Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride

Everyone who remembers the 80s, sing along with me!

Nobody gonna slow me down
Oh no - I've got to keep on moving

Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride
I'm running and I won't touch ground
Oh no - I've got to keep on moving...


Anna working on her makeup at our last location of the day

I've been on a roll photographically speaking for about 2 months now, and the little voice in the back of my head says if I stop to come up for air, I might break the momentum.  It's silly the things we say to ourselves in the quiet, dusty corners of our minds.  When I first started learning how to use my camera and Photoshop together, I was just certain with each new, successful creation, that the end had appeared.  The muse would never strike for me again.  Ten years later I've come to grips with the fact that as long as I am interested in pursuing a creative life, the ideas will keep coming.  It's like an itch that creeps up if my fingers haven't released a shutter in a while or I will wake up in the morning with a fully formed image in my head.  I like having these feelings.  It's not too bad as far as addictions go.

Here are some images from the past few weeks.  No finished pieces mind you, just some documentary type captures.

Above are models Anna and Lora and fellow photographer Rene Hales.  Thanks Marco and Michael for offering us a location and helping to cart our props up 4 flights of stairs!

Like a dragon sitting on her hoard, Anna is preparing amid our pile of costumes.

One side note - it was great to work with Anna again.  This crazy odyssy started for me almost 10 years ago with her as one of my very first models.  She took on a lot of work during 2 wild days of shooting.  Thank you for being your fearless self and such a wonderful muse!

The images below are from a location scouting session in Ohio.  I can't wait to return soon with models, cocktail dresses, and props galore!  Such a big empty space has both terrified me and has also been freeing creatively.  Odd...

Even husbands got roped into duty for a quick shoot in Tennessee!  Thanks for letting me torture you Teresa, Chris, and Wills!  (And thank you for calling me while on your vacation to tell me you'd found a place to shoot that you knew I'd love!)

Out roaming the wilds of Eastern Kentucky with Linda...  The bridge was certainly worth the wait!

And more location scouting in amazing spaces with Carol. 

I love my village!

Chicago Art Immersion

The workshop experience was a little different this time around.  Instead of strangers in a random congregation at a commercial studio or school, this was a trio of girlfriends getting together for a mini-vacation and an intimate workshop in Chicago.
 

I met Suzanne Clements years ago, while living in FL and she became a wonderful buddy and art friend.  While in FL, I also met the fabulous painter, Renee Decator, through Suzanne.  What you need to know about Suzanne is that she is a force of nature that creates connections and just seems to effortlessly make things happen.  One day a few months ago, I happened to mention to Suzanne that I would love to take a workshop with artist Bridgette Guerzon Mills.  Voila, baddabing, and abracadabra!  I'm meeting Suzanne and Renee at the airport in Chicago for 2 days of sightseeing and two days of waxy goodness.  You can read more about how Bridgette and Suzanne met on Bridgette's blog.

We crammed a lot of living into 4 days.  Renee did a ton of research on Chicago restaurant hot spots.  I wondered several times if it was even possible to get a bad plate of food in this town...  Needless to say we ate very well - perhaps too well!  If any of you gentle readers is planning on visiting the windy city anytime soon I can whole-heartedly recommend the Purple Pig and Roy's.  Had I not been in public, these were places where I wanted to lick the plates.  Suzanne arrange for a downtown photo walk with Google+ aquaintances and a trip to the Art Institure of Chicago.  Wow!  The photo walk was a great way to see the city and the museum just blew my already fragile mind.  It was a humbling experience to see paintings that I only knew from tiny pictures in books.  I owe the abstract expressionist, Mark Rothko, a big apology.  His works were on the list of famous paintings that I never "got".  In person, his gigantic paintings definitely elicit a response! 

OK back to the reason for the journey - Bridgette's workshop!  Oh my gosh this was fun.  Bridgette had transformed her basement into a minature classroom and we each had a lovely workstation with the cutest tin can O'tools.  I was immediately engrossed with this wicked looking little metal bristle tool.  What lovely marks it makes!

Bridgette went over the normal safety and basics information and then she hit the ground running.  The first day she went over mark making, oil glazing, transferring, texture, inscribing, scraping, and intarsia.



Suzanne watching Bridgette demonstrate and Renee getting to work.

The next 3 shots are a progression of Bridgette's demonstration of the loveliness that is oil glazing.

 

One of my pieces with dots of oil paint
waiting to be glazed.

Suzanne's practice piece with exciting
marks and scraping work.



 Bridgette demonstrating wet copier transfers...

 

Bridgette had some excellent paper she had tea stained and like most mixed media artists, she also had a hoard of beautiful, random paper bits collected over the years.

Suzanne brought some dried butterflies and shared them with all of us.  I have marveled at her collection before and had a great time photographing it on my last trip to Florida.

 

Renee working

On the second day, Bridgette discussed printing from the palette, use of plaster guaze, and one method of bookmaking.  I couldn't have asked for more information! Bookmaking hasn't been something that I have gotten into yet during my art studies.  Darnit!  This was too much fun and now I have all kinds of new ideas for my to do list back home.

Bridgette adding paint to her palette.

A print pulled from the mess that is left on the palette after painting - ingenious!

  Renee laying out cut pieces of plaster and an
example of one way Bridgette uses plaster guaze

My before and after workshop impression of Bridgette remained the same.  She has a lovely way of integrating her painting with images seamlessly.  Watching her bring disparate sections of composition together is like magic - you saw it all in plain daylight but you still don't understand how it was done.  I don't mean to imply at all that this is through any deficit of teaching skill - this is one of her unique gifts and was a wonder to behold!

Thanks for the workshop Bridgette!  You are a delight.  I'm happy to say I came home with ideas flowing out of my ears.  I also have to thank Suzanne and Renee for making my first trip to Chicago such a wonder.

And then there were two...

Forbidden Fruit
Panel 4 of 4

My new definition of Artistic Bliss is when the ideas are coming so fast that you have to make notes on the back of your grocery list and junk mail envelopes.  : )  I will never understand why sometimes the ideas just flow out of the ether faster than I can capture them on paper and then other times I am convinced that the creative well is permanently dry.  I'm sure all creative types experience this problem. 

This past month, the saying "Creativity does not happen in a vacuum" has been proven to me many times over.  Opportunities for shooting, location hunting, prop shopping, and collaboration have come my way from many good friends.  Each meeting has sparked so may new ideas, that I've had to go buy a new notebook to contain them all.  It's purple - the color my 6th grade teacher assured me was a favorite only of insane people.  Ah Mrs. Bachtel - what odd memories you have left in my brain...

I have completed my first collaborative art experience with fellow photographer, Rene Hales!  The entire experience went really well.  My cynical side thinks that this has to be unusual.  Our only hiccup was caused by the company we used to obtain the metal that is backing our prints.  They graciously corrected their error in time for us to finish by our deadline.

We spaced out the work and met regularly making what Rene pegged as "baby steps" each time we got together.  Even with our deadline approaching, I never felt rushed or stressed out.  There was a lot of testing involved because we both went out on a limb and tried some new things.


We used Yes paste as the glue.



This was my first time mounting a print to dibond metal.  Dibond is a lightweight aluminum composite panel that has a different metal finish on each side and a tiny layer of thermoplastic core sandwiched between.  I was a little skeptical at first but the bonus to using the metal was that we could get it cut to odd sizes and it weighs a lot less versus having a wood board.  It turned out much easier to glue the print to metal than to wood.  I had no air bubble issues and it was easy to smoosh around on the metal to find the perfect placement while the glue was still wet.   

The brayer was useful to make  sure the print made
full contact with the metal after we applied the glue.

We applied painter's tape to 1/4 inch border around the print where the metal was showing so we would not get wax on the metal.  There were two reasons for this.  1) I didn't want to have to worry about the wax not sticking to the metal, and 2) we deckled the edges of the prints before we glued them down and I wanted to make sure they still stood out once waxed.

After all the prep-work, the real fun began.  We applied several coats of encaustic medium - fusing between each layer.  Then we used oil sticks to add color, deepen contrast, and highlight areas of each image.

I was having so much fun that I hated to see it end.  But there is new work on the horizon!  Next, Rene and I will be working along the same vein to complete an entirely new body of work for a two person show coming in Spring 2013.  I am extremely grateful to Rene for asking me to collaborate with her.  The experience has caused me to take a step back and reassess how and what I shoot.  Rene's invitation to collaborate came at the perfect time to allow me to test new skills and reconnect with photography in a more traditional way.  Instead of covering figures in collaged photographs, I am capturing an entire image in just one frame and completing the narrative with beeswax, paint, and texture.  

Rene and I will each have one of our regular pieces and also the 4 panel collaborative piece Forbidden Fruit on display starting September 21, 2012, at the M.S. Rezny Gallery & Studio in an exhibit called "Collaborate!".

Forbidden Fruit by Rene Hales & Melissa Hall

Perceiving the world through a lens

Who thought I'd be lured out to shoot in August after the way July went?  Well, thanks to a cold wave, I've been gleefully snapping away.  While processing images, I started looking back to my earlier prints and comparing them to what and how I shoot now.

Moving back to Kentucky about 5 years ago set my feet onto a slightly different path photographically.  My art journey started in Florida which is sort of like being a kid handed the really large box of crayons.  Everywhere you look, colors are abundant, huge prehistoric-looking plants practically grow while you are watching them, and there are a plethora of strange reptiles and majestic birds.  Moving back North forced me to try new methods as well as subjects.



Many new, gracious friends have introduced me to the most amazing sites and history lessons in and around Lexington and for that I am truly grateful.   Decay in Florida usually meant colorful rust and sun-bleached painted surfaces.  Decay in Kentucky is more subtle and harder to spot for someone used to looking for psychedelic colors crying out for attention.  After photographing a number of decaying houses, I've also started to discover that they have distinct personalities just like human models.  What's on the inside can be very different from my first impression of what's outside...  Here's an example from a recent expedition.  The outside of the house gave an impression of a whimsical architect gone bonkers.  The inside of the house, while not lacking in character, lent itself more to quiet, introspective, sepia-toned black and white images.

Shooting abandoned, derelict houses and buildings has started to teach me to loosen up.  It's in my nature to go into a shoot with expectations, but those carefully made plans are usually tossed out the broken window of the mysterious dwelling I've cautiously entered.  You never really know what you might encounter.  I've been amazed by grand sweeping entryways with woodwork that makes you want to weep, but then again I've also been struck dumb by walls swathed in cheap moldy paneling.  Getting to experience this most recent house was humbling because I spent my time there knowing that the house was scheduled for demolition just days after my visit.

Okay, enough pontificating on the wonders of neglected Kentucky whiskey baron's mansions and distilleries!  I am one month away from my next encaustic workshop with Bridgette Guerzon Mills in Chicago.  This has certainly been a great year for getting to attend some workshops! 

I'm also currently working on a collaborative project with fellow photographer, Rene Hales.  During our work sessions, I have learned a new lesson concerning photography and encaustics.  Sometimes soft, overexposed images work really well when coated with wax!  The dreamy quality is enhanced and the light from the image glows beneath the wax.  Hurray for happy accidents and artistic playtime!  Below is a teaser from the project which will be on display September 21, 2012, at the M.S. Rezny Gallery & Studio in an exhibit called "Collaborate!".

Who turned the thermostat to Hell?

The world works in mysterious ways - clichéd but true.  I've finally had my first meaningful combination of photography and my new encaustic skills, but it took a heat stroke and exhaustion to pull it together. 

Let me back up a bit and explain the past few weeks and their effect on my life.  During the past 4 weeks there has been no let up.  I shouldn't complain because mainly it has been good stuff - art workshops, openings, visits from family and friends, and one slightly over-wrought photo shoot.  It was the photoshoot that finally did me in.  A show deadline and the opportunity to shoot in an amazing location killed the tiny voice of logic inside my head whispering "Its over 100 degrees outside...you really shouldn't shoot in a 3 story house that smells like roasted bat guano!"  I blame the recently art engorged right hand side of my brain for squashing the sanity my left hand side was trying to provide.  Needless to say, the photoshoot didn't exactly go as planned.  Out of a 3 page list of image ideas, I got one possibly useful shot and I wasn't paying attention to some pose tweaking I should have done for that shot to be perfect.  Ug! <Insert scream here.>  The backlash for these activities and brain baking craziness was an art block.  Ideas stopped flowing, photoshop and paintbrushes alike betrayed me, and that little negative voice disguised in the back of my head as me but with a goatee had a field day.  I did all I could do.  This past weekend I threw in the towel and slept at least 12 hours both days.  There is light at the end of this fried tunnel at last!

In desperation to do something productive, I shot the interesting bits of an unfinished piece from Arrowmont.  Its one of those pieces where it was a great learning experience and I want to explore the idea more somewhere down the road but its not something I want to hang on the wall - you know?  

 

Perhaps I should not be surprised that in my bout of artistic despair, my saving grace would once again be digital collage - aka slapping textures onto a form.  That is the place to where I always, eventually return.   Hallelujah!  The thing about home is once you return, its the one place where they have to let you in. 

Below is a sneak peak of a couple of digital pieces where I used an encaustic painting for texture.  When I started exploring encaustic about a year ago, it was to get my hands dirty and use my photography to make one of a kind pieces away from the computer.  I still haven't given up on that idea, but I won't turn down the occasional gift from my muse either.