Archive #12 - October-December 2002
|
POLAROID
MANIPULATIONS An Interview with Kathleen Carr by Joanne Warfield, WIPI Director of Exhibitions.
JW:
What do you consider your greatest philosophical/spiritual influences
in how you approach your photography?
KC:
I’m not really an inventor type. I may come across an idea
or technique that I really resonate with and then explore that with
my images. A few examples: combining black & white negatives for
sandwiching and double-exposing; putting emulsion transfers on eggs,
wood, stone, and other surfaces; further enhancing or handcoloring in
Photoshop; and making artist books with the images. JW:
Congratulations, Kathleen, on a beautiful and informative book. As with
your Polaroid Transfers, selected by Photo-Eye Books as the first
“Best Technical Title, runner-up,” this one is sure to be
a stellar success.
Kathleen's
images: Joanne's
images: View
more...
|
|
TZONE
photographs and story by Cat Jimenez, 2002
TZONE experience. Emotional guards down and barriers dropping quickly, I started to see the girls as a field of poppies getting ready to bloom right before my very eyes (and camera lens), The Transformation Zone. The daytime activities soon became equally as powerful as the evening discussions. The skills that the girls were required to learn and master in such a short period of time were tools that could easily translate in the outside world. Teamwork, communication and trust were essentials in ensuring the girls could accomplish their tasks at hand. One such small group (10 girls) activity required that each girl have the same size tube. The object of the activity was to get a ball to travel through each of their tubes without dropping the ball on the ground before it reached the basket. The girls had to line up the tubes and once the ball passed successfully through their tube, had to
run
to end of the line to ensure the ball wouldn’t drop, and so on,
and so on. Sounds easy in theory, but it proved to be quite a challenge.
This activity (and many others like this) provided the forum for girls
to communicate clearly, trust one another and realize that they had
to work together in order to successfully accomplish the goal. Watching
their faces go from doubt, worry and frustration to the pure joys
and satisfaction that come with a job well done sent me, an observer,
down such a path of delight and glee. |
|
Burning Man 2002 .... hotter than ever..!
Story
by: Laura Casey - Photographs ©Susan Holmstrom 2002
the walls, ceiling, and altars of the Temple crashed to the playa floor, so did the thousands of messages participants wrote to their lovers, their spiritual families, and their friends during the short week the Temple stood under the Nevada sun. It
was a meditative place where Burning Man’s nearly 30,000 participants
were compelled to "reflect upon the gifts we have received from
those we love, both living and dead, and to consider how these gifts
have changed our lives," Best writes. And it was awesome. Once
again, Burning Man finished another year as the nation’s most
celebrated and controversial museum of modern art. Execpt it is not
a museum. And much of the art is built and burned within a week. Yet
it manages to attract some of the country’s most talented artists,
and artists from across the globe. They
build temples and solar-powered lily ponds, blazing burn barrels and
towering art cars. Nearly everything above and below the sea was represented
at the 2002-themed Floating World event. It wasn’t unusual to
see a bus-sized whale buzz past a lifesize Spanish Galleon manned
by 40 members of the rowdy Extra Action Marching Band while a school
of glowing sea horses 10 feet tall looked on. Artist Kiki Pettit built
a 10-foot fountain titled Egeria Firefall, after the Roman goddess
of fountains who cried for so long after Rome’s King Numa died
that she turned into a fountain.
Thousands of volunteers, some of whom arrived on the playa a month early to build the infrastructure of what would become the seventh largest city in Nevada that week and stayed almost a month to make what remains disappear _ helped light the lamps glowing along the city’s Esplanade, greet city residents as they entered the front gate, and collect smaller pieces of art for the Black Rock City Arts Foundation, which promotes Burning man art off-playa. Still in the midst of dusting off their camping gear and costumes, burners are gathering across the country to continue their version of the event sans Nevada desert. Some of the 400-plus fire dancers who performed in the fire conclave as the man came down Saturday night meet every Sunday in New York under the Brooklyn Bridge to practice their spinning art and swap stories about this year’s event.
British burners are planning a gathering in Wales and Los Angeles burners have marked their calendars to for a post-burn “play-o-ween” party Nov. 2. Flambe Lounge, a group based out of San Francisco, (the offical Burning Man Decompression party), have secured three blocks of space and a park near a local nightclub to host one of the largest decompression events in the country Oct. 20. Some burners like to say the Burning Man experience is akin to stepping into a stark Salvador Dahli painting _ and most never want to step out. Laura
Casey Suzie
Holmstrom / Los Angeles Based Photographer ALSO see WIPI article about Burning Man 2000, wipinews - Archive #4. Desert festival reaches its fiery climax September 3, 2000 |
|
SLICES OF ROMANIA
I
know that this short trip scratched only the surface of Romania's deep
secrets I have yet to discover. Would I return to dig further? Of course.
And would I recommend this largely unknown country to the rest of the
world? I don't know. In some ways, my selfish self wants to keep this
Romania, untainted and virgin, from the hungry eyes of tourists. |
Polaroid
emulsion transfers use the same film and equipment, however,
the results are completely different. The image is developed fully onto
the positive print of the Polacolor ER film. The image layer of the
print, or emulsion, is removed with hot water. It can then be placed
onto virtually any surface, including three-dimensional forms. The transparent
emulsion can be sculpted, stretched, and torn into different shapes,
then hand colored.
KC:
After my book To Honor the Earth was published in 1991 (color
photography), my fingers started to itch, and I wanted to work physically
on the prints. I started handcoloring my black & white prints with
Marshall’s oils. That year I attended an ASMP meeting on Polaroid
image transfers and was able to make a few transfers. I loved one of
my first images, and realized that my photography was about to change.
I had already been moving away from the literal image in my straight
photography, and image transfer allowed for a more subjective approach
to express what I was feeling at the time that I exposed the image.
KC:
I first started teaching because I wanted Polaroid transfers to
become a valid art/photography form rather than a passing fad. I figured
that the more people that were involved in it, without getting too frustrated
while learning, the more likely it would become part of the accepted
photography world. My students kept asking if there were any books or
written materials about Polaroid transfers, and there weren’t,
except for an out-of-print Polaroid booklet. I finally decided to write
a simple book, which kept growing. Due to the success of Polaroid
Transfers, the publisher, Amphoto, asked me to do another book.
I was working with SX-70 Manipulations at that point, and again, there
was no thorough book out there. I decided to do a book that covered
not only SX-70 manipulations, but included updated information, additional
creative examples for image and emulsion transfers, and digital applications,
which has been the next step for me in presenting and selling my Polaroid
art.
Kathleen
Carr is a fine art photographer, author, and teacher. After studying
with Minor White, she spent seven years producing three books
and multimedia materials at the Findhorn Community in Scotland.
She was staff photographer at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California,
and is a NEA Fellowship recipient. Widely exhibited at galleries
around the country and featured in publications such as National
Geographic Traveler, Islands, Esquire, and Decor, Kathleen
has written three books: To Honor the Earth: Reflections on Living
in Harmony With Nature; Polaroid Transfers: A Complete Guide to
Creating Image and Emulsion Transfers; and Polaroid Manipulations:
A Complete Guide to Creating SX-70, Transfer, and Digital Prints.
from
the opposite sex. The girls are selected through an application process
based on merit, need (lower socioeconomic groups) and community service.
TZONE is a remarkable self-esteem building adventure for young girls
for whom this experience would otherwise not be available.
A camp pre-requisite for all in attendance, staff-included, was to
chose a name other than your birth name that you would be called for
the duration of the camp. Tyra became BBQ for her adoration of BBQ
sauces and foods and I transformed into MAX, a name given to me by
a friends ‘hard-of-hearing’ mother who, upon first introductions,
thought my name was Max. As I shed my name-sake identity and dawned
the new MAX nametag, I felt a certain sense of anonymity and opportunity
to be whomever I wanted to be. This was the first ofmany skins that
were shed during this “not-so-ordinary camp” experience.
being
very beautiful. I had found a deep respect for BBQ (Tyra) after this
discussion because of her ability to facilitate breakthroughs with
these young girls. Not to mention these other qualities I witnessed
while at camp: her tireless energy, her level of openness/availability
to the girls, and her dedication, desire and interest in providing
a life-changing opportunity and experience for others. She was and
is truly an inspiration.
of Joy as the last notes of a bittersweet solo rendering of “Amazing
Grace” fell onto the audience’s ears. Drummers, intermixed
in every corner of the crowd, beat a steady, thumping language as
burners watched the three-story tall Temple ignite, roar into a sheet
flame, and slowly disappear into ash Sunday night. As the recycled
wood composing 
