something original. It’s an unexpected lesson that I realized along the way.

Artist statement

Merging graphic novel sequential storytelling with the stand-alone fine art photograph, A Million Suns tells a story of one man’s search for his future. We once looked up at the stars to divine the future. How do we find this future now? Will there be a sign or a signal? Using images that are collaged, montaged, erased, and drawn on, I portray my belief in the unlimited variations of the future. Collage is like creating the future—we combine experiences and circumstances and move them around to see what fits and what makes sense. At any point, we may choose to go left or right, turn back or move forward. Each choice alters the trajectory and overall shape of our lives. There is a great mystery here: we are on a journey where there is no map—it is pieced together as we go along. Thus, we become the traveler and cartographer, the origin and the destination. For this one man’s quest, his life is about to veer off its projected course, into the blue world of A Million Suns.

Biography

Born in the Philippines, Jonah Calinawan lives in the seaport city of Baltimore where he explores ideas of identity and choice in his photographic cyanotype collages. Calinawan has exhibited his work nationally and internationally. His ongoing project A Million Suns tells a story of one man’s search for his future. To see more of Calinawan’s work, visit www.amillionsuns.com.

Figure 15.18. This Old House, from the series Out of The Blue (Part I of A Million Suns), collaged cyanotype with digital drawing, 17″ × 10.7″ © Jonah Calinawan 2012

Figures 15.19 and 15.20. Left, Changing Times; right, Constant Upheaval, new cyanotype on Stonehenge, digital images distorted in Photoshop, printed onto Folex film, hand cut or scratched into the film emulsion, contact printed, along with photogram exposed found objects, hair, fabric, glass, mesh, leaf litter, glassware, insects, and water dilution, 67 × 29 cm © Wendy Catling 2014

Wendy Catling

Figure 15.21. Approaching Storm, new cyanotype on Stonehenge, digital images distorted in Photoshop, printed onto Folex film, hand cut or scratched into the film emulsion, contact printed, along with photogram exposed found objects, hair, fabric, glass, mesh, leaf litter, glassware, insects, and water dilution, 53 × 68 cm © Wendy Catling 2014

Process

For the Hard Light series, I was looking for a variation of blue that expressed the appropriate mood for my ideas. I experimented with Mike Ware’s new cyanotype sensitizer onto a variety of papers including Arches Platine, Arches watercolor, Hahnemühle photo rag inkjet, Kozo rice paper and Buxton paper. It seemed to me that these papers gave tones of blue that were too bright and cheerful. I settled on Stonehenge because the dark hues were best suited to the dark intensity of my memories. More recently I have been using Buxton Platinotype paper, which I order from Ruscombe paper mill in France. It responds beautifully to the sensitizer without issues, and when I need darker hues I will explore toning.

Stonehenge paper proved to be a difficult choice when paired with new cyanotype solution, which is very sensitive to additives in the paper. When I wanted to splash water onto the coated paper it created undesirable stains in the highlights. My solution to the problem was a combination of: one drop of a 40% solution of citric acid per ml of sensitizer, work quickly not allowing the water drops to sit too long on the coated and dry paper, and sponge water drops off with paper towel.

I shoot digital images with a Canon EOS. These are contrast adjusted and distorted in Adobe Photoshop. I like to work with positive film so that my cyanotype images will print as negatives. After printing onto Folex inkjet repro film I scratch textures into the film positive and sometimes cut away areas to better integrate the contact printed image with the photogram part of my print.

My exposures are mostly done in bright sunlight between the hours of 11.00AM and 3.00PM. This time can vary depending on the time of year. I have a uv light box but for photogram prints I prefer the long, one-directional shadows of sunlight. The process of exposing prints in sunlight was also an important part of my conceptual approach to image making in the Hard Light series. For Australians, skin cancer is a huge problem. Working and playing outdoors in the amazing Australian light is potentially dangerous. I take great care after having four carcinomas removed. Working in sunlight I am reminded of the invisible dangers that as a child I was exposed to, so that now when I harness the ultraviolet radiation it becomes a metaphor for taking control of malevolent forces.

After exposure I move the prints continuously through three changes of water in my darkroom. Approximately five minutes overall, and then hang to dry in the darkroom. I have not explored toning yet.

My Hard Light series of prints have neatly torn edges and are glued to a larger sheet of Stonehenge paper. My mounting process is this: Yamato rice paste glue is brushed onto the back of the print. Both the print and the extra Stonehenge paper are dampened well with a water spray. They are allowed to absorb the water and then run through an etching press: first a sheet of 1 mm acetate cut to size with a 2 cm margin bigger than my print, the print is laid face down on the acetate, a larger sheet of paper is laid onto this. I use a paper template to position everything. The result is a “plate mark” making a subtle margin around the print. The print can then be float- or mat-mounted in a frame. It looks beautiful but is an expensive use of paper!

My best advice for working with cyanotype is to keep detailed notes of what you have done: all the materials, techniques and processes. I am not overly scientific in my approach but I have found that keeping an organized system of visual diaries documenting my experimentation with smart phone snaps and annotations has been an excellent way to keep track of and repeat successful methods, and to record accidental results, which may be useful later.

Creative practice

I have long been attracted to the color blue. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in Printmaking, I worked as a textile designer and colorist in London in the late 1980s. During this time I became skilled at hand painting tiny floral designs onto the navy or Prussian blue backgrounds, which were fashionable at the time. My daily work revolved around colors; mixing them, matching them, observing how they interacted with one another and creating moods with color.

It was not a new experience for me to be entranced by a single color. On one memorable visit to the British Museum’s Egyptian department I saw the most astounding blue stone amulet. It was a bit of an epiphany moment; I could not tear my eyes from it and my fascination with blue was cemented. I love indigo dyes and was a designer of bleached denim screen print patterns for a time.

Photography has been a guilty pleasure since art school. When I first discovered and explored the photographic medium of cyanotype in 2012, my past experience as a printmaker made me appreciate the qualities of working with handmade paper. I was attracted to the cyanotype as a perfect medium for the making of unique, individual hand wrought photographic artworks. The many possible variations of Prussian blue seemed especially sublime and yet also to encapsulate a sense of melancholy that I closely identify with. Associations with blueness such as “feeling blue” or the results of violence being “black and blue” have particular poignancy for me as someone who has grown up with domestic violence in my family. Blue and blueness color my view of the world and are important in my creative output. The potential of the cyanotype medium to merge visual ‘truth’ with emotional and imaginative expression, along with the physical process of harnessing chemistry and ultraviolet light drive my current work.

Artist statement

For the Hard Light series, I have reclaimed the intense sunlight remembered from my childhood during the 1960s in a small Australian wheat belt town. Light filters through personally significant objects and photographic imagery, recreating remembered and imagined places and portraying the ghostly shadows of my past. Symbolic and expressive imagery become metaphors for family violence, social anxiety and memory, to represent the trauma of a child trying to understand and survive a violent family life. Each work in this series presents a significant place in the town of Yarrawonga, which was a literal oasis built on a lake and river in a wide, flat, dry, grain-farming landscape. Harsh truths and unhappy lives barely hidden underneath a superficially pretty surface erode the tranquility and beauty of the town. The lake, populated with dead trees standing and fallen into the strange swirling currents of the dark water, becomes a metaphor for monstrous things lurking below the visible surface. The school on the banks of the river, a safe haven for children from dysfunctional families, stands firmly for now, while murky floodwaters carve the river bank closer and closer.

Biography

Wendy Catling’s work explores traces of human experience, reflecting on the anxieties that remain indelibly in the memories of victims of trauma. Catling is completing a Masters in Art Photography at Photography Studies College, Melbourne, Australia and teaches art and photography. She has shown in Australia and the United States. To see more of her work, visit www.ettamodern.com.

Figure 15.22. Safe Haven, new cyanotype on Stonehenge, digital images distorted in Photoshop, printed onto Folex film, hand cut or scratched into the film emulsion, contact printed, along with photogram exposed found objects, hair, fabric, glass, mesh, leaf litter, glassware, insects, and water dilution, 67 × 29 cm © Wendy Catling 2015

Figure 15.23. A Short Story, traditional cyanotype on kozo paper, watercolor paper and silk scarves using composite negatives and photograms. Photo corners were used to hold small cyanotype photos onto the accordion fold pages along with PVA glue. Parts of the kozo paper were toned in coffee and wine tannin. Bamboo stick, feathers and thread were attached to the book, 46″ × 8″ © Kimberly Chiaris 2016

Kimberly Chiaris

Figure 15.24. Genetic Memory, traditional cyanotype on 100% cotton with embroidery, photogram and photographic composite, 8″ × 8″ © Kimberly Chiaris 2016

Process

I often use papers or fabric that have a translucent or delicate physical quality. Japanese gampi and kozo papers are a favorite. I also like to use 100% cotton drafting vellum. I sometimes add silver and gold leafing to the front and back of my cyanotypes and these thin papers let the metal shine through the translucent paper, especially when I add varnish or shellac to these papers. Fabrics like cotton, silk, and linen are great because I can sew on them or sew them to another object. I sometimes apply embroidery and tatting to enhance or emphasize areas of the photographic image on the fabric. I also use various watercolor papers as well as Hahnemühle Platinum Rag. I use found papers from old books and music scores, old personal letters as well as inherited family treasures—handkerchiefs, tablecloths, napkins, pillowcases, doilies, etc. I am constantly looking for new and unusual objects to use for my cyanotype work. I like to push the boundaries and combine different materials together; constructing two-dimensional work, books, and sculptural work. I often combine different kinds of papers with cloth, incorporating thread, found objects, wood, bone, animal parchment, tin and more. The possibilities are endless.

I make my negatives with files on my computer that are a combination of images that I capture with a digital camera, copies of old family photos and old illustrations. I make composites in Photoshop. I also use found objects and organic matter to contact directly as photograms.

Everyone has a preference for the tonal ranges of their images. I’ve found that if I make my digital negatives with more contrast, it brings out the highlights and shadows. When I work on cloth, this helps to define the image. It also helps to clarify images that have multiple layers of information.

I use the classic cyanotype 25%/10% kit from Bostick & Sullivan. I use an exposure box that my (creatively handy and helpful) husband and I built to expose my images. Inside and underneath the top of the box we placed LED light strips. The exposure time is around 10 minutes. I will occasionally use the sun to expose. The exposure for sun is usually 8–15 minutes in full sun between 11AM and 3PM in Colorado.

I develop my exposed prints in running water until the yellow is mostly gone, about a minute, then fill the tray with water and add about ¼ cup of white vinegar and soak it for about 30 seconds. I empty the tray and fill it up with fresh water and add about ½ teaspoon hydrogen peroxide and mix well before putting my image back in to soak another 30 seconds. All this is done with a splash of this and squirt of that. I don’t really measure it out. Then I wash with fresh running water for approximately 30 minutes.

Sometimes I will tone the images with wine tannin and strong coffee. This will darken the image so I first bleach my image to make it lighter with washing soda (which is very strong and only needs a few grains in a tray of water and dissolved well). I mix the wine tannin and the coffee in a photo tray. I add about a cup of very strong coffee with about a tablespoon of powdered tannin. It can be diluted more to slow the toning but I have found that it takes a while to tone well. I also have taken a water soaked print and painted the coffee and tannin onto specific areas of a print or held part of the print in the toner to get varying degrees of tone in the print. Then I wash the print for about 20 minutes and dry.

I frame, mat and display my art based on what each piece needs to highlight its qualities. If my work is two dimensional, I frame it in a shadow box frame. The image is mounted on mat board and foam core to make it float in the space. I want to emphasize the precious value of each piece and, occasionally, the delicate translucency of the paper. Each frame is handmade specifically for each piece. If it is shown in a gallery, I usually paint the frame black or white.

The cyanotype process has not been a difficult process to learn. Pay attention to the fiber content of your material. One time I used some fabric that had a blend of cotton and synthetic fiber in it. The synthetic fibers didn’t allow the cyanotype to absorb well and it came out very light. I make sure to use an all natural fiber material now.

I often work with thin fragile paper that can fall apart in water easily. To keep the paper from falling apart or tearing, I use a paper making frame that has a fiberglass window screen stapled to a wooden open frame. I take the screen and turn it upside down and lay the paper on the screen. Then I carefully lay the screened frame in a tray of water and agitate it very gently to keep all the fibers from disintegrating.

One book that I made (see p. 198) hangs vertically using watercolor paper for the top structure or spine of the book, kozo paper for the accordion fold pages that unfold downward from the watercolor paper cover. Hanging over the top of the book structure are two silk scarves flowing down along the side of the accordion fold pages. This forms a house shape with a peak at the top (the spine of the book) and the silk fabric makes up the sides of the house shape. Cyanotype images are on the watercolor, kozo and silk fabric. The kozo paper is toned in wine tannin and coffee.

At times I use fabric for my cyanotype work. One of my pieces (see previous page) is made from object photograms exposed in the sun along with a digital negative and embroidery added later. I placed a hand mirror down directly on top of the sensitized cotton fabric with my hand holding the handle. I laid some dried flowers next to the mirror. I then placed a glass bottle near the fabric but not directly on it letting the shadow fall over it. This made it look like the flowers were coming out of a translucent vase. I developed the fabric and dried it. Then I painted a circle of emulsion on the part where the hand mirror would be. After that circle of light-sensitive emulsion dried, I re-exposed that part by laying a Photoshop composited digital negative in that circle. When that was developed and dried, I embroidered around the outside of the hand mirror shape with yellow thread. The result looks like a person peering into a hand held mirror and viewing her ancestors in the distance.

Figure 15.25. Urania, traditional cyanotype on Vidalon vellum with gold and silver leafing on verso and Krylon conservation spray shellac, 7.5″ × 11″ © Kimberly Chiaris 2018

Creative practice

An important part of my creative practice is to keep a journal. I write down dreams, notes about other artists that inspire me, quotes, sketches that help me to remember structural ideas, notes from tutorials, and conversations with friends. These seeds of ideas are the beginning of a long process that frequently culminates into a final work of art.

Artist statement

My work is about how trace memory, emotions, time and culture shape and shift our understanding of history. I blend contemporary ideas and images with personal and found historical artifacts to create newly imagined narratives that enhance the idea that recollection and interpretation are malleable. By combining contemporary digital processes with historical processes like cyanotype, I am creating new paradigms about how we remember, interpret and record our histories. I am making my own interpretation of historical artifacts for future generations.

Biography

Kimberly Chiaris’ creative focus is mainly on themes about origin and identity and how trace memory, emotions, time, and culture shape and shift our understanding of history. Chiaris works with cyanotype and mixed media. She received her BFA in Photography from the Kansas City Art Institute. Her work has been shown in photography magazines and fine art galleries across the United States. She has taught numerous photo-based art classes and workshops at universities, colleges, school co-ops, museums, galleries, and nonprofit organizations as well as to individuals. She currently teaches cyanotype workshops through the Center for Fine Art Photography. To see more of her work, visit kimberlychiaris.com.

Figure 15.26. Where Nothing is Broken or Lost, cyanotype and gold leaf on Hosho paper, 11.25″ × 9″ © Monica Chulewicz 2018

Monica Chulewicz

Figure 15.27. Solace, cyanotype on Hosho and Ingres papers, collage, gold leaf, 19″ × 30″ © Monica Chulewicz 2018

Process

I love the versatile nature of cyanotype. I work as a printmaker but I prefer to create unique 1/1 prints rather than a large edition. Using different exposure times or papers, as well as toning, is a huge benefit in this process. I aim to make each of my prints different from the one before it.

I’ve experimented with a few different paper types but my favorites, as of right now, are Hosho and Ingres. They are very different in the way they absorb and wash out the chemicals, the drying times, and the overall look of the finished print. Hosho really absorbs the chemicals significantly more, making the wash out and drying long. However, the longer the paper sits in the water, it loses strength and I have ripped some prints in the process. It seems to work best on smaller sizes due to this. Ingres, on the other hand, absorbs only a little, and washes out and dries fairly quickly. I enjoy experimenting with the different shades this paper comes in, as it affects the final print. The colors of both of these papers also vary. If exposed the same amount and using the same formula, Hosho papers print very deep blues and less contrast than Ingres.

My negatives are created by printing on transparencies in a laser printer. I work with digital photographs, as well as scanning flowers directly.

I use the classic formula. I have experimented with ratios; using double the amount of water, for example, leaves the finished product a lighter blue.

I use an exposure unit with uv bulbs and I typically expose 17 minutes, but it can vary slightly.

Depending on which paper I’m printing on, the wash time will be different, due to how much the paper absorbs the solution. I always develop with hydrogen peroxide, though. I occasionally tone with coffee but it depends how much I pour in and for how long. Each time is a little different.

My cyanotypes are matted on a white mat in a white, wooden frame.

When I was teaching myself cyanotype, I encountered problems in the process. One of the first mistakes I made starting out, I would stack sheets instead of spreading them across to dry (I have a small light-sensitive area). This led to some strange effects in the background, but not something I was fond of. After that batch of papers, I immediately stopped using this method and, instead, I spend a longer time coating papers so that I could make sure each piece is fully dry before continuing to the next. Now, I coat two large sheets of paper at a time, have two fans on them to speed up the drying process, and then repeat steps.

Not only was this a learning experience, but, I developed a series out of the process. What happened to the print that I first noticed this strange effect in? I almost tossed it, until a friend suggested I experiment to create something “different.” This is where I began using gold leaf, covering the background in dots that look like distant stars, and the rest is history!

Creative practice

I use vintage photos of women, the silhouettes of them, and scans of live flowers in my cyanotypes on paper, each cut on its own as if it was to be collaged. Each of my paper cyanotypes are hand-editioned in gold leaf, which I hand draw using an 18k gold leaf pen. I have several of the same transparencies that I use over and over in my work, mixing and matching, as well as using different layouts of how I place them on my papers. A majority of my prints therefore end up as collages.

I have two modes of printing: a base print, and a collage print. The base prints have the background printed on in a specific layout. Meanwhile, the collage prints have my materials sporadically placed on the sheet of paper, placing them in such a way that I can fit as much as possible. While printing both of these, I don’t have a plan on what my end product will be.

Once everything is dried is when the magic happens. I cut out all of the collage prints, I hand-edition all of my base prints, and I begin the process of laying out the collages. I let the process guide me.

One thing I’ve recently been experimenting with is with the exposure process, particularly using laser prints of the silhouettes, fully printed on one side. It seems that this reacts to the chemicals on the paper, leaving unique and different colors, such as rusty reds and purples. The colors are a lot more vibrant in the beginning, eventually fading slightly. It’s still a work in progress with this experimentation but I’m enjoying the process as I develop it.

With each mishap during printing, instead of throwing out the print, I experiment with it. I certainly don’t have anything left to lose in a cyanotype I’m already unhappy with.

Artist statement

Dark, moody, ethereal figures, intertwined with overgrown flowers and gold leaf, compose my The Ache and the Light series. I use Victorian era concepts of grief, mourning, and flower symbolism. The duality of flowers, how they are used as symbols of sympathy yet in celebration of life, is evident in my cyanotypes. In 2016, a dear friend in my close-knit disability community passed away. Amelia was a devoted Christian and found such solace in heaven. After her passing, I found myself constantly grieving, while simultaneously questioning life after death. With Amelia in mind, I hand-edition each cyanotype with gold leaf, a nod to the “golden streets” welcoming her, all while I depict my thoughts on our Great Beyond: our loved ones waiting for us, surrounded by the flowers we leave behind for them.

Biography

Monica Chulewicz is Polish-American artist working with prints on paper and fabric. While using vintage photos and materials, her themes of grief, mourning, the unknown, disability, and ableism stem from her experiences living with several chronic, rare, and progressive illnesses. She has received awards from the Kennedy Center, the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and more. She has a BFA in Art, Art History, and Psychology and continues to live and work in New York. To see more of her work, visit www.monicachulewicz.com.

Figure 15.28. Please Place Flowers Every Time You Visit (They Grow in Abundance Here), cyanotype and gold leaf on Hosho paper, 12″ × 9.5″ © Monica Chulewicz 2018

Figure 15.29. Untitled, Self Portrait with Teacups, Stone Ridge NY © John Dugdale 1995

John Dugdale

Creative practice

Twenty-six years ago, after working as a professional photographer for over a decade, I lost nearly all of my eyesight. Since then, like the first photographers who used water from a stream, light from the sun, and minerals from the earth to assemble their vision, I learned the process of creating a picture from the template of nature. To my surprise I found that the present could be preserved with the techniques and sensibilities of a more artisanal time. Like my heroes of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot, Sir John Herschel, and Julia Margaret Cameron, my focus turned to the joy of recording images of friends, family and personal belongings, and the delicate passage of day into evening. I now know that the eyes are merely instruments—the most splendid secrets of vision dwell in the heart and mind. This process has endeared me to a world of sense, quietude, and beauty that I was never able to fully journey through in my previous career as a commercial photographer. The result is a body of timeless photographs that I created in the spirit of the American Transcendentalists, Whitman, Dickinson, Thoreau, and Emerson.

Biography

John Dugdale is a remarkable and much-loved artist. Over the past twenty-six years, working in a state of near blindness, he has created photographs as if from his soul. Dugdale at age 58 has reached a notable level of artistic acclaim with his photographs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Fine Art in New York City, among other noteworthy collections, and more than twenty solo exhibitions worldwide. Dugdale’s theme is one of survival and the triumph of the creative spirit; his vision is of gracious beauty, emotionally rich and sensual. Dugdale was diagnosed HIV positive over twenty-six years ago and nearly struck blind, eventually becoming completely blind. Life forced him to see and photograph in a new and more personal way. His pictures are influenced by 19th century imagery, as seen in his dreamlike portraits or in his ordered still lifes. From image to presentation the artist’s hand is apparent from start to finish. He began to use a 19th century large format camera producing classic, ethereal blue cyanotypes, a simple rustic process invented in 1842. He has also produced albumen and platinum prints. Born in Connecticut in 1960, Dugdale lives and works in his attic studio in Greenwich Village and his 19th century farmhouse located in Upstate New York. A successful commercial photographer, he graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 1984. His subjects are portraits and figure studies of his friends and family, flowers, still lifes of his collection of antique china and glass, and the rural landscape of his home. They are also intimate glimpses of private moments and personal spaces. There is a tranquil and timeless quality to his work. To see more of his work, visit johndugdalestudio.com.

Figure 15.30. Anne’s Teaspoon, Stone Ridge NY © John Dugdale 1996

Figure 15.31. Figure/Garden (constructed), pinhole cyanotype (toned), old map, old book boards, 8¼″ × 6⅛″ (irregular) © Jesseca Ferguson 2010

Jesseca Ferguson

Process

Cyanotype—often dismissed as child’s play—can actually be one of the more challenging handmade photo techniques. As jazz musician Thelonious Monk once said, “Simple ain’t easy!” In the handmade photography hierarchy (both in the 19th century and in today’s renaissance of antiquarian processes), cyanotype somehow seems to rank below platinum/palladium, gold-toned salt prints, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, etc. Perhaps it is cyanotype’s underdog status that has appealed to me, but I also embrace the democratic nature of its straightforward, low-cost, easy-access, non-intimidating methodology. Truly anyone can make a cyanotype! But here is the challenge: Can you make a beautiful blue print? Or come up with an original interpretation of this 1842 process? Certainly the moody and sometimes melancholy tone of the blue image suits my purposes as well. The otherworldly aspect of blue can be haunting, as discussed by Rebecca Solnit in A Field Guide to Getting Lost or by Carol Mavor in Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Color. And, of course, there is always that window of blue in Joseph Cornell’s mysterious construction Toward the Blue Peninsula: for Emily Dickinson (c.1953).

Some of my favorite papers have disappeared or changed over the years. Now I try to find the right paper for a particular project, a practice which has led me to be very experimental and eclectic, especially when re-using 18th and 19th century book pages and endpapers, as in A Small Book About the Moon (2014). With The Book that Printed Itself (2017) I experimented with papers that would print well with cyanotype and would also work well as book pages. Some current favorites are handmade papers from St. Armand Mill in Montreal, Canada. Their natural linen drawing paper is a delight. Because these papers are handmade from linen and cotton rag, I must let go of notions of consistency. The papers vary from batch to batch, depending on what rags are available for making the pulp. “The perfect print,” and other ideals I once adhered to earlier, no longer seem relevant for what I am after lately.

Figure 15.32. A Small Book About the Moon, cyanotype, 19th century book pages and boards, open 7″ × 8½″ (closed 7″ × 4¼″) © Jesseca Ferguson 2014

For many years I worked with pinhole cameras to make large format negatives (4″ × 5″ up to 16″ × 20″) for contact printing. As beloved sheet films were discontinued (Polaroid Type 55, Agfa N31p, Kodak Ektapan, Efke, x-ray film), I began to scan found images and print them onto acetate. Poking around in old books or on the internet for images is almost as much fun as making pinhole images!

I use classic cyanotype and buy pre-measured dry pack kits from Bostick & Sullivan, Freestyle, Photographers Formulary or elsewhere—whatever works! I used to order bulk chemistry and mix my chemistry from scratch, following various formulas, but now keep it simple by adding distilled water to dry pack kits. I also like the portability of taking dry pack kits on the road and mixing the chemistry to use on location. Distilled water is key, just in case the local water is “off.”

I use a wonderfully fast and efficient uv exposure unit from Edwards Engineered Products. I am now on my third uv unit. The first was made by afriend and eventually wore out. The next two were made by Jon Edwards and they are terrific. For simple acetates (positives and negatives), exposure times can be as short as one minute. However, for the waxed paper negatives used in The Book that Printed Itself series (ongoing from 2017), exposures can take 30–40 minutes, depending on the paper and the particular image.

Figure 15.33. Revirescit, from The Book that Printed Itself series, cyanotype (from a waxed paper negative),8¾″ × 5½″ © Jesseca Ferguson 2017

I rinse the exposed print in running water until all unexposed cyan/yellow is gone, then immerse briefly in a hydrogen peroxide/water bath to oxidize/boost contrast. Then I rinse in running water for about five minutes using an old timey siphon washer.

Very occasionally I tone prints, using tannic acid. I get the premade kits from Bostick & Sullivan or bleach first with trisodium phosphate and then tone in really strong black tea. I am very experimental, testing by eye. I don’t always like the loss of contrast that comes with toning, so don’t do it often.

Creative practice

I love old abandoned books and have long been taking them apart to use their boards and pages in my collages, which incorporate my cyanotyped images. The handmade papers (often printed with letterpress) used in these books have vitality and strength, plus a beautiful surface quality, that I cannot easily find in modern papers. Happily, the St. Armand Mill in Montreal, Canada creates some papers that are reminiscent of these older papers and I delight in using them. The papers used in these 18th, 19th and early 20th century books are made of linen and cotton—ideal for cyanotype. I take apart the original books, print on their pages, then re-bind the cyanotyped pages into my own handmade books. There is a sense of the past and of the present in these works which I cannot get at in any other way.

Here is some practical advice discovered through working with antique book pages: These papers can be fragile when wet, so I sometimes cradle them on a sheet of Pellon (non-woven interfacing material) or plastic screening while processing them after exposure. I may drain them on an angled sheet of Plexiglas or the back of a photo tray until they are dry/strong enough to be handled. Coating old or otherwise delicate or fragile papers may require the addition of Tween 20 (10% solution), a surfactant/emulsifier which helps spread the cyanotype solution evenly on the surface of the paper.

Perhaps because I do not come from a photography background and never took a photography class, I bring a different attitude or sensibility to my work. I am interested in the unique object, rather than the editioned print, for example. I am intrigued by using mud, wood ashes or crushed flower petals to stain and pigment photo emulsions. I also enjoy collaborating with/being inspired by writers, such as Iranian writer Hossein Mortezaeian Abkenar. In my 2014–15 Farsi Moon series, for example, I printed Hossein’s handwritten Farsi text in gum bichromate (pigmented with ashes, mud, clay). I then printed a 19th century scientist’s image of the moon in cyanotype over the Farsi/gum bichromate image. This text came from Abkenar’s oneiric 2006 novel The Scorpion. In chapter six of this mysterious book, the moon is a character and a presence.

Figure 15.34. The Scorpion, Chapter 6, Page 1 (Draper moon), cyanotype over gum bichromate (pigmented with wood ashes, watercolor), approximately 12″ × 10″ © Jesseca Ferguson 2014

In 2017 I started The Book that Printed Itself, a series involving paper negatives made from found images (tipped into an old book). The images are of 16th and 17th century glass against a black background. I waxed them to render them translucent. These paper “negatives” are actually positives, but when printed in cyanotype, the resultant images appear positive. This was a roundabout way to produce negatives and harks back to the waxed paper negatives of the 19th century.

Biography

Jesseca Ferguson is interested in stories, dreams and memories, whether real, half-remembered or entirely imagined. Her images, books, and photo objects have been exhibited, collected, and published in the us and abroad. She teaches at School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston, Massachusetts. To learn more about her work, visit www.museumofmemory.com.

Figure 15.35. Sun and Shore, classic cyanotype on birch plywood developed in oxalic acid, 9″ × 12″ © Peter Friedrichsen 2018. We are not aware of the subtle daily changes of the sun’s rays as the earth oscillates between the winter and summer seasons. With the use of a simple handmade pinhole camera and b&w photographic paper (scanned and made into a digital negative), we can capture these nuances as the sun makes its daily traverse; sun, cloud and seasons are all recorded. This is a solargraph recording of the sun and surroundings from December 20, 2008–June 21, 2009.

Peter Friedrichsen

Process

In my decision to choose an alternative printing process for my Iceland series, I wanted to emphasize the great abundance of water that exists both around and on the land. Low clouds frequently roll in from the surrounding Atlantic ocean, suggesting the cool blue tones inherent in the cyanotype process.

In choosing a surface for my prints, I was looking for something that would reflect the ruggedness of the landmass, something textured. Wood provides such a surface and leaves its own impression of grain and flow.

I print my negatives digitally on an Epson P800 printer. I occasionally use compensation curves but have not used them in the Iceland series. I use the classic formula containing equal amounts of 20% ferric ammonium citrate and 8% potassium ferricyanide w/v. In the Iceland series, I used the August sun with exposure times of 3–5 minutes (late August 11 AM–3PM) In other works, I have done exposures under UVBL for 20–25 minutes.

I develop in tap water containing 0.5% oxalic acid as it preserves the image intensity and helps with the clearing of highlights.

The wood on the surface of birch ply is shaved off of large birch logs in thin sheets. The effect is to create many horizontal fibers some of which break the surface. The ends of these fibers act as capillaries and will draw sensitizer deeply into the tips which results in significant staining. I overcome this problem by sizing the wood. I use 3 or 5 mm birch plywood as my image base since good quality ply is readily available and does not darken significantly with age. Before sensitizing, the wood is sized, otherwise highlights are stained quite heavily and reactions with wood tannins and other components can cause fogging.

Wood Preparation: I first lightly sand the surface with an abrasive hand sponge. All wood dust is then removed. I brush on one coat of full strength Gamblin PVA size. The brushing and dipping of the brush into the size is continued until the wood surface stops forming dry spots resulting in a light sheen with the wood texture still partially visible. Over-sizing will cause adhesion problems later.

Figure 15.36. Reindeer, from the Iceland series, classic cyanotype on birch plywood developed in oxalic acid, 8″ × 8″ © Peter Friedrichsen 2016

The sheet is laid flat until the sheen disappears after which it is hung vertically to dry for 24 hours. Once sufficiently dry, a very light sanding with a sanding sponge is applied once more to smooth lifted fibers.

I apply a second layer of a starch size. For the starch size, an approximate 7.5% solution of arrowroot or tapioca starch is made in a double boiler (7.5 g starch to 100 ml distilled water). The starch and water are mixed cold in a pot, then placed over a second pot of boiling water with continued stirring, resulting in a viscous mix. Once reaching a temperature close to boiling, it is covered and left on the double boiler for 5 minutes.

Figures 15.37 and 15.38. Left, Mountains; right, Waterfall, from the Iceland series, 8″ × 8″ each, classic 20/8 cyanotype on birch plywood developed in oxalic acid © Peter Friedrichsen 2016

The size solution is then placed in a blender and mixed for 3–4 minutes starting at a low speed and increasing the speed as it thins. The blending step thins the sizing making it brushable. The size will keep for about one week, after which it will start to separate.

Once cooled to room temperature the size has the consistency of heavy cream. I apply this by brush in the same manner as the Gamblin PVA size. A surfactant such as Tween 20 can be added to improve wetting of the surface. If the brush gets sticky on the surface, more size must be applied. When sufficiently brushed, the surface will look quite glossy while wet. The wood is left to dry horizontally for about an hour before it is hung and left to dry an additional 8 hours minimum. Once dry, the glossiness is reduced to a matte surface with a very slight sheen. The starch size acts as the receptive layer for the sensitizer and further inhibits staining.

I will frequently vary the sizing strength (4–9.5%), to manipulate the degree of grain staining. The sensitizer is now brushed onto the sized surface in a similar manner as the sizing. The starch sizing will start to absorb the sensitizer quickly and it will thicken it, causing resistance to brushing. This indicates that more sensitizer is required, so brushing and dipping is continued until the entire surface remains just brushable. The sensitizer can also be applied directly to the PVA sized surface, skipping the additional starch size; however, there will likely remain some open surface fibers which will draw in the sensitizer, resulting in more speckles after development.

After sensitizing, the wood surface is left to dry horizontally for about 15 minutes after which it can be hung to dry for 30 minutes, or a fan can be used to speed drying if the air-flow is clean. When sufficient time has elapsed, I blow dry the surface for several minutes with a hair dryer set on high. This removes residual moisture that would otherwise reduce the quality of the final print.

The wood surface is overlaid with a thin mylar sheet (0.05 mm) to protect the negative. The traditional formula used is somewhat hygroscopic and even more prone to sticking versus an application to paper since it sits more on the surface than actually within the fibers.

Thin ply will often warp to some degree due to the added moisture and drying. This warping makes close contact with the negative uncertain, resulting in a loss of sharpness in affected areas. The simplest remedy is to use a point uv light source which is approximated by direct sunlight, with exposure times of 3–5 minutes depending on conditions.

Figures 15.39 and 15.40. Left, Farmhouse; right, Great Skua, from the Iceland series, 8″ × 8″ each, classic 20/8 cyanotype on birch plywood developed in oxalic acid © Peter Friedrichsen 2016

Once exposure is complete, the print is developed in a tray containing 0.5% oxalic acid in tap water for 3–5 minutes with gentle rocking. The wood is then rinsed in a clean tray with a flow of water for 5 minutes.

The surface when wet is very sensitive to abrasion, so it should never be touched until dry. To reduce warping of the final print, it can be clamped or nailed to a thick piece of plywood when damp, not wet, and left to dry for a day or two.

When working with wood, expect surprises due to the variability of the composition. To reduce the wasting of wood, the starch sizing can be applied to paper (leaving out the PVA sizing step) for practice runs, allowing for testing of the digital negative, exposure formulas, and development.

Creative practice

Alternative printing processes afford the artist a lot of freedom to experiment with formulas, techniques, and substrates but I always start into a new process conservatively, using traditional methods until I have practiced it sufficiently and reasonably understand the effects of different variables. Once I have gained sufficient skill, I consider manipulating the process to more effectively communicate my work as an artist.

Artist statement

Iceland’s abundance of water, glacial ice, and frequent monochromatic skies informed my choice of the cyanotype process, lending its inherent cool blue tones to my captured imagery. As a country with vast fields of volcanic rock, the printing of my work onto wood also provides added emphasis to the ruggedness of this land.

Biography

Peter Friedrichsen is a photographer and printmaker based in Toronto, Canada. He uses a minimalist approach to isolate subject matter while defocusing the complexity that surrounds it. An endless experimenter, he has printed onto wood and metal to further amplify the subject and atmosphere of the captured moment. He has exhibited both locally and internationally. To see more of his work, visit peterfriedrichsen.com.

Figure 15.41. Shadows #1, cyanotype over platinum using duotone negatives, 10.5″ × 8″ © Annette Golaz 2017

Annette Golaz

Figure 15.42. Shadows #4, cyanotype over platinum using duotone negatives, 10.5″ × 8″ © Annette Golaz 2017

Process

I have a preference for cool light and muted colors and all shades of blue—turquoise tending toward gray in particular. It was fairly obvious that the cyanotype would appeal to me. I fell in love with Sam Wang’s duotone method. The interplay of warm blacks and cool blues when a cyanotype is printed over a platinum print touches my heart. To me it is so much more subtle and interesting than a pure black and white image.

My favorite paper is the Hahnemühle Platinum Rag. It is quite white, clears out fast and nicely, has a smooth surface and is quite sturdy. It provides a long tonal range, a nice Dmax, and beautiful blues.

I print my negatives on Pictorico Premium OHP with an Epson SureColor P6000. I had profiles made by a specialist for matte and glossy paper and I use the one for glossy paper to print the negatives. To prepare the negative I follow the instructions by Christina Z. Anderson from her book Gum Printing only I never sharpen the image. I use her curve for the classic formula but have developed a separate curve for the new formula.

I am very fond of the new formula created by Michael Ware (I buy the Formulary kit). It provides a much longer tonal range and prints with a finer grain than the classic formula if used on suitable paper. I use this formula for the first layer of my gum prints, too. Since it washes out quickly in water without an increase in contrast I have control over the intensity of blue in my base. To measure and mix the solutions A and B or the one solution with the one drop of citric acid I use syringes, reusing them until they don’t move smoothly anymore.

I expose the new formula for 3 minutes in a vacuum UVBL exposure unit equipped with Philips 18 watt uv tubes which I bought on www.aliexpress.com for $330. The classic formula needs 5 minutes when printed on Hahnemühle Platinum Rag. When printing over a platinum print I expose roughly twice as long. I sometimes use Stonehenge paper which needs about 15 minutes’ exposure time.

I develop for about 3 minutes in 2 liters of water mixed with 5 ml 50% citric acid, then rinse the print under gently running water for another 5 minutes. By then the Hahnemühle Platinum Rag has cleared. Then I leave the prints in a tray of cold water for another 10 to 15 minutes or for as long as it needs to get the desired intensity of the blue. Prints made with the new formula do not darken as much after 24 hours as does the classic formula. I check on the print regularly since left for too long in the water the blue fades too much or white spots can suddenly appear.

My favorite toning method is green tea bags. I bleach the print for a very short time in diluted household bleach so that some blue remains in the print and an interplay with the warm brown from the green tea and the cool blues from the cyanotype occurs. It looks particularly nice on portraits since it provides for a nice skin tone.

I like to use 3 mm mats and mount this on wooden panels coated with primer so that I can present them in shadow gap frames made for canvases. To mount the mats I use the Gudy 831 film for dry mounting by NESCH which is very reliable. For some prints I sandpaper the frames, coat them twice with iron paint and oxidize them. They then look very much like rusty iron frames. I use the Instant Rust Set by Modern Options. I never present my prints behind glass; the texture of the paper has to show.

New cyanotype does not work as well when printed over a platinum print. It washes off entirely. I use the classic formula instead. Most of the time I get a rather smooth result but at times the cyanotype prints unevenly. I still have not found out why that occurs.

I usually used a hake brush to coat the paper but then switched to a synthetic finer brush (that never loses hair). Suddenly I had something like snowflakes towards the borders of every print (see p. 155) and at first I did not understand why. It turned out that this brush did not absorb as much sensitizer. Perhaps too much coating can provoke it to crystallize. I coat, dry with a hairdryer and expose immediately.

Figure 15.43. Golaz’ new cyanotype curve

I print platinum for 90% of the normal exposure time. To determine exposure time I use the Stouffer step wedge. Somehow the platinum causes the paper to shrink permanently a tiny little bit. Therefore I print my cyanotype negative after the platinum print is ready so that I can print it 1 or 0.5 mm smaller in order to avoid any trouble with registration. I use the Na2 Platinum/Palladium Kit for Digital Negatives from Bostick & Sullivan. My developer is an ammonium citrate developer, which I warm up. The biggest challenge is black specks in the platinum print. I strongly believe that it has to do with the paper. Once I have a package with paper that does not produce specks I save it up for platinum prints.

The cyanotype is a wonderful first step into alternative photographic processes. With little and not very costly equipment one gets satisfying results and it spurs creativity and playfulness. There is a lot of room to experiment with different substrates and toning methods. Chances are that the virus of alt processes will then cause a forever lasting infection.

Figure 15.44. Shadows #2, cyanotype over platinum using duotone negatives, 10.5″ × 8″ © Annette Golaz 2017

Creative practice

In my photographs I like to depict contrasting elements and layers: organic forms and graphic lines for example. By printing a cyanotype over a platinum print I can add in a new layer of contrast between warm and cool colors to reinforce the statement. Having found alternative processes to reproduce my images a door has opened to a whole new world. The creative possibilities of interpretation and reproduction of photographs are boundless. I love the fact that after having taken a picture, only a small part of the work is done. I then choose a suitable process and substrate to print it and the perfect way to present it. It is very satisfying to be able to complete the whole process myself. Working in my studio is like meditation—no digital devices allowed with only soft music every now and then. Alternative processes are teaching me patience. Whenever I am in a hurry or want to print too many photographs at the same time something is bound to go wrong. The unpredictability of the processes makes the work a continuous challenge. My focus is to understand what is happening in the processes and to find new ways of improving my technical and artistic ability.

Biography

Swiss photographer Annette Golaz captures the poetry of everyday life in her work, with beauty often consisting of contrasts and conflicting layers. Golaz experiments with different techniques and outdated cameras. With a 20-year old digital device with 0.3 megapixels, for example, she challenges the belief that up to date equipment is the most important prerequisite for a successful photograph. To see more of her work, visit www.agolaz.ch.

Figure 15.45. Hibiscus Flower #1, 10″ × 7.68″ © Jacek Gonsalves 2018

Jacek Gonsalves

Process

Cyanotype has always had an appeal to me because of its beautiful blues. It is quite a process to master if you are attempting to reproduce the same result several times. From the way one brushes the emulsion to how you wash the print, there are a multitude of intricacies one must remember and document for repeatable results. With my work I wanted to show that cyanotype isn’t a process where the prints resulted in a contrasty image but one that has a multitude of tones. The way to do this is to spend a great deal of time calibrating the process; I do this using Roy Harrington’s Quadtone RIP software.

I use Arches Aquarelle hot press 300 gsm watercolor paper, and print my negatives with an Epson 3800 printer on Folex transparency film. My cyanotype solution is the classic formula 25% FAC:10% PF. When making an 8″ × 10″ print I add 1.5 ml Part A and 1.5 ml Part B, with 3 drops of Tween 20. I built a uv unit under which exposures are 30 minutes. Once prints are exposed, they are put into a bath of water for 15 minutes face down and rocked gently in the tray. They are then put into a fresh batch of water for another 15 to 30 minute soak, and every 5 minutes the tray is gently rocked. I frame them with a white mat and white frame.

Artist statement

My work explores the subtleties of my suburban garden and the physicality of the plants I’ve cultivated. With influences as diverse as Katie Scott and Ernst Haeckel, I’ve studied these botanical elements with a slightly scientific lens. Each image merges the theoretical and scientific aspect of the cyanotype process with artistic expression.

Figure 15.46. Magnolia, 10″ × 8.06″ © Jacek Gonsalves 2018

Biography

Jacek Gonsalves (Perth, Western Australia) has practiced a number of creative processes including ceramics, photography, jewelry and drawing. After growing up between Kuwait, India and Australia, he has always been a keen observer of the world around him. His creative practice reflects the environment he inhabits and often illustrates this tapestry of cultural experience. He regularly participates in group exhibitions and his work has been acquired by a number of private collectors. To see more of his work, please visit www.jacekgonsalves.com.

Figure 15.47. White Oak and Fence, new cyanotype printed from a 5″ × 7″ analog negative © John P. Jackson 2018

John P. Jackson

Figure 15.48. Back Porch, Snow, combination classic and new cyanotype printed from a 5″ × 7″ analog negative © John P. Jackson 2018

Process

The colors of the cyanotype process have always appealed to me. Producing a cyanotype print that is full tonality, as well as finely detailed, is a challenge that I enjoy.

I use Arches Platine, Bergger Cot 320, and Hahnemühle Platinum Rag papers. My negatives are made using panchromatic black and white film. The film formats I’m currently working with are 120 mm roll film, 5″ × 7″ sheet film and 7″ × 17″ sheet film. I make enlarged negatives in the darkroom using panchromatic film for both interpositive and enlarged negatives. Phil Davis’s Beyond the Zone System and his other writings inform my entire picturemaking process. I use an incident light meter to determine exposure for film. A 4″ × 5″ Stouffer 21 step-wedge is used for testing both positive and negative materials. Paper (reflection) and film (transmission) densities are measured using an X-Rite 820 densitometer and the values are input into Davis’s Winplotter software. The program generates characteristic curves and film development charts that are very useful in determining the exposure and development of the film negatives. BTZS is a “closed loop” system that works well for me.

I use new cyanotype with a drop of added 20% citric acid per ml of sensitizer. Also, I use a hybrid formula that my photography mentor, Sam Wang, shared with me. It is new cyanotype + classic cyanotype (15%–25%FAC:10%PF) mixed 1:1 just prior to coating.

Figure 15.49. July 4, 2017 Horse House, combination classic and new cyanotype printed from a 5″ × 7″ analog negative © John P. Jackson 2018

My exposure device is a 5000-watt commercial plate burner, a Teaneck Graphics floor model vacuum frame. Exposure times vary from less than 1 minute to about 15 minutes. After exposing, I develop for 1 minute in 1% HCL or 1% sulfamic acid while constantly agitating; then the print is moved into another tray with 1% citric acid for 4 minutes of gentle agitation. This development is followed by 20 minutes of washing. I hang the prints on a line in the dark room with clothespins.

I mat with 4-ply rag board for a back and a hinged over mat with an opening that is cut to show the edges of the image. For the 5″ × 7″ negatives I use an 11″ × 14″ back and over-mat with an opening of 6″ × 8″.

Problems with cyanotype I have encountered have been on occasion when using new cyanotype the print will show splotching. Careful pre-humidification of the paper and exposing the paper as soon as it is dry seems to help. Diluting the sensitizer is also effective. 2 parts sensitizer + 1 part water prevents splotching and only slightly diminishes Dmax.

For creative ideas, recently I have been testing cyanotype on cloth and Pictorico film using analog negatives to make the images.

Although cyanotype is considered easy, I find the process constantly challenging, rewarding and occasionally frustrating. The happy successes make the effort worthwhile.

Creative practice

My picture making is a personal need that involves constant interactive perception of the world around me. It is like a “call and response” that challenges me and sometimes brings me joy. My wish to communicate with others, by sharing my pictures, motivates me to make prints. I practice “slow” photography because it suits my nature and the quality of analog photographic prints can be very beautiful.

Figure 15.50. Watauga Point, combination classic and new cyanotype printed from a 5″ × 7″ analog negative © John P. Jackson 2018

Biography

John P. Jackson has been a passionate photographer for over forty years. In the mid-1970s he had the good fortune to study photography with Jerry Uelsmann and Todd Walker at the University of Florida, after which he graduated from the California Maritime Academy in 1980 with a BS degree in nautical industrial technology and an unlimited 3RD mate’s license. From 1980 to 2013 he worked as a ship’s deck officer on large cargo ships that sailed all over the world. He retired from the us Merchant Marine in 2013, last sailing as an unlimited ship’s master (any tonnage any ocean) with his last command on a 980-foot Panamax container ship that was owned and operated by Maersk Lines Ltd. of Norfolk Virginia. In 2015, Jackson returned to photography. Over the last three years he has specialized in alternative photographic processes including cyanotype, platinum-palladium, gum dichromate, and carbon printing. Jackson photographs with analog film and prints all images by hand, including silver gelatin on manufactured photographic papers. To see more of his work, visit www.ipernity.com/home/jpjackson.

Figure 15.51. What We Shall Become Has Not Yet Been Revealed, cyanotype with hand drawing on vellum built into the negative, edition of 5, 52½″ × 40″ © Teresa James 2014

Teresa James

Figure 15.52. Here We Breathe the Sweet Fragrance, cyanotype and hand drawing with blue prismacolor, unique print, 27″ × 39½″ © Teresa James 2016

Process

The only paper I use is Arches hot press watercolor by the roll. It is very durable and has good light resistance. I have tried many other papers and have seen changes in the blues on final prints being left out into light even for a few days. I have never had that problem with Arches. Also for my large scale pieces it is important that it holds up when two people are carrying a 50″ × 127″ wet piece of paper to the drying station.

I use digital negatives and a custom curve and workflow that was made for me using the Precision Digital Negatives System with Curve Calculator III. For printing negatives I use an Epson Pro 9890 44″.

I have used both cyanotype formulas and found that for my work I can get really great results with the classic. It is so much easier to mix and having children and pets around my studio I feel much better about having less toxic chemicals in the shop. I do think though that the blues are very beautiful in the new solution and would recommend trying both to decide for yourself.

I have a custom made wooden exposure unit that is 48″ × 72″. It uses twenty-two 44-watt black light bulbs that are 48″ long. The light is directed downwards and is connected to an overhead base that is secured to the wall and ceiling. The table that sits underneath the bulbs is covered in black felt and is on wheels. It has a ¼″ piece of glass that sits on top and must be lifted with suction cup glass lifters. It does not have a vacuum seal but clamps are placed around the edges for good contact. Also the weight of the large piece of glass helps keep out any pockets of air. I expose the prints for 27 minutes.

Figure 15.53. Illumination, cyanotype with hand drawing on vellum built into the negative, printed with a hand painted substrate overlay, edition of 5, 40″ × 56½″ © Teresa James 2015

I fill the sink with plain cold water and wash for approximately 10 minutes but I find that it is always best to use your eye. If the water is running clear and there are no pools or spots of yellow on the print it’s ready to pull from the water. Some prints might need a longer or shorter wash depending on the imagery. My cyanotypes usually have a lot of white space so there is more chemical that comes off in the water and a longer wash might be necessary. Also, washing too long can take away some of the beautiful blue in small amounts. If you hold the paper up to the light and see faint water spots into the fibers, then it’s time to pull it out of the rinse bath. These spots are more visible on the highlights of the image and when held up to the light but will disappear when the paper is dry.

For some of my larger prints I set up a makeshift pool in my front yard which consists of wooden sides hinged together, lined with a plastic tarp. I clamp the tarp to the wooden sides and fill it with the hose water. Washing exposed prints outdoors is before the sun comes up or just after dusk so I have to plan accordingly.

Before toning a cyanotype I let the print completely dry overnight after development. This gives the cyanotype time to dry down darker and helps you see more accurately what it will look like when toned. When toning with ammonia and coffee I first set up all my baths. Ammonia and water, coffee, and two water baths. On occasion I first paint with ammonia and water right onto the print with paint brushes, periodically blotting with paper towel and reapplying the solution. In the heavy blue areas it may take a few applications to see results depending on how strong your solution is. Lighter areas will bleach out more quickly so use a test print to get a feel for the technique and try different strengths of ammonia to water and record which one gives you the most control. When painting with ammonia the ratio I use is 20 ml of ammonia plus 140 ml of water. Next I submerge the print in a bath of ammonia and water for about a minute and then immediately into a clean water bath to stop the ammonia reaction. The print then goes into the coffee bath for 5–20 minutes; any longer, the paper isn’t taking on any more tone. Lift the corner of the tray every few minutes to swish any coffee residue away and make sure there are no air bubbles. After the coffee bath I dunk the print into the second water bath. This takes off any excess residue and creates a nice even coffee tone. I blot the print by hand in-between blotter paper to prepare it for flattening. When I am toning multiple prints I keep only one print in the bath at a time. Your coffee bath will eventually take on some of the blue color and become murky so after two or three toned prints check to see if you need to make a new batch. When toning editions it is a good idea to keep an eye on this for consistency.

Figure 15.54. Lend Me Your Heart, cyanotype printed with hand-drawn acetate overlay, toned in ammonia and coffee, edition of 5, 34″ × 26″ © Teresa James 2017

I have found that humidity control can play a big part on how your prints turn out. A little humidity is fine but too much can absorb into your paper and make the coating turn a dark green blue and uneven when it dries down, resulting in a dark and muddy blue final result. A nice chartreuse bright green coating when dry has produced the best outcome. Depending on what part of the world you live in I would invest in a dehumidifier. I always let my coated paper dry overnight and do not use paper more than a day old for best results.

I like to frame my cyanotypes as a projection float on a soft white mat with a white frame. Because of all the white space in my images it lets the eye be free from borders. Prints toned in coffee tend to look better with a warmer mat and darker frames. I always use uv-resistant Plexiglas for protection from direct light. It is not as heavy as glass and works great for shipping oversized pieces.

Creative practice

After experimenting with photogravure and etching on copper I was interested in creating even larger scaled pieces where I could still combine photography and my drawing. A photographer friend suggested I try cyanotype and that is when I started my research and began to expand my studio. I was already making prints with white ink on blue paper so the cyan color only made me drawn to the process even more. The blue and white assists my imagery of winged beings in portraying a heavenly or unseen world atmosphere.

I have had many obstacles come my way when making cyanotypes but most of them were the result of making larger scale prints. One problem in particular was how to coat such large pieces. I find that the hake brush works best. Try coating a 50″ × 127″ piece of paper with a 5″ brush, it will become overworked and take forever! After experimenting with puddle pushers and paint rollers I just couldn’t get a coating I was happy with. The paint roller lays the chemical too heavy and coating rods always missed spots and made it very messy. I had an idea to create my own brush by combining multiple hake brushes together and handed this task off to my assistant at the time, Jonathan Sherman. He came up with a magnificent design which would allow me to coat enormous pieces of paper in just a few minutes. The brushes can also be changed out when they become too stained with chemical and no longer are acceptable for coating. Working extremely large has its own set of problems and after many years of trial and error I could be a good contact for those types of complications.

In Photoshop I use many layers to build into the negative because I’m typically using multiple photos for one image. I cut out any unwanted areas where I’m planning to draw on the print itself. Sometimes I scan in hand drawing on vellum to add to the image. I have also printed negatives with hand-drawn or painted transparency film and acetate overlays.

When my cyanotypes are developed and dried completely flat I draw on them with blue Prismacolors to blend the photography with hand drawing. My prints are unusually large for using a uv exposure unit and negatives printed on paper. I have come up with many ways to print oversized pieces using one negative but three different exposures for one final piece of art.

Artist statement

These cyanotypes are from a continuing three-part series that I have been working on for seven years. I have long explored spiritual and religious themes in making my art. Everyday people and animals, many of them my friends and their pets, are revealed as agents in the eternal battle of good and evil, their heroic spirits armored or winged. I want to lift the veil that obscures our double existence in the temporal and metaphysical worlds. Behind these works lie other invisible struggles: the painstaking labor to balance the generative forces of nature, human and machine, and the soul’s resolve to manifest the optimism and grace in the face of life’s trials. At their core, these are portraits of faith, bathed in a celestial blue.

Figure 15.55. Rainbow Angel, cyanotype, hand painted with ammonia, toned in ammonia and coffee, edition of 5, 31″ × 39½″ © Teresa James 2016

Biography

Teresa James has been making prints for 30 years. She studied at the School of the Art Institute, Chicago, and became master printer for Chicago’s Tony Fitzpatrick for thirteen years. James opened her atelier White Wings Press in 2005 where she specializes in cyanotypes and multi-color etchings on copper with photogravure. She had special equipment made to accommodate her grand scale cyanotypes, reaching as wide as 52″ and as long as 115″, stunning to see face to face. She combines numerous techniques and processes in her imagery, making hybrid prints that cause the eye to wonder where the photo ends and the drawing begins. To see more of her work, visit www.teresajamesart.com.

Figure 15.56. Guinness, cyanotype and hand drawing with blue Prismacolor, unique print, 58½″ × 41½″ © Teresa James 2014

Figure 15.57. Stardust and Ashes #100, two Stardust and Ashes cyanotypes layered on top of each other and rephotographed on an LED light box, printed as a 32″ × 24″ archival inkjet print © Shannon Johnstone 2018

Shannon Johnstone

Figure 15.58. Stardust and Ashes #82, cyanotype on fabric, 8″ × 10″ © Shannon Johnstone 2018

Process

I use the ashes of euthanized shelter animals to create these images, not negatives, so each print is a monoprint. I sprinkle ashes onto the print and slowly add more during the exposure to vary the shades of blue throughout the image. Sometimes I blow on the ashes to move them around which creates varying shades of blue. I also use cardboard masks to dodge the light and create variations in tone.

As I am working, I am quite aware that I am working with deceased animals who were not lucky enough to find a home. It is really important to me to treat their ashes with respect and dignity. At the end of making a print, I return the ashes to the bag they are kept in. If there is any spillage or ashes that cannot be used, I plant them with the tree that holds the remains of my first beloved dog, Lula. The way I acquire ashes from the animal shelter is by asking.

Figure 15.59. Stardust and Ashes #96, cyanotype on fabric, 8″ × 10″ © Shannon Johnstone 2018

I have been using Jacquard cyanotype pretreated fabric sheets. It is cotton sateen. Sateen absorbs dyes and the cyanotype coating better than regular cotton. I use the standard 8″ × 10″, as well as the mural sheets that are 5′ × 7′. Their products have worked extremely well in terms of ease of use and quality of the print. However, one thing to note about the Jacquard product is that the size of the sheets are approximate, and none are exact rectangles. This is perfect for me, but could be a frustration for someone who wants perfection.

Originally I made the decision to use fabric by mistake. I purchased a pack of the Jacquard product to do tests on. I bought it online and there was a sale, so of course I got the 30-sheet pack! As soon as I opened it I realized I had fabric instead of paper. At first I was disappointed, but I did a few tests and quickly realized the way the fabric moved and breathed matched what I was trying to say in the images. Also, as I hung them to dry on a clothesline, I discovered when light shines from behind them, they glow. I had a breakthrough moment while installing the work at an exhibition at The Front Gallery in New Orleans in 2017. The space was tight, so I decided to install one of the mural prints in the window. It was magical. By day, the cyanotype glowed and illuminated the gallery. At night, the cyanotype was lit from the lights in the gallery. Looking in from the outside, it looked as if a giant moon was glowing in the window. This is the direction I want to take this work now. I am leaning toward a more sculptural approach using light boxes, layering the cyanotypes, and hopefully more site-specific installations.

I expose by sun. Working in the sun is such an important part of my concept. I see the sun as adding life to these ashes, so I always work outside when making my cyanotypes. I create these images in my backyard, usually making the exposures between 12PM and 3PM. This is when the sunlight is directly over me and most intense. I tried to make these in twilight, but found it was hard to control the dodging and burning during those low intensity hours. I have also found that for where I live (North Carolina), the summer provides the most intense light. Sometimes I use the shade of a tree if I need to control my exposure over a longer period of time. This is especially important when working with mural prints since it takes more time to spread and work the ashes into different configurations.

Since I am sun exposing, the exposure times vary quite a bit with time of day, time of year, and if there are clouds. In general, the exposure times are about 45 minutes in direct sunlight. The shortest exposure has been 20 minutes, and the longest 4 hours. I judge the exposure by the shade of purple to copper-brown that the fabric turns. The more copper-brown the fabric turns, the darker the blue will ultimately become. If there is any moisture on the ground, that can also change the exposure as well. To combat this, I place the fabric in a darkroom tray while exposing. This has two functions; first it blocks any wind from blowing the cyanotype over (one hazard of working outdoors), and second, it lifts the print off the ground so that the humidity and moisture from the cement don’t seep through. Since each of my cyanotypes are unique, I want some exposures to be much darker than others for variation. I imagine each like a different universe.

Figures 15.60–15.64. Top left and right, some of the masks Johnstone uses in the making of her prints. Middle left, creating Stardust and Ashes #63 mural print with the supervision of Jorge. Middle right, Stardust and Ashes #102, two prints scanned and layered in Photoshop with different blending modes and layer effects used, printed 24″ × 32″ as an archival inkjet print. Bottom right, installation view at The Front Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 2017. Images © Shannon Johnstone 2018.

My advice for working with cyanotypes in sunlight is to be patient, and not expect precision. It is possible to achieve exacting results with cyanotypes, but not while working with it outdoors. There are too many variables that cannot be controlled. My experience has taught me that working outdoors with cyanotype is a much more fluid process than working with silver-based materials in a darkroom, but it is also much more forgiving.

A hazard of working outside is heat and sweat. North Carolina gets pretty hot and humid in the summer, so often my sweat drips onto the prints as I make them. The sweat starts the processing of the print, and leaves a strange blemish mark. When this first happened I was really frustrated, but then I realized this was another dimension to the project. Like the sun, I hoped to breathe life into these ashes which is why I use my hands and breath to manipulate them. My sweat, like my breath and the sun, is another way to incorporate life.

I develop the prints by washing them in our garage sink in an old Tupperware container with running water for about 20 minutes. The entire time the print is washing, I turn it over, swish it around, pull it out, rinse both sides, and then repeat this process over and over. Working with fabric makes this process easy since the sateen fabric is so durable. The edges do fray a bit with rigorous washing, but I don’t mind that. I wear Neoprene gloves when washing my cyanotype prints. Occasionally I will add a little hydrogen peroxide to deepen the blue in an image. The hydrogen peroxide speeds the oxidation process and immediately shows what the print will look like in a few days after the oxidation process is complete.

Figure 15.65. Stardust and Ashes #78, cyanotype on fabric, 8″ × 10″ © Shannon Johnstone 2018

When I add hydrogen peroxide I follow these steps: first, I make sure the container is full of water, then I turn the water off, add the hydrogen peroxide and agitate it with my gloves still on so that it is thoroughly mixed, and then dunk the print and move it around in the water. I don’t measure the hydrogen peroxide other than using the cap to add one or two capfuls to the water in the Tupperware container. Afterward, I always wash the print for a few more minutes and hang them to dry on a clothesline in my backyard.

So far my favorite way to display this work has been with magnets. This allows the viewer to see the images breathe and move and they are not constrained by a mat and frame. Before hanging the work, I iron and starch the prints. Then I place a flat tack or nail in the wall and adhere a small silver magnet. Then, I place the print on top of the first magnet and adhere a second magnet on top of the print. This method secures the work and does not leave a hole or a mark on the print.

I am really interested in making Stardust and Ashes more sculptural and focusing on site-specific installations. Some of the things I have been experimenting with is using the cyanotypes like a negative, and projecting light through them. I have also been scanning the cyanotypes, compositing them digitally, and then printing large archival inkjet prints. I am also thinking about sewing the fabric together in a cylinder shape and illuminating the prints from within so they hang like tiny lanterns. The fact that the work is on fabric gives these photographs a three-dimensional quality that is unlike anything I have done so far. I want to push that as far as I can.

Creative practice

I have a love for all animals, and special affinity for dogs. The tragedy of animal overpopulation is heartbreaking and touches me deeply. It is a topic that has been central to my photographic work for the past decade. We have four dogs and two cats and they are family members. After my father passed away unexpectedly, I wished to make a portrait of him and where he is now. I found an old solar kit my mom had given me and I used that along with some of his ashes to make his portrait in the sun. The result looked like a constellation, which was very fitting—something that glows at night and is always with you. I thought about what a gift it is to be able to mourn for someone. I couldn’t help but think about all the pets who go into animal shelters and never come back out. The humans they belonged to don’t mourn for them. They die, and it is as if their existence didn’t matter. I longed to create something that might memorialize them. This is how Stardust and Ashes came about. The cyanotype is a perfect fit for this idea because in addition to the deep blues and archivalness of the cyanotype process, I am able to work with elements that reflect core concepts in the work such as sunlight and animal remains. In other words, I love the conceptual inverse of the cyanotype for this work—the daylight gives way to a night sky, and death produces lasting life.

Figure 15.66. Stardust and Ashes #55, cyanotype on fabric, 8″ × 10″ © Shannon Johnstone 2017

Artist statement

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

—Carl Sagan, Cosmos

For the past decade I have been working with homeless pets and exploring ways to visualize the tragedy of animal overpopulation. I made these cyanotypes with the ashes of euthanized homeless animals from an animal shelter’s crematorium. These animals died with nobody to mourn their passing, except maybe a few overwhelmed shelter workers. Using my own breath and fingers to manipulate the ashes, I work the ashes into celestial configurations while the sun exposes the cyanotype turning the negative space Prussian blue. With these images I mourn the passing of thousands of our forgotten companions, and remind us that we are all connected and headed for the same fate: reduced to dust and returned to the stars.

Biography

Shannon Johnstone’s photographic work deals with themes that reclaim what has been discarded and make visible that which is hidden. Her project, Landfill Dogs, has been featured in national and international exhibitions and magazines, and was most notably on ABC world news with Diane Sawyer, and CNN.com. Johnstone is a tenured professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. To see more of her work, please visit shannonjohnstone.com.

Figures 15.67–15.72. Top to bottom, left to right, Alexander McQueen, Christian Louboutin, Mezlan, St. Laurent, Ferragamo, Prada, from the Le Scarpe series, new cyanotype toned with wine tannin, printed on Arches Platine, 22″ × 30″ © Max Kellenberger 2018

Max Kellenberger

Process

All images for Le Scarpe are printed on 22″ × 30″ full sheet Arches Platine. For Blues I used 22″ × 30″ Arches Aquarelle 140 hot press bright white.

Images for Le Scarpe were captured on a digital camera, adjusted in Photoshop, and printed with an Epson 9900 onto Pictorico Ultra Premium OHP using Ron Reeder’s digital negative method.

For Le Scarpe I use Mike Ware’s new cyanotype formula from Photographer’s Formulary, mixed and applied according to package directions. Prior to coating the paper, I pre-wet the paper with distilled water, allowing the water to soak into the paper for approximately two minutes before applying the cyanotype solution. Coating is done with a Sterling Studio Blender brush. For Blues I used the Photographer’s Formulary classic cyanotype, mixed and applied according to package directions.

I use an Olec Olite printing lamp with a Douthitt vacuum frame, with a 15-minute exposure. I do a plain water wash for 20 minutes, adding a splash of hydrogen peroxide after the first 5 minutes of the wash.

Le Scarpe prints are first toned in powdered wine tannin (mixed ½ oz to a liter of water) for 1 hour, rinsed, and then a very dilute sodium carbonate bath for 1 minute.

I prefer to display these prints floated in a large frame to display the deckled edges and emphasize the physicality of the print. I find that the toned prints, especially, are very influenced by the color and intensity of light they are displayed in, and find they look their best in diffused daylight.

The biggest problem I encountered, especially with Le Scarpe and its large area of continuous tone, is getting the large sheets coated absolutely evenly with the cyanotype solution. I found that pre-wetting the paper very evenly with distilled water, letting it partially dry to a dull sheen, helped the cyanotype absorb evenly into the paper. Being cautious and methodical in applying the cyanotype and carefully going over the paper two or three times allowed the cleanest and most even application.

Figure 15.73. Spaghetti, from the Blues series, classic cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper, 22″ × 30″ © Max Kellenberger 2018

My main advice to anyone interested in any traditional printing processes is to take the time to experiment and figure out what works for you as a practitioner and your particular variables. What may work for one artist in one location may not work for everyone, so be flexible and curious as you create your own practice. And take lots of notes! Write on the back of the prints as you make them with the date and all of the information that went into making that print. My last piece of advice is to have patience. Every new process has a learning curve; there will be problems to solve, and moments of frustration. Just keep going.

Figures 15.74 and 15.75. Left, Aspirin; right, Washers, from the Blues series, classic cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper, 22″ × 30″ © Max Kellenberger 2018

Creative practice

Over the many decades I have been practicing photography, my largest realization is how to trust my instincts. There are thoughts and images which keep coming back to my mind which want to be expressed, and I’ve learned to listen to those thoughts. I don’t always know the hidden meaning of these ideas until after they’ve been expressed in my work, but the images created from these moments are true to myself and my artistic sensibility. It’s important to find ways to express what’s inside, and make work that reflects my own personal vision.

The other side of that is also learning how to be objective about your own work. Not every idea ends up being successful and you must learn to reject what doesn’t work. Some ideas have taken years of thinking, trying, reimagining to come to their final realization. And some have never made it. The important thing is to keep shooting, keep creating, keep experimenting. And edit, edit, edit.

Artist statement

For my series Blues I was inspired to create a series of systematic portraits of ordinary objects that came in boxes. Removing the objects from the boxes, be it pasta or washers or aspirin, and creating some sort of order from the chaos, I wanted a simple reproduction, a one-to-one copy of these ordinary objects—exactly what a blueprint was used for since its invention. Making this series in cyanotype seemed to be the perfect correlation of process and concept.

Le Scarpe was the result of many years of chasing the idea of capturing the emptiness found inside a shoebox. In the end I was drawn to the toned cyanotype process which captured the feeling of impermanence and transience of being that I saw in these empty spaces and added an element of physicality to the finished piece. The handmade imperfection and unrepeatabilty of the process brings a greater emotion to the print, and the split-tone warm/cool color echoes the sense of being and nothingness, life and death that I see inside these empty boxes.

Figure 15.76. Q-Tips, from the Blues series, classic cyanotype on Arches Aquarelle paper, 22″ × 30″ © Max Kellenberger 2018

While Blues is well within the classic cyanotype canon, I feel that Le Scarpe, being more conceptual in origin, is a more modern use of the process and takes advantage of the unique characteristics to add a heightened emotional element to the final prints.

Biography

A native of Switzerland, Max Kellenberger has been exhibiting work in the United States and Europe since 1972. His recent photography exhibitions include A One Man Show at Gallery 16 in San Francisco, Blues at Smith Anderson North in San Rafael, Quietude at Corden|Potts, One: Unique Photographs at Klompching in Brooklyn, NY, Four Photographers at TUTTIARTlucerne in Lucerne, Switzerland, and most recent Le Scarpe at Corden|Potts in San Francisco. He has been published internationally in photography magazines and books, most recently The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology. Kellenberger resides in San Francisco, CA.

Figure 15.77. Chengdao, new cyanotype developed in 4% citric acid on Rising Stonehenge, 10″ × 14″ on 14″ × 20″ © Sandy King 2018

Sandy King

Figure 15.78. Curtain, new cyanotype developed in 4% citric acid on Rising Stonehenge, 10″ × 14″ on 14″ × 20″ © Sandy King 2018

Process

These prints were made with the new cyanotype process on either Masa, Stonehenge Rising, Arches Aquarelle or Canson Montval. My procedure with cyanotype is to coat the paper and expose as soon as it is dry to the touch. The sensitized paper was exposed with a bank of UVBL tubes, with exposure times of about 2.5 minutes printing with digital negatives. All of the prints were developed for 10 minutes, with constant agitation, in a bath of either 4% citric acid or 1% hydrochloric acid.

Creative practice

I am a fine art photographer from South Carolina interested primarily in the landscape, both its pristine state and as impacted by human intervention, as an abstraction of reality. My work is printed in monochrome because the elimination of color forces the viewer to concentrate on the essential elements of light, form and texture. Content is not unimportant in my work because I am attracted to beautiful and noble subjects, but ultimately the subject is less important than how it is depicted.

Figure 15.79. Heavy Fog, new cyanotype developed in 4% citric acid on Masa, 10″ × 14″ on 14″ × 20″ © Sandy King 2018

Making photographs is an act of discovery, both in capturing the image in the field and in printmaking. In the very early days of photography viewers were fascinated by the detail of the photographic process. One such statement by an unknown Parisian reviewer was made describing the details in a daguerreotype, published in Alphonse Donné, “Le daguerreotype,”Le Voleur (July 15, 1839): “The most delicate objects, the small pebbles under the water by the shore, and the different degrees of transparency they give to the water, everything is reproduced with an unbelievable exactitude. But our astonishment redoubles when we take a magnifying glass and discover, especially in the foliage of the trees, an immense amount of such fine detail that would be impossible for the naked eye to capture on its own.”

In my own work there is a constant joy in the act of discovery, whether it be finding an extraordinary subject in the natural landscape, or in printmaking when a small detail in the scene is revealed that was not noticed when capturing the image.

I am captivated by the ability of the lens to gather light from objects in the world, and to expand this image to a detailed and precise rendering of nature. Photography always begins with something that is real, and this for me is one of its greatest strengths, and what sets it apart from other forms of the Visual Arts, like painting, which have an internal origin.

Printmaking is as important for me as seeing and discovery. Much of my work is done with 19th century handmade photographic processes, including carbon transfer and platinum and palladium. I am fascinated by these historical tools, and with analog photography, but I am also intrigued with the creative possibilities of digital work and print with digital negatives. The result is that my work is hybrid in nature, and attempts to combine the best features of analog and digital.

Figure 15.80. Trees in Fog, new cyanotype developed in 4% citric acid on Rising Stonehenge, 11″ × 14″ on 14″ × 17″ © Sandy King 2018

Biography

Sandy King taught at Clemson University from 1971 until he retired in 2006. He has printed with a variety of alternative printing processes since the early 1980s, including cyanotype, carbon transfer, kallitype, platinum/palladium, and Van Dyke. For over two decades, King has devoted much of his time to carbon printing and his personal work has been published in magazines such as Photovision, Silvershotz, and View Camera. He has conducted carbon-printing workshops in the us and in numerous countries abroad, including Canada, China, Mexico, Spain and Turkey. He authored numerous publications, including scholarly works on the history of photography as well as technical articles and books on handmade printing processes. His most recent publications include, Handcrafted: The Art and Practice of the Handmade Print, co-authored with Christina Z. Anderson, Zhong Jiaming, and Sam Wang, Zhejiang Photographic Publishing Company, Hangzhou, 2014, and The Carbon Print Process, coauthored with John Lockhart, 2017. To see more of his work, visit www.sandykingphotograhy.com.

Figures 15.81–15.83. Tidal Bather 1, wood, plaster, mesh, felt, cyanotype prints on cotton, wire, cord, thread, 20″ × 27″ × 15″ © Tasha Lewis 2017

Tasha Lewis

Figure 15.84. The Swarm, site specific installation, Berkeley, California, stiffened cyanotype prints on cotton, magnets © Tasha Lewis 2012

Process

I use cotton cloth from Blueprintsonfabric.com. I use a mixture of digital transparencies that I print at a copy shop from images manipulated in Photoshop, and handmade negatives which I paint on acetate in the studio. I have also done some work with simple photograms made with found specimens or vinyl stencils.

I use an ultraviolet light box in the studio, and the sun when I can. My exposure times are between 8 and 15 minutes, with the glass being about 8″ from the light source. I wash all my prints out in a bucket and add a cap of hydrogen peroxide before the final wash.

I have toned cyanotype using Bostick & Sullivan’s cyanotype bleaching Solution A 14% potassium carbonate solution and cyanotype toning Solution B 40% tannic acid solution one after the other to create a purple color. I have also had success dyeing my fabric prints red, orange, and peach with RIT acid dyes. The whites of the cyanotype took the color of the dye as did the blues turning them purple to black.

One unique thing I do is in an earlier series I discovered that I could make double-sided objects (like my magnetic cyanotype butterflies) by creating a registered sandwich of two negatives with the cyanotype fabric in the middle. You print each side and then the final result will mimic the natural world (I have also made leaves this way).

Figures 15.85 and 15.86. Tidal Bather 2, wood, plaster, mesh, felt, cyanotype prints on cotton, wire, cord, glass beads, thread, 18″ × 37″ × 15″ © Tasha Lewis 2017

Creative practice

I started out as a printmaker and a photographer and discovered alternative processes late in high school. I found cyanotype and kallitype to be fusions of printmaking and photography. I loved layering and augmenting images, hand-painting the emulsion, and making collaged negatives. In college I honed in on the potential for augmenting the dimension of a photograph by crafting forms that were then covered in cyanotype prints on fabric. While I later discovered other means of textile design, cyanotype was so familiar and so direct, it became an exceptional way to explore this new process.

In a more practical sense, I was drawn to cyanotype-coated cotton because you could print huge sheets of it with giant negatives without worrying about having a large enough tray to develop paper, or about improperly painting the emulsion. Accordingly, all my energy could be channeled into making exciting negatives, and manipulating the final cyanotype photograph after it was developed.

While there have been many artists before me to explore the sculptural potential of cyanotype on cotton, I believe I am the first to integrate them into a taut skinlike layer around a solid form.

I approach cyanotype as one step or element in my process and attempt to emphasize its strength in conveying complex surface textures while not defining the work with the structural limitations of fabric.

While I also use other means of surface decoration for my textiles, cyanotype will always be a favorite process for its immediacy, its beautiful color, and its historical roots.

Artist statement

I am drawn to the cyanotype process both because of its history and because of its flexibility. In the beginning, my inspiration was drawn from an investigation into the cultural/scientific/historical context in which the cyanotype process was born. Popularized by scientists, and botanists in particular, the cyanotype is intrinsically tied into the scientific recording boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These are the times of the curiosity cabinet, the prints of Anna Atkins and a rush of explorers/scientists to colonial lands only to bring back specimens from foreign ecosystems. The cyanotype is a process of documenting. The resultant image—which is the basic fodder for all of my work—is a kind of scientific stand-in for the actual object in question. It is the trace of the original. In this way, like cyanotype’s use for building blue prints in more recent centuries, my work is formed as the re-presentation of something real; it is somehow not quite the object itself.

As I have developed this technique, my work has become most interested in this tension between the qualities of the surface—where everything is hand sewn with a needle and thread—and the illusory power of the photographic base—where the image is created digitally and then printed in the sun.

I have used my magnetic cyanotype butterflies to organize a global collaborative street art project during which 200 participants from 45 different countries created, photographed, and then de-installed ephemeral installations of blue swarms on metal objects around their homes.

Biography

Tasha Lewis is a mixed-media sculptor living and working in Jersey City, New Jersey. She has shown across the country and has self-published two books: Illustrating James Joyce’s Ulysses in Eight Weeks, and Swarm the World, a Global Collaborative Street Art Project. For more details on her process please visit her website www.TashaLewis.info and follow her on Instagram @TashaLewisArtist.

Figures 15.87–15.89. From top to bottom, Botanical Beast 2 (10″ × 9″ × 12″), Botanical Beast 3 (27″ × 24″ × 18″), Botanical Beast 1 (10″ × 8″ × 12″), wood, plaster gauze, cyanotype prints on cotton, wire, cord, thread © Tasha Lewis 2017

Figure 15.90. Moskva detail © Galina Manikova 2015

Galina Manikova

Figure 15.91. Moskva © Galina Manikova 2015

Process

Cyanotype is cheap, easy and versatile. It can be toned to other colors. It is graphic and can have different expressions. I usually do not work on paper, but glass, ceramics, textiles and wood. I make negatives in camera, in the darkroom and digitally. I use my own cyanotype formula, which is a variation of the classic one. I adjust the amount of FAC according to the material used, sometimes doubling the amount if it is to be fired on glass or ceramics. I use all different types of light sources, from sun light to UVBL and also a vacuum unit for some projects. I develop in just water, and tone with all sorts of recipes, from soap to chemicals.

Creative practice

I was born on a Japanese island of Sakhalin, grew up in Moscow, was educated at an art academy in Jerusalem and have lived in Norway since 1986. Sakhalin, taken over by Russians after the war, was exile, but better than inside the barbed wire. My parents were military doctors, both of them. It was impossible for them to raise children on Sakhalin, so I grew up with my grandparents in Moscow, in a big apartment behind the Bolshoi Theatre, where my grandmother worked as a stage designer. In a dramatic rupture with my father, who had survived Stalin purges and returned to Moscow, I escaped to Israel at nineteen, where I lived for thirteen years. In Israel, at Bezalel Art Academy, I specialized in photographic methods on ceramics, which is my field of expertise. Over the years, I have had a series of exhibitions and teaching projects in major cities such as Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, San Francisco and Oslo. They show the diversity of my work, using different materials and techniques.

Figure 15.92. Moskva © Galina Manikova 2015

My culture has been influenced by many traditions, and my national feelings are confused. Globalization and migrations of nationalities in Europe have created a new group of people, who belong to the same race as me, the race of hybrids, of mixed masters. Perhaps that makes me a true cosmopolite. I have worked a lot on the subject of identity, and lately about age, getting older, and being a woman.

Artist statement

These series were created 2015–2016 and have resulted in two large exhibitions, Eyesee, an installation in Moscow in August–September 2015, and Oenene Som Ser in Norway in September–October 2016. I started working with images of eyes in 2013 during my residency at the Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai. Maybe I got my inspiration from the many different faces and eye forms of the Chinese people from different ethnic groups. There were so many unfamiliar combinations of faces and eye forms and colors! Maybe it was my own approaching blindness and helplessness in regard to moving around and seeing the world. I have been taking thousands and thousands of images.

When I came back home to Norway, the process of developing a concept for an exhibition or a project began. I wanted to transform eye forms into something else and decided to do so by enlarging the images and transferring them onto semitransparent materials. At such a transition the quality of the images would make all the difference. I started with building a super big format macro camera. Creating a special lens has been quite a big challenge. I solved it by converting an old Russian aerial spy lens and turning it the wrong way, an achievement I am still proud of. The next step was to capture enough different people in order to have a sufficient variety of forms and colors. Each person has been photographed with three different cameras, from large format to video. I could only take one big picture per day as it had to be carried directly into the darkroom. In-camera direct negatives on film were processed and manipulated in the darkroom as soon as they were shot. Every one of the 30 or so images has been tray developed and toned. This took time. I only ruined one of these very expensive film plates. My negatives are 150 × 150 cm.

Figure 15.93. Moskva © Galina Manikova 2015

The silk was soaked in two different emulsions, dried and contact printed with the large negatives in the sun. I prepared a wooden plate, covered it with a sponge mattress and a glass plate. After the handmade emulsions dried, silk had to be placed on the frame, stretched with pins and covered with the glass plate, all in the dark, and then the whole sandwich was carried out into the sun, exposed, carried in and disassembled. The silk had to be washed, dried and ironed later.

I have used silk as it was easier to transport. The images breathed and moved in the big room. They were visible from both sides. The qualities of detail and texture were exquisite at different distances and light conditions. The pictures were turning around and responding to the movements of the visitors in the room.

I received amazing response from the public to this project. Several articles resulted, and the exhibition was shown on national TV and discussed on the radio. People kept coming back to see it again and again. There was even one visitor who surreptitiously spent the night there in order to feel it and to think.

For the next exhibition in Sandefjord, Norway, I made special forms out of plastic tubes and bent metal pipes to stretch the silk. Each picture had to be sewn first, stretched on the frame and covered with silk ropes around the frames in order to make a nice finish. I also used metal thread formed as an eye drawing and hung overhead lenses in the middle.

The theme of the exhibition is communication, observation and connection between people. I aimed to reconnect my own background and share my reactions and outsider views with the others. This project was about myself, about my life in a foreign landscape, about being exposed and vulnerable, about watching and being watched. Eyes symbolize experience and everyday struggles during over 40 years spent outside of Moscow, often shaded by segregation and isolation.

Figure 15.94. Sandefjord © Galina Manikova 2015

The project includes a range of photographs of different eyes, printed on the transparent silk and presented as abstract three-dimensional forms hanging from the ceiling so that they create a fundamentally new landscape. The motives and signs in this space are overlapping each other and are projected on the live figures moving around in this new landscape—the public. The public is offered an opportunity to leave their comments and wishes on the paper notes, which are placed in the special holes in the silk, and then scanned and put on the interactive so-called “Wailing wall” created specifically for this purpose. See www.wailingwall.no. In this way the public is invited to participate in creating the exhibition as a part of a web project which will be its final destination. Dreams and desires of individuals are woven into one fabric that affects and involves the audience, transforming the entire space of the exhibition into a single interactive arena, a kind of “visual world,” a dreamspace full of illusions, impressions and possibilities for the visitors to get engaged and involved into the art process.

Biography

Galina Manikova likes to call herself a citizen of the world; she was born on the Japanese island of Sakhalin in 1953, lived in Moscow until 1973, graduated from the art academy Bezalel in Jerusalem in 1978, and has lived and worked in Norway since 1986. Manikova has had 50 different personal and group exhibitions during her nearly 40-year career as an artist and a photographer. Her specialization is in historic photographic processes and the transfer of photographic images to different materials like glass, metal, textile and ceramics, as well as video and computer art. To see more of her work, visit www.galina.no.

Figures 15.95 and 15.96. Sandefjord © Galina Manikova 2015

Figure 15.97. Untitled, from the Prussian Blue series, 56 × 67 cm © Constanza Isaza Martínez 2010

Constanza Isaza Martínez

Figure 15.98. Untitled, from the Prussian Blue series, 28 × 76 cm © Constanza Isaza Martínez 2010

Process

I began working on this ongoing series in 2009, when I started researching historical photographic printing processes. Previously, I did a lot of work with silver gelatin printing, but cyanotype was the first process I encountered where I could make my own photographic prints from scratch, from weighing the chemicals to finishing the prints. The beauty and versatility of the process really appeals to me, as well as its slightly rough-around-the-edges feel and the seemingly endless scope for experimentation. In my day-to-day work, I use processes like photopolymer gravure and platinum printing, which demand a high level of precision and skill, as well as being very expensive. I find it creatively liberating to work with cyanotype, let go of the perfectionism I normally aim for, and allow myself free rein to experiment.

I have tested hundreds of different papers for cyanotype, so it’s really difficult to pick a favorite. For more abstract work like the Prussian Blue series, I like to use Rives BFK and Fabriano Artistico, among others. For prints from digital negatives, I like Simili Japon, Hahnemühle Sumi-e, Zerkall, and Arches Aquarelle. I also love working with Japanese papers like Awagami Hosho, which prints a really beautiful deep blue.

I make my negatives using a Photoshop adjustment curve made with software created by Peter Moseley.

I start with the classic cyanotype formula for all my cyanotypes. I use equal parts of a 25% w/v solution of ferric ammonium citrate, and a 10% w/v solution of potassium ferricyanide. In the Prussian Blue series, this varies quite a bit, as I often end up using many different dilutions on one print.

I use the sun for my Prussian Blue prints, and a Xeros vacuum exposure unit when I’m working with negatives. Exposure times in the sun vary from 5 minutes to several hours or even days. My Xeros unit is super fast because I changed the glass to a piece of low-iron glass, so I can expose a cyanotype in less than 2 minutes!

I normally just rinse in tap water but I occasionally rinse first in a very weak solution of citric or acetic acid—approximately 1%. I always use a hydrogen peroxide bath before my final wash.

I rarely tone my cyanotypes as I work with a wider range of other processes, so if I want a color other than blue, I’ll make a Vandyke, kallitype or platinum print. However, I have used oak tannin, tannic acid, black tea and green tea, and I like green tea the best as it doesn’t stain the paper too much.

For me, part of the attraction of working with cyanotype or other handprinted processes is the physicality of the final print, so I like to emphasize this when I display prints. I love printing on paper with deckled edges, and float-mounting the print in a box frame so you can see the paper edges.

Figure 15.99. Untitled, from the Prussian Blue series, 56 × 76 cm © Constanza Isaza Martínez 2010

The biggest problem with cyanotypes, for me, is their inherent graininess, especially in the high midtones. Paper choice seems to make a huge difference, as well as an initial rinse in citric acid.

Creative practice

In the Prussian Blue series, I’m turning the cyanotype process in on itself to explore the nature and essence of the process itself. I don’t use negatives of objects, but work with the chemistry itself in many layers and different dilutions on the paper. I have also made some very large cyanotypes on fabric with Andrés Pantoja—the largest one made to date was around 8 × 15 m, which we made in collaboration with Melanie King. It’s really challenging to work at that scale, but it’s worth it for the impact the final piece delivers!

My cyanotype tip would be not to take it too seriously. When you work with a process like platinum printing, the cost of the materials and the necessity of being precise and very clean in order to avoid contamination can really limit your creativity. Cyanotype, on the other hand, is so inexpensive, easy, safe, and fun, that you can allow yourself to experiment without worrying about the cost or risks involved. This is why cyanotype is one of my all-time favorite processes.

Artist statement

The Prussian Blue series explores the expressive potential of the photographic medium through its most basic elements: light, chemicals, and substrate. By reducing the medium to these three components, the restrictions that photographic representation traditionally carries are eliminated. Without a camera, a negative, or the obligation to represent the material world through a lens, the prints produced explore the essence of the medium and allow the surface of the photograph, usually overlooked, to become the subject of the work.

The history of the invention of photography is populated by natural scientists, chemists, and astronomers, whose scientific research required the precision of photographic representation, and therefore served as the catalyst for the invention of photography. Sir John Herschel—the inventor of the cyanotype process—was a true polymath who conducted research in chemistry, astronomy, and optics, among other fields.

Figure 15.100. Untitled, from the Prussian Blue series, 26 × 26 cm © Constanza Isaza Martínez 2015

The Prussian Blue series takes the cyanotype process as a starting point and uses the chemistry and paper alone to make images without negatives or camera. The images remain photographic due to the process and chemicals used, but differ from more visually familiar forms of photography because they are made without cameras or negatives; using the chemistry itself as an ephemeral “negative” that is destroyed during processing. The images—which draw attention to the surface and nature of the photographic image—allude to the process of investigation, experimentation, and analysis which is a fundamental aspect of both science and photography.

Biography

Constanza Isaza Martínez is a visual artist based in London, working primarily with photography. She studied Photographic Arts at the University of Westminster, and in 2012, she received her MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Constanza’s practice is characterized by an interest in the materiality of the print, the artistic possibilities of historical photographic processes, and the process of making as central to the meaning of the work. Constanza lives and works in London, where she co-owns Lux Darkroom, a space dedicated to teaching and researching historical photographic processes. She regularly exhibits her work both in the UK and abroad. To see more of her work, visit www.constanzaisaza.com and www.luxdarkroom.co.uk.

Figure 15.101. Wald, cyanotype on curved glass, 22.5 × 28 cm © Sehera Nawaz 2017

Sehera Nawaz

Figure 15.102. Verehrung, cyanotype on curved glass, 18.5 × 24.5 cm © Sehera Nawaz 2017

Process

While creating some glass cyanotypes I was looking for nice frames at the flea market and came across antique ones that have fitted curved glass. It occurred to me that this small distance between the glass and the white background can be used to create a shadow in sharp light. When the viewer changes perspective it creates an effect of uncertainty, as a ghostly image of the print can be seen on the white paper in the background. To get these images onto the glass I had to create an enlarger to project the negatives; contact printing was not an option with the curved glass.

The two-color series is an ongoing effort to strive towards more colorful cyanotypes. I use black tea to dye the first layer. The stone paper (cradle-to-cradle paper made from stone) is very important in this process as it doesn’t change size in water.

Cyanotype is the underestimated process that makes more sense now than ever: it is environmentally friendly but it seems to me that it was never given the same research attention as silver halide or even other iron III based photographic processes. When I came across it, I was looking for a process that didn’t need a special developer or fixer, but rather things that were readily available. I played with other natural photographic techniques like anthotype but after reading Mike Ware’s Cyanomicon I was convinced cyanotype was everything I wanted. At first it seemed so easy to use but digging deeper there are still so many untried things and unanswered questions: it is so versatile and can still be pushed to new limits.

Starting out I used all kinds of papers, but soon was drawn towards more experimental surfaces like glass and wood. Glass is fascinating, also because you do not have the structure of the paper intervening with the print. Although the pigment is the same the blue appears slightly different and the highlights are much more visible. I was looking for a paper that could have the same effect and came across stone paper. It almost feels like plastic, but is made out of stone and a natural binder. It is a paper that is produced with the cradle-to-cradle principle in mind, which is for me a perfect fit for cyanotype. As the pigments of cyanotype cling to natural materials I am using the stone paper that has 80% stone.

A problem that occurred especially when using stone paper, but also with other kinds of paper is that when enough emulsion has sunk into the support, the excess emulsion just floats on top of the paper and therefore, when exposed, cannot hold on to any organic structure and is washed away during the process of development. I started using dry pieces of cloth to remove the excess emulsion and got much more detailed prints due to this practice.

Figures 15.103 and 15.104. Left, Two #2, two-colored cyanotype on stone paper, 41 × 29.5 cm; right, Two #1, two-colored cyanotype on stone paper, 41 × 29.5 cm © Sehera Nawaz 2018

Stone paper behaves quite differently compared to normal paper. The coating has to be done very evenly, otherwise one can see differences on the final print. It is sensitive to touch after exposure, but the images are clear and the details are beautiful.

When using paper I still use inkjet printed negatives that I convert from my analog scans. I don’t like the process but it is still the fastest way to try something out. Some of my prints are just directly from medium format black and white film, but when shooting in color I need to scan them. I am striving for a completely analog process chain and for curved glass it was possible to achieve it by disassembling a 35 mm enlarger that I rebuilt to be used with a 395 nm LED. The most important thing was to change the lens of the enlarger to an old camera lens that does not have a uv-filter/coating on it. It has room for improvement, as 395 nm is not a very intense uv radiation, but it works and one can project onto curved surfaces with it.

My other exposure device is a self-built light box with six uv fluorescent tubes at a 5 cm distance. With normal paper and inkjet printed negatives it requires 2–3 minutes to expose. Stone paper only requires 1–2 minutes.

The cyanotype formula I use for paper is classical: 25 g FAC + 100 ml water and 10 g PF + 100 ml water separated for storage and mixed 1:1 before applying it to the surface. If they start to mold I sometimes strain them through a coffee-filter. For development I just use running water until the paper is clear, but usually I spray the print with 3% hydrogen peroxide after development to immediately see the results.

For toning I use instant coffee, black or green tea. I have also experimented with red wine. Black tea is used to get a reddish tone in the highlights and coffee to get a deeper black in the shadows. If you leave the print in coffee you can get a very cold black tone. Sometimes toning brings back highlights that were previously not visible, as the tannins stick to any Prussian-blue they can find and intensify and/or darken even the slightest contrast in the highlights. Frequently I also use washing soda to get brownish tones.

For my two colored prints I split a scanned color negative into cyan/magenta/yellow and usually use the cyan and magenta channels to print, but depending on the image it is sometimes better to use cyan and yellow. After exposing the magenta negative I use black tea to color it. Trying many different types of black tea I found a type of Ceylon black tea to be the best, but not every Ceylon tea brings out a strong red tone. After toning, I use washing soda to bleach away any trace of blue. Washing out the soda is crucial, as the blue layer would react to any leftover bleach. The second blue layer is where the magic happens. It is quite tricky to place the negative exactly on top of the first print, but it helps that the stone paper does not change its size during development in water. I usually use a little less time to expose the cyan channel, but it totally depends on the image and the negative. Sometimes I use a little washing soda to slightly lighten the blue.

Figures 15.105–15.109. Left, Nawaz’ enlarger setup; right, Feld, cyanotype on curved glass, 19 × 14.5 cm © Sehera Nawaz 2017

For glass cyanotypes I use a formula found in Cyanotype: Historical and alternative photography by Peter Mrhar who suggests: 1 part alcohol, 1 part 20% gelatine and 1 part mixed emulsion. Let your gelatine never go above 40°C and let it sit to get rid of bubbles. Bubbles are really a thing to look out for and dust is your mortal enemy. Using distilled water helps. I use this formula also to print on ceramic or even wood, because if the wood is too dense, the water-based emulsion will soak into the surface very unevenly.

In Berlin, there are quite a few second hand stores that sell old wood or even antique brass frames. I love using them for my cyanotypes, especially when I can reuse the old glass to print on.

Creative practice

I always feel inspired by light that reacts and light that travels in strange ways, caustics, reflections, refractions. When using new techniques it is crucial to me to understand them as much as I can and be very curious about cause and effect. I research and try to find any new ways of thinking about it. In the end though, it is important to let go of all these expectations, as the best prints happened, when I was not pushing the limits, but knowing about them and letting the process be whatever it can or wants to be. This feels important especially to cyanotype, as the best images sometimes are accidental and the result might not be easy to explain.

My studio is located in Berlin, Neukölln. In the cellar of our small shop I created my little cyanotype heaven, where I regularly host intimate cyanotype printing workshops to get the word out about this fantastic photographic printing technique.

Biography

Sehera Nawaz is an analog and alternative photography artist, specialized in cyanotype. Having in-depth knowledge about the behavior of light through studying and publishing in the field of film rendering/computer science, since 2015 she has used her knowledge to research and explore old photographic printing techniques. Nawaz’ studio is at Mahlower Eins, Berlin Neukölln. To see more of her work, visit http://solarlamp.de.

Figure 15.110. Nature/Chaos, 11″ × 14″ © Zeva Oelbaum 2005

Zeva Oelbaum

Figure 15.111. Lily Composition, 26.5″ × 11.5″ © Zeva Oelbaum 2005

Process

I use the classic cyanotype formula and worked primarily with Crane’s watercolor paper until it was discontinued. Since then, I’ve experimented with lots of different papers, but don’t have a favorite.

I create large film negatives, using an enlarger as a light source. My exposure times vary from 8 seconds to 30 seconds. I layer the objects directly onto the film, and control the negative density through the exposure. That allows me to control the intensity of the blue on the final cyanotype.

I use a uv lightbox to expose the final print. My lightbox exposures vary widely, from a few seconds to as many as 5 minutes, depending on the density of my films.

I have experimented with toning cyanotypes using black tea for a vintage look, but I prefer my work to have a clean, modern feeling.

I prefer for my cyanotypes to be floating in the frame or matted with an 8-ply simple white mat.

While working, I became fascinated with natural fractals, or a never-ending simple pattern that repeats itself at different scales to create infinitely complex patterns. As a result, I started working with multiple exposures. I would coat the paper with the cyanotype chemistry, expose the paper and process normally, then repeat the process several times on the same sheet of paper.

Nature is full of fractals and they are infinitely complex. Similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales and seemingly chaotic patterns are actually highly ordered and controlled. A snowflake is an example of this. The term “fractal” was first used by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975.

Creative practice

I love cultures. With an undergraduate degree in anthropology, I have always been intrigued by the convergence of culture, history and visual media—both photography and film. In addition to my work as a photographer, I am also a documentary filmmaker and my specialty is working with archival footage and early cinema. Using primary source material, found objects and historic processes, I am drawn to stories of women who are underappreciated or little known, despite stunning accomplishments.

Figure 15.112. Pine Diptych, 22″ × 11″ © Zeva Oelbaum 2001

Much of my work has centered on the late 19th century. I am fascinated by the Victorian and Edwardian urge to travel to every corner of the globe and collect specimens of the natural and ancient world. It was within this era of collection and categorization that the processes for photography and film were discovered and found their raison d’être. Individuals such as Dr. Albert Kahn of Paris sent out an army of photographers and filmmakers around the world in the early 1900s to “bring back the world.” Kahn’s “Archives of the Planet” hold nearly 80,000 autochromes and hundreds of hours of footage. Botanists traveled to every corner of the world collecting samples, as did naturalists and hunters, such as Theodore Roosevelt. In fact, the subject of my recent documentary film, “Letters from Baghdad,” was a pioneering British explorer, archaeologist and diplomat who helped draw the borders of Iraq after World War 1 and established the Iraq Museum. Gertrude Bell (1868–1928) was also an extraordinary photographer and used a panorama camera in the early 1900s to document ancient sites throughout the Middle East. Eerily, many of those sites have now been destroyed or damaged by isis.

One of Bell’s colleagues was the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld, who used the cyanotype process to proof his photographic negatives of ancient sites throughout Iraq, Syria and Iran. I love the fact that cyanotypes were inexpensive and versatile and could be produced anywhere with ease, since they only needed to be rinsed in pure water.

My interest in the cyanotype process grew when I learned that it holds an important place in the history of photography. I was very surprised to learn that British Botanist Anna Atkins (1799–1871) published the first book illustrated entirely with photography in 1843. She hardly has enjoyed the same name recognition as Sir John Herschel or Sir William Henry Fox Talbot. Her cyanotypes inspired me to create a body of work on the natural world.

Figures 15.113 and 15.114. Left, Cyanotype Grasses No. 20; right, Cyanotype Grasses No. 19, 11″ × 14″ © Zeva Oelbaum 2004

Biography

Zeva Oelbaum is the author and photographer of Blue Prints: The Natural World in Cyanotype Photographs and Flowers in Shadow: A Photographer Rediscovers a Victorian Botanical Journal, both published by Rizzoli. She is the recipient of two NEH grants. Her work has been reviewed in such publications as ArtNews and The New Yorker. Her recent documentary film “Letters from Baghdad” will broadcast on PBS in December, 2018. Her photographs are in numerous international public collections including the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Brooklyn Museum. To see more of Oelbaum’s work, visit zevaoelbaum.com, LettersFromBaghdad.com, and RuthGruberthemovie.com.

Figure 15.115. Flight, cyanotype toned with tea and wine tannin and a bleaching agent (usually highly diluted silver gelatin paper developer or sodium carbonate), 11″ × 14″ © Emma Powell 2013

Emma Powell

Figure 15.116. On the Other Side, cyanotype toned with tea and wine tannin and a bleaching agent (usually highly diluted silver gelatin paper developer or sodium carbonate), 8″ × 20″ © Emma Powell 2014

Process

For this project I was experimenting with creating fictional spaces. I was working on emphasizing metaphor over conveying reality. The blue color is unnatural and enabled me to build a dream world in which to set my scenes. At the time I was also moving from job to job and I did not have regular access to a traditional darkroom. I was able to set up a way to use this process wherever I was.

Though it may not be the most high quality paper, Strathmore Bristol is very sturdy and predictable; it puts up with a lot of abuse from multiple washings and toning.

I use the classic formula. I mix it all together at the same time and use it up quickly. I mix a minimum of 24 hours before printing.

I have used many different devices. Most of this series was printed with an old metal halide uv plate maker designed for printmaking processes. I have recently started using an integrated light meter from www.lightmeasure.com to get accumulated light readings to compare light sources and expose outside.

After the cyanotype is dry, I place the print on a large piece of Plexiglas and pour the toning chemicals or water over the surface. I have found the bleach is difficult to wash out when the print is submerged and this causes problems when it dries. This also gives me control and allows me to more selectively tone parts of the print, and also dodge and burn. My process steps are: 1. water about 5 minutes to re-wet the print; 2. tea/wine tannin bath 2–5 minutes (submerged or poured over the print);

3. bleach with diluted silver gelatin paper developer (100 ml to 2000 ml water) or sodium carbonate, poured on the surface of the print, not submerged as a bath—sometimes I will dilute this even more to slow the process and give myself more control;

4. pour on tea and let it sit for a few minutes until the tone returns; 5. water wash for 10–20 minutes, making sure not to wash too long or the print will wash away. The print will dry darker.

I have tried repeating the bleaching and toning steps multiple times. This changes the color in extreme ways. The wine tannin produces almost purple colors. This is harder to control, and I find I lose the highlights quickly. For my workflow I only bleach once. Also, when toning I don’t completely change the color. I keep some of the blue in the low-key values and mainly tone the highlights, creating a split tone effect. Cyanotypes can be easy and is a great process for beginners, but printing consistently toned cyanotypes can be very difficult.

Figure 15.117. Shelter, cyanotype toned with tea and wine tannin and a bleaching agent (usually highly diluted silver gelatin paper developer or sodium carbonate), 11″ × 14″ © Emma Powell 2013

Creative practice

In my artwork I often use alternative chemical photographic processes, chosen intentionally to evoke another place or time that is removed from the every day, adding layers of narrative meaning through historical references or material qualities. These chemical techniques give me the freedom to explore experiential methods of image-making, and allow for chance and happy accidents. I describe working with alternative processes to be a form of collaboration, because there are often surprises that could not have been anticipated. I also incorporate digital manipulation in my work in order to expand the narrative possibilities of my imagery. Digital collage allows me to make scenes that would be impossible to capture in reality. I then use the chemical process to produce the final piece. This distracts from the digital manipulation in the negative. The physical print and historic style allows the viewer to more easily suspend their disbelief and accept a fantasy perspective. This is most likely because the resulting image looks more like an illustration than reality. I am also drawn to historic processes because they enable me to play with space between fantasy and history.

Figure 15.118. Spanish Moss, cyanotype toned with tea and wine tannin and a bleaching agent (usually highly diluted silver gelatin paper developer or sodium carbonate), 11″ × 14″ © Emma Powell 2012

Artist statement

From my earliest days, I have had a difficult relationship with sleep. As a child, I avoided it at all costs, especially at night. To get me back to bed, my father used to tell me stories. They were not traditional children’s bedtime stories but invented tales that began on our quiet street and journeyed down open drains to a dream-world of caverns, forests, and oceans full of unexpected animals and dangers. The story would always find its way back to the real world and end where it had begun, hopefully, but doubtfully with me that much closer to sleep. In Search of Sleep recreates this shadowy realm and allows me to explore my real-life questions, from personal dramas to romantic doubts. The cyanotype process, with its distinctive blue tones, visually traverses the distance between waking and sleeping. These images are toned with tea and wine to both dull the blues and add warmth. Tea, wine, cyanide (potassium ferricyanide)—all three of these substances relate to different levels of consciousness that often mirror the mental states evoked by my photographs. In Search of Sleep creates a visual lullaby that allows me to safely explore what I love, what I fear, what I remember, and what I imagine.

Biography

Emma Powell is an Assistant Professor of Art at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Powell received her MFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work often examines photography’s history while incorporating historic processes and other devices within the imagery. Powell’s photographs have been exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally. To see more of her work, visit www.emmapowell.photo.

Figure 15.119. Littoral Drift #18 (Recto/Verso, Diptych, Rodeo Beach, Sausalito, CA 07.21.13, Three Waves, Buried and Flooded), unique cyanotype, 30″ × 50″ © Meghann Riepenhoff 2013

Meghann Riepenhoff

Figure 15.120. Littoral Drift Nearshore #502 (Bainbridge Island, WA 04.01.16, Two Waves and Salt, Scattered and Poured), unique cyanotype, 24″ × 48″ © Meghann Riepenhoff 2016

Process

I use Strathmore Bristol for its strength and durability. I like hot press papers, with a very smooth surface that helps to punctuate the detail in my work.

I make cameraless cyanotypes, and use Bostick & Sullivan’s classic cyanotype formula. My exposures are from the sun, not uv boxes, so my exposure times vary greatly depending on the weather. Typically an average exposure is around four hours; I’m intentionally drastically overexposing.

My pieces are developed to the degree that water from the landscape comes in contact with them. As my work exposes and dries, it records subtle topographies from the landscape. Other than what naturally occurs in the environment (such as pH, sedimentary impact, etc.), I do not tone the work.

Some of my work is framed—hinged to recessed mat boards and floated in a deep frame that allows for the three-dimensional nature of the work. I also make two-sided pieces that I suspend from the ceiling with custom steel clamps and rare earth magnets. Other work is large-scale, and is tabbed directly to the wall of an exhibition space.

I imagine my issues are extremely esoteric, but perhaps humorous, to share. My list of problems includes dogs and kids running over my prints, waves pulling prints out (only to have generous surfers help recover them), and pieces becoming frozen into the landscape.

Creative practice

The first female photographer, Anna Atkins, was also a pioneer in botanical/scientific illustration. She used specimens collected from the shorelines, and made cyanotype photograms with them. Her minimal, elegant compositions offered a new way of seeing, and a new way of understanding the world. Previously scientific illustrations were hand-drawn approximations, until Atkins’ British Algae introduced a new way to record the environment around us.

Figure 15.121. Littoral Drift Nearshore #409 (Kohler Center, Sheboygan, WI 01.07.16, Mixed Precipitation and Border Ice), unique cyanotype, 19″ × 24″ © Meghann Riepenhoff 2016

I’m influenced by Atkins’ work, which illustrates the earliest relationship between photography and shoreline. In my work, I revisit the shoreline with cyanotype, but make a new kind of image of the landscape, where elements in the environment are both subject and process.

In keeping with nodding to Atkins’ early work, I make prints in and of the environment around us. I work directly in waves, surface water, waterfalls, precipitation—primarily where aquatic and terrestrial landscapes meet.

Artist statement

This work stems from my fascination with the nature of our relationships to the landscape, the sublime, time, and impermanence. Entitled Littoral Drift, a geologic term describing the action of wind-driven waves transporting sand and gravel, the series consists of camera-less cyanotypes made in collaboration with the landscape and the ocean, at the edges of both. The elements that I employ in the process—waves, surface water, wind, and sediment—leave physical inscriptions through direct contact with photographic materials.

Figure 15.122. Littoral Drift (solo exhibition) at Yossi Milo Gallery, 2016

A sister series to Littoral Drift, Ecotone¹ also engages dynamic photographic materials in the landscape, but collaborates with precipitation rather than ocean waves or surface water. Rain, snow, ice, fog, etc. chemically activate the photographic materials, while they expose via the residual sunlight that exists even in the heaviest storm.

Biography

Meghann Riepenhoff is a 2018–2019 Guggenheim Fellow. Her series Littoral Drift and Ecotone have been exhibited at the Denver Art Museum, The New York Public Library, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Yossi Milo Gallery. Publications include The New York Times, ArtForum and the Wall Street Journal. Collections include the High Museum of Art, Albright-Knox Gallery, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. To see more of her work, visit www.meghannriepenhoff.com.

Figure 15.123. Ecotone #377 (Bainbridge Island, WA 03.23.18, Draped on Windfall Branch, Showers and Hail), unique cyanotype, 42″ × 90″ × 1″ © Meghann Riepenhoff 2018

Figures 15.124–15.129. Making of Big Blue in the softball field, Johnson City, Texas, September 19, 2015. Photographs © Vicky Stromee 2015

Judy Sherrod July 6, 1956—July 28, 2017

Founder of Shootapalooza (shootapalooza.com), a “murmuration of artists,” mostly women, who come together to make work, fun, and memories

“SHOOTAPALOOZA IS ABOUT PEOPLE, not photography. It’s a collective, creative, mindset. It’s an evolving, dynamic entity that is constantly re-inventing itself. It is amorphous. It is flubber.

“The first gathering was held in Port Aransas, Texas. It was an experiment. I didn’t know if anyone would show up. Sixteen people did. From seven states and the District of Columbia. My job was to set the stage and get out of the way.

“shootapalooza truly created itself. It’s about learning together and teaching each other. We had Photo Labs. Not workshops, but photo labs—short, hands-on, learning sessions. It’s about trying new things and not being scared of screwing up.

“The genesis: I was in Pass Christian, Mississippi in December, 2012, working with S. Gayle Stevens. We discussed inviting our Mississippi and Louisiana friends to the coast for a weekend of photography and general rambunction. Our host, Barney Adams, said, ‘Oh yeah, a real shootapalooza!’ We never got the rambunction going, but that evening I looked up shootapalooza.com, confident it was already registered. Lo and behold, it was available so I grabbed it. A year later I asked the members of my Facebook group if they thought a photography festival on the Texas coast in February was a viable idea. The answers were sufficiently positive, so I put the thing together.

“shootapalooza isn’t really about photography. It’s about creativity. It’s about expression. It’s about connecting the dots until you burst out of the box. I mentioned earlier that shootapalooza is an evolving entity, constantly re-inventing itself. It’s partially due to the inventiveness of its artists. And then there’s this weird part that seems to come floating down out of the wherever.” — Judy Sherrod¹

Figure 15.130. Judy Sherrod © S. Gayle Stevens 2012

Founder of World Cyanotype Day (worldcyanotypeday.com) September 19, 2015, and the largest cyanotype print in the world on that day. Big Blue was 2700 square feet (Big Blue has since been surpassed by a 2977.72 square foot cyanotype created by Stefanos Tsakiris in Thessaloniki, Greece, on September 18, 2017)

“JUDY RESEARCHED WORLD WHATEVER DAYS and found out there wasn’t a World Cyanotype Day so Texas again—there had to be a World Cyanotype Day with a cyanotype print that had to be the largest, so she talked to Linda at the blueprint fabric place and asked about getting a huge piece to break the record. Amanda and Kevin at A Smith Gallery helped secure the help of the Hill Country Science Mill in Johnson City and Amanda, Kevin, DorRae Stevens, and Linda Haddock sewed the fabric together at A Smith Gallery.” — S. Gayle Stevens

“WE ROLLED OUT THE TREATED FABRIC, all 2700 square feet of it, pulled off the protective black plastic sheeting, grabbed the edges of the greenish cotton fabric and nineteen howling men, women and children pulled like hell. It billowed out like one of those huge flags favored by marching bands. The assembled crowd of eager participants cheered and whistled. I hollered, ‘Get on it!’ Grandmothers, mothers, fathers, teenagers and small children rushed to take their places on the baking, collective art project; sprawling helter-skelter from one end to the other—it looked like a massive accident of joy. There were little children with baby dolls and shovels. Women with parasols and hammers. A recently Medicare qualified gallerista in galoshes, holding her father’s walking cane. The Mayor with an owl. A disembodied hand floating above a chair. Five high school volleyball players, hands linked, looking like vicarious sky divers. A small pair of crutches belonging to a retired polio patient, her first set as a child. A strapping young boy holding sunflowers. A man with a large plywood disk, looking like a dancing pumpkin head. A young man appearing to march and play his trombone, his wheelchair folded, trailing behind. His mother lying behind him. Her right arm stretched out toward him, appearing to either be letting him go or encouraging him on. I will never forget the look of proud, wide-eyed anticipation in the eyes of the father of the wheelchair bound young man as he placed the trombone on his son’s lap and wheeled him out of the shade into that bright, hot smiling moment.” — Kevin Tully, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, Texas

Founder of World Cyanotype Day Facebook group

“IF YOU’VE EVER BEEN TO TEXAS, you know a little something about tumbleweeds. You can never really tell where they’re coming from. Or where they’re going. They just appear, already in motion, propelled by some unseen force and on their way to somewhere.

“And if you’ve ever been to Texas, you might also know a little something about dust devils. They’re towering, swirling energy, unpredictable and likely to disappear before you get a good look at them.

“So if you know a little something about Texas and tumbleweeds and dust devils, then you might be able to grasp a little something about Judy. She’s a force to be reckoned with, that’s for sure.

“Judy started the World Cyanotype Day Facebook group and made me an administrator. Little did I know how much I would benefit from that. She was always doing stuff like that—setting others up for success and then slipping quietly into the background and on to another project.” — Db Waltrip

And friend…

“I CAME TO KNOW JUDY OCTOBER 2014 at the Center for Photographic Arts in Fort Collins, Colorado. The infancy of Shootapalooza was attending an opening of Alternative Processes. I walked over to four women huddled together mid-gallery. I knew their faces but had never met them: Judy Sherrod, Carol Dass, Becky Ramotowski and Heather Oelklaus. Judy looked out over her spectacles and I said, ‘So, what’s the huddle? A grand scheme to take over the world?’ We all started to giggle one at a time, until the huddle opened up into a madcap of laughter. Judy brought me along to their budding Shootapalooza event of brief instructive slideshows, Big Burgers and beer.

“Judy and I developed a very personal, private relationship, confiding in each other on deeper matters and slung away at wild dreams of huge, bigger than life photography projects. I told Mo Jude, ‘You’ll not be able to avoid my camera!’ She really disliked having her picture taken, but I intruded like paparazzi. I documented HerSelf at Shootapalooza events and visits. She kept many a portrait set aside. She called me Wild Irish Rogue with loud introductions.

“Judy became driven to cyanotype after the first Shootapalooza conference in Port Aransas. We saw advancements in Europe. ‘Jude, we can’t let the Brits get away with that largesse and no friendly competition!’ She: ‘Well just how big do you want it?!’ ‘Aye, 30 by 90 feet,’ said I. ‘We’re talkin’ Guinness!’ said she.

Figures 15.131 and 15.132. Left, Judy’s beloved dog “B” © S. Gayle Stevens. Right, Judy Sherrod at the first Shootapalooza, Port Aransas, Texas © Mariana Bartolomeo 2014

“Becky, Jude and I made drawings. We all—Amanda, Kevin, DorRae, Linda—took on the World’s Largest: Big Blue in Johnson City. In the middle of the night, out in the ballfield, Kevin, Amanda and I rolled up ‘the leviathan’ in black plastic to ready it for the next day. Hands on hips, Jude was ecstatic at the vision coming to life.

“Mo Jude visited MySelf and Stuart in Tucson many a time. The last was to leave Big Blue with us just prior to Shootapalooza, Arizona 2017. She wanted me to re-sensitize and re-develop Big Blue to gain a darker blue, lost to exposure on the Texas iron-impacted soil. ‘You’re the only one I know who can fix it!’ said she.

“…Ahh, Jude… why didn’t you call the doc when I told you? Insufferable, you are. Bein’ a year your senior… YourSelf my little sister; Listen to me! True, it is! It’s a dribblin’ darkness that near drowns out the memory of your hollerin’ cackle.

“Well, here’s to our best aged house Bushmills! 1 or 2 fingers? I say. ‘Two,’ says she.

“I squash a whole lime down into the bottom of her glass, flick in a bit o’ black pepper, stir a slow stir… and with no perceivable wince it’s down the hatch and off to sleep in our guest room with Miss B. Good night, Miss B. I hope you are spoiled as ever! And, Mo Jude, I see you in the evening star. And, I’ll see you there in the future. Fáilte, tanaí am mo chara.”—Mariana Bartolomeo

“JUDY AND I MET AT PHOTONOLA 2010. She had a portfolio case made out of the top and bottom of a pinhole camera she was working on. I was intrigued. I also met Anne Berry, Ann Marie George and Lori Vrba. The five of us became When Pigs Fly. I frequent Pass Christian, Mississippi and Judy was only 5–6 hours away in Wichita Falls, Texas. She came a-visitin’ and asked if we could make a tintype with her new 16″ × 20″ pinhole camera. I said I don’t have a silver bath for 16″ × 20″ but I have an 11″ × 14″. So we shot an 11″ × 14″ plate of Helen Davis’ house where I have a darkroom.

“Judy, coming from Texas, said, ‘What is the largest wet plate pinhole tintype anyone has made?’

“ ‘As far as I know no one has made a mammoth plate pinhole tintype,’ I replied.

“And so Nocturnes was born. For two years we trudged across the sand with the 20″ × 20″ pinhole camera Judy had built for our quest. We celebrated our plates with toasts of Prosecco and our ‘private’ rating system of the finished plates—which consisted of how many ‘fucks’ we uttered as we stared at our new creations. 49 plates, and a friendship born.

“Can’t believe you are gone Friend.” — S. Gayle Stevens

Figures 15.133–15.136. Clockwise from top left, Echinocactus Brevispinus, Phalaris Canariensis, Folia Serrata, Ferocactus Emoryi, cyanotype on gelatin, emulsion lift on paper, gold leaf or acrylic paint, and dry ink jet transfer, 70 × 50 cm © Gerardo Stübing 2018

Gerardo Stübing

Figures 15.137 and 15.138. Left, Agave Salmiana; right, Tipuana Tipu, cyanotype on gelatin, emulsion lift on paper, acrylic paint and dry inkjet transfer, 70 × 50 cm © Gerardo Stübing 2018

Process

These prints are on handmade Japanese mulberry paper. I use the 20/8 classic cyanotype formula with added oxalic acid, expose for 2 minutes, 16 seconds under UVBL. I expose the cyanotype on a gelatin layer on glass, develop in running water for 20 minutes, and then transfer the emulsion lift to paper.

Biography

Gerardo Stübing (b.Valencia 1957) is a Valencian artist of German origin who has had a long career and recognition in the field of Botany, a science he has taught as Professor of Botany for 30 years at the University of Valencia. Stübing is currently pursuing his doctorate in Fine Arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. His first contributions to the field of art were photographic illustrations in various books about plants and ecosystems which he has also authored. His interest is pictorial works that initially show a clear geometric tendency that evolves progressively towards biomorphology. Stübing’s work can be defined as an ambiguous abstraction inspired by plants and natural landscapes, for which he uses non-conventional materials. Stübling has exhibited in over 50 competitions, in which he has won several awards and prizes, and nine solo shows. His work has been collected by the University of Valencia, International University of Andalusia, Jiloca Studies Center, Bancaja de Segorbe Foundation, British Institute of Seville and the Ministry of Agriculture. To see more of his work visit www.gerardostubing.com.

Figure 15.139. Just Try To Remember, 2018, cyanotype photographs, silver gelatin photographs, graph paper, ink, and graphite on paper, 20″ × 20″ © David Underwood 2018

David Underwood

Figure 15.140. Fence, original images shot on Ektachrome film in a Hasselblad X-pan 35 mm panoramic camera, then enlarged on 4 pieces of analog film to make the negative, new cyanotype, printed in an edition of 5, 16.5″ × 18.5″ © David Underwood 2016

Process

I usually print cyanotypes on Arches cold-press watercolor paper, which is readily available in various sizes. I most often start with color transparency film photographs, which I then enlarge in my analog darkroom onto Arista Ortho Litho 8.5″ × 11″ or 10″ × 12″ sheet film. I then tape several of these B&W negatives together with transparency tape to make large composite negatives. I allow the tape and the obvious joints between the different images to show on the resulting cyanotype, which helps articulate the fact that I am combining images, and therefore the artwork becomes somewhat about photography itself and the process of photography.

I use Photographers’ Formulary New Cyanotype, mixed to 150 ml working solution (halfway between the manufacturer’s recommendations of heavy concentration and maximum dilution of 200 ml). I expose my cyanotypes in a contact frame, outside in the sun. My exposure times are totally by intuition, by watching the clouds, the sun, and the cyanotype emulsion material change color. My exposure times vary by the season and the weather, usually 3–15 minutes.

I develop by standing the print against a large sheet of Plexiglas in my darkroom sink and manually spraying it with tap water until there is no more blue washing off the paper, and then I submerge the print in a running water wash for 20–30 minutes. I don’t use any chemicals whatsoever in the processing or washing.

I don’t usually tone my cyanotypes, but some of my students have had success by lightly toning with concentrated tea or coffee.

If I am displaying a composite cyanotype by itself (not combined with other mixed-media), I will usually give it a standard archival white mat and frame it under Plexiglas with a traditional metal or wood frame. However, I often combine cyanotypes with other types of photographs (silver gelatin prints or color digital prints) and mixed-media such as painting, drawing, collage, and/or text.

My most common problem is that the highlight areas of a cyanotype might have a slight brown or yellow tint. This seems to usually be caused by inadequate washing.

Creative practice

I print my cyanotypes in short editions. I prepare my large negative, coat 8 to 10 sheets of good paper with cyanotype emulsion, and spend most of a sunny day printing all the coated paper in one long session (it helps to have good and predictable weather). After processing and washing all the copies, I then cull out a few of the bad prints (due to poor guesses of sun exposure or due to variances in emulsion thickness) and end up with a good edition of perhaps 5 to 7 copies.

I learned early on to get comfortable with failures. It is OK to spend a day attempting to make good photographic prints (of any kind), only to be dissatisfied at the end of the day and throw away the day’s work. The key is to get back to work the next day, with the previous day’s lessons learned, and move forward to keep creating.

Artist statement

For more than 30 years, I have been making composite photographs and mixed-media artworks which include multiple original photographs, with the intention of expanding the vocabulary of photography beyond the limitations of single frame imagery. Using digital, analog, and alternative photographic techniques, sometimes combined with collage, drawing, and/or painting, I make unique assemblages of original imagery that are sometimes photographed all of the same subject, but most often photographed many miles and perhaps many years apart. Combining different photographs into new compositions allows for expansion of content, implied meaning, and expressive aesthetics.

Biography

Over a 30+ year career of making photographic and mixed-media artworks, David Underwood has held 30 solo exhibitions and had work included in more than 125 group exhibitions. His work is included in the permanent collections of 16 museums, including the California Museum of Photography and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. A native of Columbus, Ohio, Underwood is Professor of Art at Carson-Newman University, where he has been teaching Art and Photography for 28 years. He is the editor and publisher of the 2014 book, Rich Community: An Anthology of Appalachian Photographers. To see more of his work visit www.underwoodartworks.com.

Figure 15.141. Cumberland Island, Georgia, original images shot on Ektachrome film in a Hasselblad X-pan 35mm panoramic camera, then enlarged on 4 pieces of analog film to make the negative, printed in an edition of 4 with new cyanotype, 16.5″ × 18.5″ © David Underwood 2016

Figure 15.142. Portal 112, Rives BFK first coated with cyanotype and exposed with image A on the inside of the circle for 40 minutes, washed and dried and then coated with Van Dyke brown and exposed on the outside of the circle for 8 minutes, washed and dried, allowing the inside of the circle to slightly expose while processing, 30″ × 22″ © Harrison D. Walker 2018

Harrison D. Walker

Figure 15.143. Portals, Installation View, found images and objects, acrylic paint, charcoal, conté crayon, cyanotype, etching ink, film developer, graphite, gum bichromate, liquid light emulsion, lithographic ink, paper, pencil, pigments, sodium carbonate, silver nitrate, tannic acid, Van Dyke brown, and wax, 30″ × 22″ each © Harrison D. Walker 2016–2018

Process

Cyanotype was one of the first photographic processes, other than silver gelatin, that really sucked me into the handmade photographic print. I use cyanotype because it is relatively simple to mix the chemistry, expose, and process and has a great latitude in terms of combination printing with other materials as well as toning. I am fascinated by the variability of outcomes—within the range of obtainable blues—to the way the cyanotype emulsion interacts with others.

I typically use Rives BFK for most of the Portals because it is really durable and can withstand multiple cycles of processing; however, for more representational images I like Arches Aquarelle and Fabriano Artistico because they have a finer grain yielding a generally sharper image.

I either start with a scanned silver gelatin negative or digital image capture printed on Pictorico. I typically print through the Quadtone RIP software on an Epson 3880 or 9900.

I use 62.5 g FAC to 10 oz tap water + 22.5 g PF to 10 oz tap water. I most often use the sun; ideally I would expose for about 40–60 minutes in open shade on a sunny day. I will sometimes set in direct sunlight for a few minutes if the exposure is slow, but living in Georgia, direct sunlight can cause humidity issues when exposing. I prefer a slower, less intense, exposure as opposed to blasting it in direct hot sun.

I place the print in still water for a few minutes initially face up, then flipped face down. After 2–3 minutes I put it in a gently running water bath until the water runs clear and the highlights are white, approximately 10–15 minutes. I don’t typically use additives at any stage of processing. I hang smaller prints on a clothes line to dry and use screens to dry larger prints, making sure the screen is at a 45° angle to avoid pooling of residual water.

For a standard cyanotype I do not tone. I prefer the deep blues from a properly exposed print. I do manipulate some prints with sodium carbonate, film and/or paper developer diluted at varying ratios, tannic acid, and tea/coffee. With this, I am not so structured. It is more of the cooking method, a pinch of this or that, doing most of it by eye.

Figure 15.144. Portal 113, Rives BFK coated with cyanotype and exposed on the outside of the circle for 3 hours, washed and dried, soaked in a 10% sodium carbonate solution, washed and dried, 30″ × 22″ © Harrison D. Walker 2018

All of the Portals are hung with linen pockets, attached on the back of the print at the top of each corner. I place a magnet inside the pocket which attaches to a nail in the wall. This allows the print to float freely. For smaller prints I love a white mat and discreet white wooden frame.

Living in Georgia can cause problems with humidity. To overcome this I dry the print for an hour or so in the dark usually with a box fan in the room. After it feels dry to the touch I almost always hit it with a cool hairdryer for a minute or two, on both the front and the back. I rarely coat paper and allow it to languish for multiple days before exposing. I will also try to avoid exposing in direct sun, which can cause condensation on the printing frame if exposed in hot weather.

Figure 15.145. Portal 011, Strathmore watercolor paper coated with cyanotype and exposed on the outside of the circle for 12 minutes and the inside of the circle for 3 minutes, washed and dried, coated with liquid light emulsion and exposed for 1½ minutes on the inside of the circle, processed in Sprint developer, rinsed, and fixed in Sprint fixer, washed and dried, coated with cyanotype and exposed on the outside of the circle for 15 minutes, washed and dried, 30″ × 22″ © Harrison D. Walker 2016

Creative practice

I use cyanotype more like a printmaker or a painter might, focusing less on representational imagery and more on the materials itself. Within Portals, I am thinking about these emulsions as washes, colors, surfaces, and textures and am interested in the ability for these photographic materials to elicit various emotions and perceptions. The series has a secondary component called the Portal Instruction Manual that tracks each material and step used to create each printed object. I am interested in the variable outcomes that can come from factors such as climate, geographical location, the varying hand from artist to artist, temperature, etc.

Artist statement

My work is driven by interests in the intersections of space exploration and war strategies, often visually referencing the celestial, the post-apocalyptic, and the otherworldly. I employ the visual alchemy of printmaking, drawing, and photographic materials to create forms that evoke an experiential and emotional viewing—understood through the meditative act of looking.

Portals is a multi-component project exploring color, chemistry and psychological perception. Portals is made of three sections: Portals, a series of print variations of a repeated circular form intended to explore how the viewer perceives variations in texture, surface, color, image, and time; Footnotes, a living collection of prints made from archives, both personal and public, exploring the other worldly, space technologies and the evolution of the v-2 rocket, which provides context and influences to Portals; and Manual: a catalog of Portals, including a photographic reference and the materials and procedures to create each printed object. Conceptually, Portals engages with two primary concerns: the evolution of the v-2 rocket, and photography itself. I was born in Huntsville, Alabama, the “Rocket City,” where after WWII the US further developed Germany’s v-2 rocket under the guidance of its creator, Wernher von Braun. This technology was instrumental to the first lunar landing, and continues to play a major role in the development of the US Missile Defense Program and NASA today. Though not explicitly referenced in the imagery of the Portals, the v-2 rocket serves as a touchstone throughout the project, a connection made visible within Footnotes. Most of the work is not lens-based, yet much of it is inherently photographic. The actions of light (and pressure) are fundamental in both making and understanding this work. The use of light-sensitive emulsions in tandem with other materials evokes a depth of tactility and surface that is often absent in contemporary lens-based arts. Light, and its interactions with these materials, is at the heart of each Portal.

Figure 15.146. Portal 057, Rives BFK coated with cyanotype and expose 6 minutes on the inside of the circle and 18 minutes on the outside of the circle with image C covering the entire print, washed and dried, inside of the circle coated with Van Dyke brown and exposed for 5 minutes, fixed in a 3% sodium thiosulfate solution for 2 minutes. washed and dried, soaked in Sprint film developer diluted 1:4 for 3 minutes. washed and dried, 30″ × 22″ © Harrison D. Walker 2016

Biography

Harrison D. Walker (b. Huntsville, Alabama) is an artist living in Athens, Georgia, working as a printmaker and freelance project consultant. He received his MFA at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Walker is represented by Corey Daniels Gallery and Candela Books + Gallery. To see more of his work visit www.harrisondwalker.com.

Figure 15.147. K Magnolia, cyanotype over palladium © Sam Wang 2018

Sam Wang

Figure 15.148. Snowscape, combination classic/new cyanotype © Sam Wang 2018

Process

The image can come from anywhere: I’ve used cell phone images, scanned film negatives, scanner generated files, and of course mostly images from the digital camera. I look for images that might fit the process. Then in Adobe Photoshop I do the usual preparations of conversion to black and white, adjusting tonality and sharpness, etc. Then I save it as a Gamma 2.2 negative which I print on Fixxons transparency material.

The paper I use is pH neutral, so the only preparation is to keep it in a humidified environment. Thanks to Mark Nelson for his advice many years ago, I have learned to always humidify the paper that I intend to coat, whether in platinum/palladium or cyanotype or whatever else. The paper is placed on a screen over a tray of water, and covered by another tray over it upside-down.

The amount of chemical solution required is calculated to be about 1 drop per 2 square inches. So for an 8″ × 10″ area it is 20 drops classic cyanotype plus 20 drops new cyanotype, and 2 drops of 40% citric acid to prevent fog. This is mixed just before use and coated on the humidified paper with a magic brush. The coated paper is laid flat on some old newspaper for a few minutes, until it’s no longer glossy, then hung on a line to dry in the dark. I make sure it is thoroughly dry before exposure.

Figure 15.149. Tree at Angkor Thom, combination classic/new cyanotype, 20″ × 20″ © Sam Wang 2018

Creative practice

Handcrafted processes were always a very important part of my work, partly because of my background in the other art fields such as painting, drawing, and digital graphics, but mostly because they slow down the creative process and allow time for incubation of ideas and demand step-by-step discoveries of ways to solve problems. It began from the very early years of my career, in the late 1960s with photo-silkscreen and pinhole and cyanotype, to casein and gum in the 1980s. In terms of imagery, each process seemed to demand different ones from the day-to-day stash of images that accumulate. I usually prefer to deal with technical matters on the conscious level and let my subconscious deal with what they might mean.

Biography

Sam Wang (b. China 1939) received his MFA in photography from the University of Iowa in 1966 and taught photography and art with the computer at Clemson University in South Carolina until his retirement as Alumni Distinguished Professor in 2006. He was the Honored Educator at the 2007 SPESE Conference, and received the Elizabeth O’Neil Verner Award from the South Carolina governor and the South Carolina Arts Commission in 2012 for his contribution to the arts in South Carolina. Wang’s most recognizable work includes round images that utilize the entire image field of wide-angle lenses. He began with designing and constructing a 5″ × 7″ camera in 1978, grafting a medium format wide angle lens to a 5″ × 7″ back, and continued with numerous different sizes and configurations over the years, including the recent entries into digital and infrared. A monograph of his work, Sam Wang—Four Decades of Photographic Explorations, was published by Jiangsu Arts Publishing in China in 2010. He has also coauthored a book on general photography entitled Photography and Expression, and on alternative printing processes entitled Handcrafted: The Art and Practice of the Handmade Print,, both published in China in 2014. Wang’s works have been exhibited and collected internationally. To see more of his work, visit www.samwang.us.

Figure 15.150. Tree in Spanish Ruins, combination classic/new cyanotype, 20″ × 20″ © Sam Wang 2018

Figure 15.151. Fragment from a Crucifix, Tudia, Sicily, 284 × 408 cm © Mike Ware 2009. “Throughout history, the beautiful Italian island of Sicily has been a crossroads of civilizations. There are contradictions here: this fertile but troubled land can be shattered by earthquakes and volcanoes; damaged buildings may be left derelict, and even whole towns deserted. The warm-hearted people too are split by differences—social, political, and religious. The powerful Sicilian sun lights up my visual metaphors that form contrasts with the dark and sometimes violent undercurrents of past history. The fragment from a desecrated, broken crucifix lay on the ground, until placed respectfully against the wall of the nearby derelict church, when it suddenly took on a new, paradoxical significance—by making the communist salute. The wooden block cemented into the stained wall, in grazing light, is reminiscent of a place of execution. The abandoned effigy with the ‘exploding finger’ has another disturbing property—it is articulated.”

Mike Ware

Figure 15.152. Deposition, Noto Antica, Sicily, 410 × 285 cm © Mike Ware 2007

Process

Generally, I work in the landscape and have a liking for small islands, so one is never far from the sea, and the blue of cyanotype has often seemed appropriate to such subject matter—ever since the days of Anna Atkins. However I also enjoy using the blue medium in a surreal sense, because—apart from sea and sky—it is such a rare color in nature.

My favorite papers are Buxton and Herschel, once handmade by Ruscombe Mill, but no longer available. I also use Arches Platine [Note: page references to Cyanomicon II will be included here for easy reference; the book is available as a free download at Ware’s website, and is a must-read if you haven’t already. For paper, see Cyanomicon II §7.4.4 p. 214]. My negatives are printed on Permajet Digital Transfer Film from digital files using an Epson Photo R2880. Digital files come from a digital camera or scans (Epson 4990) of 6 × 9 cm rollfilm negatives in my earlier silver-gelatin archive [see Cyanomicon II §6.6 p. 188 for digital procedures].

I use new cyanotype; I invented it [see Cyanomicon II §7.4 p. 209].

For smaller prints up to 10″ × 12″ I use a Philips Cleo facial tanning unit; for larger prints, a NuArc exposure unit [see Cyanomicon II §6.4.4 p.183].

It is important to me that, when matted, the images still show clean edges, and a clear margin, so I always mask when printing. I do not “show the brushmarks” [see Cyanomicon II §6.4.3 p. 181 for reasons].

I develop for the first 10 minutes in dilute mineral acid—preferably nitric, 0.2 to 1% v/v, and then a 20-minute water wash [see Cyanomicon II §7.4.8 p. 216]. The only toner I use—for some of my work—is lead acetate [see Cyanomicon II §8 p. 233, §8.6.1 p. 237].

As for cyanotype issues, I have had no problems on Buxton or Herschel papers because my erstwhile hand-papermaker observed a practice of “scrupulous cleanliness.” I’m not sure that this is always the case in larger paper mills, and I have seen problems of unaccountable “blotchiness” in cyanotypes printed on machine-made commercial papers. I believe this may be due to contamination by micro-organisms—“biofouling” either in the mill or stored paper. This is a problem that needs further urgent research.

My new cyanotype process has an exposure scale in the region of 2.1–2.4, i.e. 7–8 stops, depending on the wet processing. This is the same as platinum-palladium, argyrotype, new chrysotype, or salt printing, and can therefore use the same negatives—as an inexpensive proofing medium for these costly processes. In contrast, the traditional cyanotype has a much shorter exposure scale and can only be used with negatives prepared with a density range suited for grade 2–3 silver-gelatin or gum bichromate printing (ca. 0.9–1.2 or 3–4 stops).

Creative practice

It is my belief—in the absence of any other—that our ability to observe the world is the only intelligible purpose that we can attribute to it. A chemist like me is just some molecule’s way of getting round to thinking about itself, even though it did take four billion years. Observation feeds the roots of both the twin trees of science and art in the human landscape. My aim is to enlist the science of photochemistry to enhance the art of photographic expression. Science is a way of looking at the world from the point of view of nobody; whereas Art is always a way of looking at the world from the point of view of a unique somebody, and this is true even of the seemingly ‘objective’ medium of photography. In working out the blind struggle of evolution, our role as intelligent observers is uniquely important (at least until we find out, for sure, if there are any other intelligent observers elsewhere). Photography provides an archival means of preserving those observations that hold significance for us, and of registering the world’s impact on our human condition. And I do not refer only to the “heavily meaningful” kind of significance: the human condition also embraces significant humor, triviality and fun as well as the whole gamut of resonances springing from the simile, metaphor and allegory of our poetical endowment, which science cannot admit. Photography enhances our ability to see, and it induces us to make observations that might otherwise prove elusive. Paul Nash wrote of “…the peculiar power of the camera to discover formal beauty which ordinarily is hidden from the human eye.” It is the delight in this act of disclosure that unites me with my fellow photographic observers of so many different backgrounds, tastes, beliefs and personalities.

Biography

Mike Ware is a graduate and D.Phil. of the University of Oxford, who taught and researched in chemistry at the University of Manchester, UK, until 1992. He then committed himself to the independent study of the science, history, art, and conservation of alternative photographic processes, especially those based on the photochemistry of iron, known as siderotypes. His research into methods of printing in noble metals, such as the platinotype, palladiotype, chrysotype, argyrotype, and the new cyanotype, has been published in over 60 articles in both the scientific and popular literature, and his studies of early photographic processes appeared in the academic periodical, History of Photography. He has supervised postgraduate research in photograph conservation and consulted for National Museums and Galleries in the UK and USA. In 1990 he was awarded the Hood Medal of the Royal Photographic Society. The history and conservation of the first photographs on paper is the subject of his books: Mechanisms of Image Deterioration in Early Photographs (1994), and Cyanotype: the History, Science and Art of Photographic Printing in Prussian Blue (1999); both published by the Science Museum of London. His later monographs, Gold in Photography and The Chrysotype Manual, were published in 2006. The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works awarded him its Special Recognition for Allied Professionals in 2016. By way of a counterbalance to scholarly activity, Ware has exhibited and lectured on his personal photographic work and conducted printing workshops in the UK, Europe, the USA, and Australia; in 1995 he appeared on BBC television in the Open University series The Chemistry of Creativity. Ware regards photography as a natural meeting ground for science and art, and his raison d’être is devoted to bridging the gap between those Two Cultures by enlisting chemical science to enhance the art of photographic expression. To see more of his work visit http://www.mikeware.co.uk.

Figure 15.153. Blockship Interior, South Ronaldsay, 238 × 158 mm from an original 6 × 9 cm negative scanned and printed digitally with an Epson Photo R2880 © Mike Ware 2005. “The Orkney Islands lie off the north-western tip of Scotland where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea. In two World Wars, the Isles protected Scapa Flow, the home anchorage for the battle fleet of the British Royal Navy. Derelict hulks were sunk in the narrow sea passages between the Islands as blockships to inhibit the access of enemy submarines, but they did not prevent the catastrophe of October 1939, at the outbreak of World War II. The German submarine U-47 penetrated Scapa Flow and torpedoed the Navy’s capital ship HMS Royal Oak, at anchor, causing her to sink with the loss of 833 men. The dark violet-blue of lead-toned cyanotype has an elegiac quality for rendering the rusting interiors of these tragically ineffective blockships.”

Notes

1. “The area where two or more distinct habitats adjoin is called an ecotone. Because it is a border zone where multiple sets of resources and opportunities become available, an ecotone tends to support greater biological diversity than either of the systems it mediates between. Delineating an ecotone, however, can be problematic. Like habitats and ecosystems, ecotones are not self-defining, as, for example, individual species are. They are human constructs, which derive their shape and character from the qualities their observers find most salient…In scientific terms one might say that the world is composed of gradients with relative discontinuities. Put simply: things change nearly everywhere, and so nearly every place is the edge of something and shares the qualities of an ecotone.” — William deBuys from Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2010).

1. Quoted from “Kevin Tully Interviews Judy Sherrod about Shootapalooza” in September 2014 SouthXSoutheast photomagazine (http://www.buildsxsemagazine.com/2014/09/kevin-tully-interviews-judy-sherrod-shootapalooza/).