Harvesting from fields and gardens
Garden inspired photos line one of the walls at my show at the Historical Salem Courthouse. These fresh little images are something I've done mostly privately, or with children, for years.
As things begin to bloom around here in the spring I bring a small basket to collect what's popping up. Later, usually indoor at my desk because the wind likes to annoy me, I'll pour out my little collection of stuff and try to see what becomes
Orange Overall made from Poppy Petals
I often have an idea of what I want my sticks, leaves, and petals to do, but they rarely agree with me. Once I tinker and rearrange enough I take a photo and that's it.
I hadn't considered showing these photos but this year, unlike other years, I began posting them on Facebook, mostly to just let people know I'm still here. What happened next was so nice: many people expressed how much they liked them, not just on Facebook, but also when they saw me here in our small town. Since this is a local show, it just seemed right, then to mount them.
These aren't fancy prints, but they worked out well. Some I printed on my home printer. I quickly discovered that the images with the black backgrounds would dirty up the rollers on my home printer, so I called Staples and asked them about their printing. Staples recommended I use the photo service at CVS. What a great tip!!! I was able to upload my photos to my local CVS, do edits, and within a couple of hours I'd have the prints in my hands!
If I want to sell these as fine art prints, I'd have to do some research (in other words, ask my daughter what she does) but for now it was nice to put these up with a reasonable price tag ($25 each).
I worked out a nice way of mounting them, which is reversible if anyone wanted to do their own framing. Here's a youtube video of how I did my mounting
Side note - I've been using petals, sticks, leaves, pine needles, beans, carrot slices, stones, stems and other natural materials with young children for years.
July 4 2019 Salem NY Street Fair
Using natural materials to make artful images with children is a super way to get materials into children's hands. Children like the feel of nature, they love the colors, and it gives me a way to talk about plants with them. And then they make a sweetest creations, which, like with my own work, I photograph then compost. Nothing is glued down, but the photos remail.
A child's garden creature
This is way of using materials that is accessible and challenging, as it;s just not possibly to get nature to behave according to one's own agenda. There's this dance that happens between the the hands and the materials, which doesn't always work out, but when it does, it's so sweet.
No comments:
Post a Comment