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IN GENERAL-
I like to make things, and I'm particularly motivated by things humorous, beautiful, ironic, occasionally political, and sometimes dark. I love "objects" and embrace technique and process as part of the adventure of working with art materials.
IN REGARDS TO THE WOODBURY-PROCESS AND CARVED PHOTOGRAPHS-
For years I have admired a group of historical 19th Century processes for their physical beauty and stunning presence. They include the Woodburytype, ceramic Emaux Ombrant or ceramic Intaglio, and ceramic Lithophane. These are all processes that utilized a carved surface to produce an image.
In 1994 I began to use modern digital technology to re-visit the past. I designed and built equipment that would carve images and began exploring surface-relief photography.
The first avenue of exploration to open up was simply a celebration of the beauty, the physical presence, and the wonderful tactile qualities that images in clay and other solid substrates could offer. The color saturation and luminosity achieved can be breathtaking. The physicality produced by the depth and weight of the carved substrate seemed perfectly appropriate for the work I had been doing with the figure and still life, since both relied on the interpretation of form and volume.
A second avenue of exploration revolves around the understanding of the contextual relationship of materials to subject. Since almost any material can be "molded" or "cast" to procuce a photographic image, I began to experiment with creating portraits that would benefit from the additional complexity established by considering "How and from what is this image crafted?" One ongoing project that reflects this pursuit is titled "Portraits of Artists in Their Element".
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