Invoking the Source

  Artist Statement

I have been intensively exploring alternative photographic processes, most recently transforming images using two nineteenth century processes, blue-toned cyanotype and brown-toned Van Dyke.   The two are combined in ways which demonstrate new artistic possibilities of these.

Neolithic images honoring nature, the feminine, and the spiritual core of existence were my inspiration for this series.  The underlying theme in these ancient images is the unity of all things in nature.

Some of the negatives were created using images of clay and stone figures from archeology textbooks.  Others, created with the cliche verre process, contain symbols of nature or other enigmatic markings of the kind found carved into or painted on ancient cave walls. 

Cyanotype and Van Dyke seem especially appropriate for this subject matter, since prints are developed in sunlight.  Contact printing (in which the negative is the same size as the print) allows for multiple exposures so that traces of earlier layers can be seen under the surface image, reflecting the passage of time.  The resulting textures look simultaneously old and worn and colorfully contemporary.

Employing as foundation archetypal images which register deeply in the unconscious and reinforce an earth-centered, life-reverencing world view, I invite contemplation of profound aspects of our being—birth, death, and the possibilities of transformation, a perspective easily lost in our fast-paced, high-tech lives.

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