Materials

I have a long history of extending the boundaries of the photographic print. I like to find new materials to mirror the content of the work. In 1980, I learned this from the Lowriders who choose contrary materials to reference the many layers of mythic identity.

I began to use soft and hard materials: the velvety 19th century hand-coated palladium printing process juxtaposed with steel. Palladium and steel, imagery sandblasted on glass surfaces, and in proximity to broken glass and steel, have all been potent signifiers . Moving imagery in relationship to still imagery can signal change and sometimes transformation.

John B.Schaefer, in The Ansel Adams Guide: Basic Techniques of Photography (Little Brown, NY, 1998 p.223) includes my palladium print Penitente 1982. He writes: “ This extraordinary and creative image combines several photographs and is the work of a master printmaker.”

PALLADIUM

I began learning palladium process in 1981 with the help of mentors Wendy MacNeil and Richard Benson. Up until then photographers had shied away from making enlarged copy negatives, in order to make larger images, thinking the quality would be compromised. The three of us spent considerable time perfecting this negative making process together and each in our own ways.

In 1993 the collaborative photo/video/text exhibition, Critical Mass, traveled by the NM Museum of Art (1993-97), brought the Pueblo World into Atomic history. I used the palladium process to make large scale prints framed by steel, referencing the two cultures I was juxtaposing: Puebloans and Nuclear Scientists. In some cases, video monitors are juxtaposed with the palladium prints. For Oppenheimer’s Chair, I learned to sandblast imagery onto glass through a silk screen process, in keeping with the piece’s Civil War origin story. I continued this process in the Joan’s Arc #1 and #2 work, placing a Cibachrome transparency between two different sandblasted pieces of glass to have a triple transparent montaged effect.

TRANSPARENCIES WITH SANDBLAST

PRE-AMBERTYPE

In Millennial Forest (1999-2002), the oldest trees in Vietnam and the US mirror the endurance of Nature in both places, after having been at war. I invented a process I call Pre-Ambertype. I coated Mulberry (treebark) paper with many layers of silver mica powder dissolved in Gum Arabic and then, once dried, printed with vegetable ink(Iris). The coating creates a beautiful permanent textured surface made entirely of vegetable sources. Fossilized Amber comes from tree resin as does gum Arabic.
A sheet of the coated paper.
For Millennial Forest, the glass transparencies used a newer dye transfer film process, including a sandblast effect film later, fused in the glass.

Most recently I have printed on aluminum and linen, and woven imagery into tapestries by a digitized jacquard loom. This has required working with two great print studios: Magnolia Editions for the linen works and tapestries, and Blazing Editions for dye-sublimation prints on aluminum.

ALUMINUM WITH DYE SUBLIMATION

Volcanic Leaf Suspended    2015    dye-sublimation process on prepared aluminum plates. The white-goldleaf  of the frame and aluminum highlights in the print are the same zone and hue.

JACQUARD WOVEN TAPESTRY

Jacquard woven tapestry

Jacquard woven tapestry – Magnolia Editions, Oakland California     Detail

LINEN

Amethyst Room 2017    UV Cured Acrylic Inks On Linen

Linen Detail