Hatchback 11

I’m pleased to share that I will be participating in Hatchback 11, an annual all-media show at Hatch Art Center in Hamtramck. This year’s edition was juried by Treena Flannery Ericson, Gallery Director of The Scarab Club.

The show opens on Saturday, April 1 (6-10 pm). I’m sad that I can’t make the opening, but I will be participating in an Artists Talk on Saturday April 8 at 2 pm.

My piece, Bowl, will be showing along with the work of 53 Southeast Michigan artists; I am honored to be among them.

Bowl is a unique silver-gelatin 10" × 8" photographic print. I made it by enlarging a 4" × 5" negative onto 8" × 10" paper and exposing it normally. Then I painted the developer onto the paper; once it “looked ready” I rinsed the print and then took it out into daylight. This process, which I’ve called idlograph introduces color into a nominally black-and-white image. Once the color “looked ready”, I fixed the image and finished as normal.

And then I looked more at the print, and decided it needed something more. What can you do with a so-called finished print? You can bleach it and redevelop it! Most commonly identified with sepia toning, there are other chemistries that one can use on a print. In this case, I used a copper sulfate bleach, and then used lith chemistry to redevelop the silver. This added coppery highlights to the image, which I liked with the warm brown of the paper.

Now it’s finished and you can see it in person in Hamtramck.