Statement
About the Botanicals
I created you while I was happy, while I was sad,
with so many incidents, so many details.
And, for me, the whole of you is transformed into feeling.
C.P. Cavafy
In the Same Space, 1929
One day I began scanning everything–shoes, flowers, food, dolls and other toys. It was a time when I was hungry to see details. I used my desktop scanner to photograph directly into Photoshop. I loved the immediacy, but I really loved what the scanner technology does.
Scanners are designed to illuminate anything that touches the platen, usually a piece of paper. But the light doesn’t have to travel past the surface of the platen so it falls off very quickly, so quickly that you don’t have to cover an object or pull the shades to get a black background. The light as it hits the platen is so strong that you can see through flower petals. The resolution is what you make of it: you can capture an object the size of your thumb and print an image of it as large as your head. In the case of the peaches, you can see the prints of raindrops in the dust on the peach fuzz.
I spent a long time with each one, because although the image capture is immediate getting to the final print is not. For me, each image is like a portrait. I am pleased that these are not perfect flowers or fruits. They are in transition. Everything around us is moving. Even panes of glass are very slowly flowing. Truly, you cannot possess anything—that which you touch is moving and changing, as are you. The feeling you have and then remember is not the object, person or place you thought to capture.
About Loteria
I follow the traditional Mexican loteria game card format in this ongoing series of images. I find that the simple, orderly format–frame, number and title–imposes a pleasing rigor.
In the loteria game, each card also has a riddle on the reverse; the answer to the riddle identifies the image on the front of the card. The reverses planned for my cards have text that amplifies or subverts the apparent meaning of image and text on the card face. Also, my numbers are not consecutive. Instead each one is integral to the story of its card.
I pull the CMYK proofs of each card image myself. These multiples are 6.5×10.25 inches.
Initially I will edition each card-face at that size on 18×24 inch sheets, and will include the texts and images that would normally be on the reverse. Each edition of 25 is mixed-media on Somerset Velvet. As I write this the the editions are in progress and I will add them to the site as they are completed.
You can follow the progress of the editions on the blog.
