Photograms
I have always been inspired by traditional 2-dimensional art forms like painting, drawing, and photography. I love the way that they can convey such depth and fool the brain into thinking that it is a 3-dimensional space.
I see a lot of similarities between my glass and old film photography. Digital photography changed everything. Sure, the biggest difference between digital and old film photography is that old film had no option to preview the photos before they were printed but another difference is how the images were saved. Digital gets saved on a hard drive or USB drive. Old film photographs were saved on a strip of negatives from the camera and they were returned to you in case you wanted to make reprints at a later date. If you are unfamiliar with film negatives, they were small versions of the photo but all of the colours were reversed. Your favourite blue sweater was orange, your teeth were black, and it took a while for your brain to figure it all out. I loved to look at these negatives as a child.
One day, I was thinking about the colours of my glass panels and I thought about trying them as a negative to make photograms with. If you don't know, a photogram is just a photograph that is made by putting the negative (in this case, my glass) directly on the photo paper and then exposing it. It led to a whole new body of work with the glass colours being the inverted colours that I wanted in the final photogram.
I was surprised by what I saw in the printed photogram. The clear glass became black, the tube-like murrini forms were white, and most surprising was a bright white halo around the edge of the glass (because of the curvature of the panel refracting the light). I limited every glass panel to only one printed photogram because that is how the film photos were that inspired them. this process changed the relationship with the glass panels that made the prints. Which was the final art piece, the panel or the print? Was the panel a piece of art or a tool to make the art? I consider myself a maker, not an artist. I see the beauty in whatever shows it to me. I do not make a piece to showcase an idea. I make to make because I enjoy making. I will leave the conversation of where the art lies in these pieces for those who actually care to discuss these matters. While they do, I will be busy in the studio, making.
