tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17240322304602343922024-02-19T05:14:43.206-05:00Photography Without A LensThe original intention of this blog was to discuss my exploration of scannography and pinhole photography, but just as our artistic process evolves, so has this discussion...Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-84583799303814792492012-02-20T14:35:00.003-05:002017-03-13T19:02:43.331-05:00New Website and Blog<a href="http://www.margarethelthaler.com/"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711304425647220674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYcOPfLaHuYUbDip-CzCTNLQZyxuIAgZYEaav14e02TVXQb110-bcB46OXPL59p15ORMJk2yckzPBfDM4qYTbKMsyRyof1mYNqJoSMdur65qoyoBAmLq-XTQXC_n06SENdsO1EbdxmSbE/s400/Screen+shot+2012-02-20+at+2.37.12+PM.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 371px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Please visit my new website and blog to learn more about my latest efforts with mixed media photography:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><a href="http://www.margarethelthaler.com/">http://www.MargaretHelthaler.com</a></span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-37559029419388698602011-11-25T11:52:00.004-05:002011-11-25T12:03:54.564-05:00<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img0.etsystatic.com/il_fullxfull.289796412.jpg"><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCpbYAicDXEMB4_kY8lcGUnJivqAfHnylNekYMDv7rqZ04HBT3o_C6OcAHS80aOIPf-_8TRO-sTeIiOHVJDlSJFkRQ3xg1xLC04sPxHk6nyaqcE6aGdtzQSFl2PkV7l13KhBRjya7D6u0/s400/autumn-light.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5678977524582230194" border="0" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center; font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Autumnal Light</span> • 8x8 Pigment Print</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">This piece is one of several new images showing at the </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.catskillartistsgallery.com/Index.html">Catskill Artist Gallery's</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> Holiday Show. The opening is Saturday, November 25 from 4 to 8 pm.</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-39593285003156190592011-10-30T11:49:00.005-05:002011-10-30T12:03:13.996-05:00Catskill Winter Skies<div style="text-align: center; font-family: verdana;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/84975040/catskill-winter-sky-3-8x8-square-fine?ref=v1_other_1"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxHOZ1A2_rDT-Ym45YJGkWMln5IUjR4jDQzzGoJD6AkBeWWqaD637cS2nO0AngtggGd4Z_sjYUviQPbv_ML034VDVErzZsHd6ugRp4QqoKiVt_ctpcbQs0qEPw6Qjb23R6hJ5YkkVbOgo/s400/Catskill-Winter-Sky-3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669329342696122482" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Catskill Winter Sky 3 • 8x8 Pigment Print • ©Margaret Helthaler 2011<br /></span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: verdana;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/84974543/catskill-winter-sky-2-8x8-square-fine?ref=v1_other_1"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEVUeUa3Z00wDDPcMpAPu47DpE5u5PNlgGCJcRzXxXczxQWivlcGfGJgJ48zk8XEkufV0DnPRNu3E7cTltNCiB7MvVFU7xRyyaM83xjEw_ohC2-xPB-xpYpagrCvRpfuumHf0Lat1p2c/s400/Catskill-Winter-Sky-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669328891089392418" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Catskill Winter Sky 2 • 8x8 Pigment Print • ©Margaret Helthaler 2011</span><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/84973725/catskill-winter-sky-1-8x8-square-fine?ref=v1_other_2"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcD5VNW4abwFqoA_KH9mLgJWDyX0Phkl9WQEMR8QsdszeoTUaY71vz9unqwoxSsKCQVXS8iv0D8M0mNR3hxac-MhKioEi10NwMr78Z2emKpmgfmlgZBiNDYSYaU4PageZeTEIe5mqTQLA/s400/Catskill-Winter-Sky-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5669328538566275170" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Catskill Winter Sky 1 • 8x8 Pigment Print • ©Margaret Helthaler 2011</span><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:100%;">My recent focus on the Jersey Shore skyline combined with an unexpected late October snowstorm inspired me to explore the wintery Catskill Mountain skyline. In this series of images I have added a soft focus and a hint of texture to create an evocative sense of place.</span><br /></div></div>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-87071267226554885852011-10-17T07:47:00.004-05:002011-10-17T08:00:14.831-05:00A Little Tone and Texture Adds Vintage Charm<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/84045004/cape-may-lighthouse-8x8-fine-art"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo8MK0ba0wwJw-Yz1IAP4R1SxW0-mlSPQdf5bYs2Bm6CFgzTaW09ytuVmL3hnZ4IvO-hFWFsdnSW957kyScG13v-aUivQnwZSvBeTMqBLJCUAgO13Ke8hHFTaXZcMDeLU85nWFGyhF6x0/s400/Cape-May-Lightouse.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664444930479739026" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >Cape May Lighthouse</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> • 8x8 pigment print • ©Margaret Helthaler</span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">My recent trip to the Jersey Shore has inspired a new body of work. Here the Cape May Lighthouse stands tall with just a hint of canvas texture and tone for vintage charm. Thanks to </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-starr/">Brenda Clarke</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> for the wonderful textures she shares on </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr.com</a>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-77824829610468044682011-10-12T11:45:00.002-05:002011-10-17T08:03:09.923-05:00Storm Clouds Gather over Morey's Pier in Wildwood, NJ<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/83712164/approaching-storm-12x18-fine-art"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ZHH71ZUbrVD3gh50mwkfmnTsHMjzba-aD1UfcAZMoO4kc6YW-EApUK1fCRQ9TXHfq5y7RfXOwEsJNtQgHqt34e4m4CTofX64t9FtZRK7FwEAKrF-XTpH8AgIz9vD-ysfE-o1FH5AUU8/s400/Approaching-Storm.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662645948025408738" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >Approaching Storm</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> • 12x18 pigment print • ©Margaret Helthaler</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Just spent a lovely weekend in Wildwood New Jersey and found the landscape - so different from the Catskills - inspirational as always. I love the deep beach in Wildwood and the perspective it added to the lumbering October clouds...</span><br /></div></div>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-50491955650063451512011-04-23T13:06:00.004-05:002011-04-23T13:17:57.546-05:00Looking For Spring In The Catskills<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMsIpeKeKyd3Wj-PcpUN-lwFlHlEp9Q98aGfTliDzafAkwsbrH8mqxp2bqy7OUDJmfbR0dzDEVgwbOR2ZZP61RefJSWONyEa24jqkFOkDOGqPeWzHguV3Uiw3coXgKqhbyvN_IwmOn3lk/s1600/early-crocuses.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 399px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMsIpeKeKyd3Wj-PcpUN-lwFlHlEp9Q98aGfTliDzafAkwsbrH8mqxp2bqy7OUDJmfbR0dzDEVgwbOR2ZZP61RefJSWONyEa24jqkFOkDOGqPeWzHguV3Uiw3coXgKqhbyvN_IwmOn3lk/s400/early-crocuses.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598844865416098450" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Our crocuses have come and gone, but the chilly weather remains. I awoke to heavy rain and remnants of snow here in the Catskills... I dream of warm sunshine and green subjects to photograph...</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-17254015382119550952011-02-08T09:12:00.004-05:002011-02-08T15:13:25.162-05:00Morning Light<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkh_KkDFH_unSf4VAhaun3b833iIu8G6cso-VjwAUabJcf02_ZoPDYC0SBMpEr0iRUcw5FuLyWvoDGx6X9-MGSHhizh3auUtlIDxGRvZO0qQvzJxifaftyz1DZdmouXzKXJknTsYM58KQ/s1600/winter-morning.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkh_KkDFH_unSf4VAhaun3b833iIu8G6cso-VjwAUabJcf02_ZoPDYC0SBMpEr0iRUcw5FuLyWvoDGx6X9-MGSHhizh3auUtlIDxGRvZO0qQvzJxifaftyz1DZdmouXzKXJknTsYM58KQ/s400/winter-morning.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571321501784411842" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Winter Morning</span><br /></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span> <style>@font-face { font-family: "Verdana"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:11pt;" >Nostalgia plays a large role in my visual work. I suspect it comes from growing up in a multi-generation home, which imbued me with a strong awareness of a history before my own lifetime. Considering my penchant for romanticizing the past, it may come as a surprise to learn that morning is my favorite time to take photographs.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=";font-family:Verdana;font-size:11pt;" >I woke this morning to a fresh blanket of snow bathed in the cool light of the clearing sky. Morning light holds such promise – it creeps, it soothes, it shimmers – it changes by the minute – offering so many possibilities...</span></span></p>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-38046272668843233492011-02-01T09:50:00.003-05:002011-02-01T10:01:56.865-05:00Questioning the Permanency of New Media and Social Networking<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggVcbh4fUdHT7JEdGBNQifBnqRfu8SPIARnZX3Ie85kVwds2-rCG_TZN-u1xCvUj5EUWMsofCZOKl9zOUpvGZRM2cnbjUsUiWugpH9T9HnsB96xKE3FJnAxY6_WAuXUZyGyCn1JKFiUEs/s1600/autograph.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggVcbh4fUdHT7JEdGBNQifBnqRfu8SPIARnZX3Ie85kVwds2-rCG_TZN-u1xCvUj5EUWMsofCZOKl9zOUpvGZRM2cnbjUsUiWugpH9T9HnsB96xKE3FJnAxY6_WAuXUZyGyCn1JKFiUEs/s400/autograph.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568734416054291890" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin32k6RRhX5UCV7BZW4SKW-4VAekjtSor4JfRGlamofIJ6ziIX8TFiuTgUeqY1VPTpQhrkPkH7U6tz4xlrwsfWFtkh9QKdkWy694pUopUH_Crrretz0QYJfk5E33O-_tcDXo6mfxUJ45w/s1600/helen.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin32k6RRhX5UCV7BZW4SKW-4VAekjtSor4JfRGlamofIJ6ziIX8TFiuTgUeqY1VPTpQhrkPkH7U6tz4xlrwsfWFtkh9QKdkWy694pUopUH_Crrretz0QYJfk5E33O-_tcDXo6mfxUJ45w/s400/helen.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568734410418838802" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Wmes1o8GWHVTxyOxT6B7VoiiXeAtSnbkYeUAQjdFcj2mhpJE4KZr0_rWmAjYE1UNhNlQTDCuh7daysQl2XRMtLp8Q0MeyfxyvKY0X39BXCrrbw2kRk4_TmBFGT713Ykc670QtR9dzZg/s1600/directions.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Wmes1o8GWHVTxyOxT6B7VoiiXeAtSnbkYeUAQjdFcj2mhpJE4KZr0_rWmAjYE1UNhNlQTDCuh7daysQl2XRMtLp8Q0MeyfxyvKY0X39BXCrrbw2kRk4_TmBFGT713Ykc670QtR9dzZg/s400/directions.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568734409718202706" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSTiXo8C4e1IYjCxKEqDwxuuPRUuveL8fW8tdDzo3oiX-1Z_1OtuWvBxacBDkP6CkKNCfMRQsOgOhQnprkc6077mQcSHFfRbzJvK5V2MtcJ2YFNyb5DP5MxDqoXoGUdOaA_POvod2sLhs/s1600/note.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSTiXo8C4e1IYjCxKEqDwxuuPRUuveL8fW8tdDzo3oiX-1Z_1OtuWvBxacBDkP6CkKNCfMRQsOgOhQnprkc6077mQcSHFfRbzJvK5V2MtcJ2YFNyb5DP5MxDqoXoGUdOaA_POvod2sLhs/s400/note.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568734401571345730" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" >Pages from my great-grandmother's autograph book, 1881</span></span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family:verdana;">As I made a post to Facebook this morning – commenting on the weather and joking with a friend – I thought about the changes we have seen in the last decade. When I was twelve years old I bought a small cloth bound journal for my friends to write in. Coincidentally, we soon moved thirty miles away, to live with my grandmother, so the book became a means for my friends to pen their goodbyes. It is a true keepsake. </span><p style="font-family: verdana;"></p> <p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">A few years ago, I was delighted to discover my great-grandmother had kept a similar little book. It was given to her as a Christmas gift in 1881 – she was 14 years old. I have shared a few pages from the book above. Not only does the text in this book give me a glimpse of the young girl she once was, it also shows me she shared my fondness for pansies. I have warm memories of working with my grandmother (her daughter) to plant these little flowers in the old cement pig troughs in the back corner of our yard. Years later, when I married my husband in the nearby garden, we placed pots of pansies on the tables. I felt my grandmother’s presence in their deep, velvety faces. And here, in my great-grandmother’s little book, she offers a small sketch of the flowers above the word “Autographs.”</p> <p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">But I digress... What I’m really wondering is will my daughter have a similar keepsake to share with future generations? In this age of texting and social networking, young people are sharing even the most mundane aspects of their lives on a daily basis. Moving thirty miles no longer means a loss of contact with old friends – they are as close as a touch of a button. But how permanent is this new means of communication? Will these digital archives become the treasures of the future? Or will the ease of their creation and lack of tangibility decrease their sense of value? Will they simply disappear?</p> </div></div>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-15580197733504102902011-01-24T09:36:00.005-05:002011-01-27T09:48:05.375-05:00Photography and Memory<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAUzy989kQsh5Jf3xFsNHgkVxSRx6ypm8_sP6bjpV6c-zsmtA51tBsC5yrm6pBOAWklrq7CE1BQLlfkiuP65o10m7h24bXtlbCjVVLZNeYhxO2GUrbWHh71q6br_7GoRUso8FQ7GX6iN8/s1600/Siblings-1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 324px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAUzy989kQsh5Jf3xFsNHgkVxSRx6ypm8_sP6bjpV6c-zsmtA51tBsC5yrm6pBOAWklrq7CE1BQLlfkiuP65o10m7h24bXtlbCjVVLZNeYhxO2GUrbWHh71q6br_7GoRUso8FQ7GX6iN8/s400/Siblings-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565761936252203042" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsjpU56bua_GdNEe2dTqFl-ZXGGj_GUktg67j_dI_jQnnhpvdVvUTzTsHSuxNCltoc6rDFVoJQDZ7qtW_sy0q4oukZWhdZpgsVOT07fIgNPH5zRlXS7KL_8aoZiOY953oe3e_aAgKcBsc/s1600/Siblings-2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 255px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsjpU56bua_GdNEe2dTqFl-ZXGGj_GUktg67j_dI_jQnnhpvdVvUTzTsHSuxNCltoc6rDFVoJQDZ7qtW_sy0q4oukZWhdZpgsVOT07fIgNPH5zRlXS7KL_8aoZiOY953oe3e_aAgKcBsc/s400/Siblings-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5565761941990579634" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >My Grandmother's Siblings circa 1903<br />Clark, George, and Alice Sheley</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left; font-family: verdana;">They say you can’t go home again, and for the most part, this is true. When I visit our family property I no longer feel the same connection with the place I once did. But there is one tangible way we can revisit the past: through pictures. When I look at pictures of our family home I am immediately carried back to the time and place when the image was captured. Photographs are deeply entwined with our memories.<p></p>Perhaps even more interesting is a photograph’s ability to carry us to a time and place we have never witnessed first hand. The pictures I have shared above are two of my favorites out of all of our old family photographs. The story, as I remember my grandmother telling it, is that a photographer was traveling through the area. He wanted to take a picture of my grandmother’s siblings in the doorway of their home “on top of the hill.” (The family would later move down the mountain to live with my grandmother’s grandparents in the house pictured below.) My grandmother was either a baby, or not born yet, so she is not in the picture. But she would talk about the pictures as if she were there when they were taken. Helen (my great-grandmother) was concerned that her daughter’s hair wasn’t combed. You can see she appears to be fretting in the first picture – with a comb clasp in her left hand and her right hand pressed to her cheek in dismay. Of course we can’t actually see Helen’s face, but after hearing my grandmother tell the story, I can picture it. The children are oblivious to their mother’s concern and are enraptured with the novelty of having their picture taken. In the second picture, Helen has her way and combs her daughter’s hair.<p></p>I don’t really know which photograph was taken first. But we tend to add our own narrative to everything we see, and these images are so evocative...<p></p> </div></div>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-59765114320092014412011-01-20T15:59:00.003-05:002011-01-20T16:07:17.632-05:002011 Resolutions<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXU4JCJ3sRepV0pr3Tgo5FpCrNQ-DlRe-igqsE-Ktf112-sjGMjP1AjuAAZbdKRpqxKuU0cW27WYgwqrHw8qOGsYlgRyScf1BARmZxhsXeDjLL_6_T-iRB8qKLPoKVpBGRUWXStOdHrzc/s1600/Homestead-2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXU4JCJ3sRepV0pr3Tgo5FpCrNQ-DlRe-igqsE-Ktf112-sjGMjP1AjuAAZbdKRpqxKuU0cW27WYgwqrHw8qOGsYlgRyScf1BARmZxhsXeDjLL_6_T-iRB8qKLPoKVpBGRUWXStOdHrzc/s400/Homestead-2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564375728623101266" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Our Family Home circa the 1920s?</span></span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">My resolution for 2011 is to carve out more time for personal projects... As you can see by this tardy blog post - I'm off to a great start. ;-) But I am going to make more of an effort to share what I am working on. My current project is a book about our ancestral home - which was built in the early 1900s and sheltered 6 generations of our family until it was recently sold...</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-48475933575625953972009-12-09T10:49:00.001-05:002009-12-09T10:51:24.554-05:00The Appeal of the Square Format...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MIkchNd4M6BVxUZkdN_KKi0FZ_wtXzJIfactikeNIwgX-wxyzke920H5WfQsAVYau_OpGlq2cD6GV0BylMZRGQQWr1ARHB0o_UB6eCYZDVLsSeB5svWDjR2UqZvHf4AGtsIpzMt9GXM/s1600-h/barn-window.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MIkchNd4M6BVxUZkdN_KKi0FZ_wtXzJIfactikeNIwgX-wxyzke920H5WfQsAVYau_OpGlq2cD6GV0BylMZRGQQWr1ARHB0o_UB6eCYZDVLsSeB5svWDjR2UqZvHf4AGtsIpzMt9GXM/s400/barn-window.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413264185665557074" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: verdana;">I see things first and foremost through the eyes of a designer. If I were to paint, I would be an abstract painter – reducing the natural world around me to the most basic elements of shape, color, texture, and composition. I suspect this is also why I am attracted to the square format in my photography work. The unity and cohesiveness of the equal sides suggests the image is but a unit of a larger whole. We experience our environment through a series of basic sensory interactions, which our mind then combines to create an overall feeling. However, we are only able to consciously focus on one interaction at a time. Thus, the square format is a good way to show a glimpse of awareness – as demonstrated in this image of a barn window. The blackness of the window panes, the one long bleached board, the dried winter weeds and the knotty texture of the wood are but small details of the barn itself (see the full barn image posted below.) Yet the basic elements of shape, color, texture and composition are so rich...</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-28748786371310265282009-12-07T14:57:00.003-05:002009-12-07T15:14:28.353-05:00Preliminary Stages of a New Body of Work<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtmgQDfjDvFbIUa1umSsBJulvVfMBec0LtP_ykYcrepZP32aBoL7HB-Rd0fFK0lxzxTVbHG7Z22He-IyqrK54LvUDXQ90D0nbUTPGMUsHr3XzYiZycDOYScsse0FKVo82T5btvDxDibnE/s1600-h/barn.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtmgQDfjDvFbIUa1umSsBJulvVfMBec0LtP_ykYcrepZP32aBoL7HB-Rd0fFK0lxzxTVbHG7Z22He-IyqrK54LvUDXQ90D0nbUTPGMUsHr3XzYiZycDOYScsse0FKVo82T5btvDxDibnE/s400/barn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412589535332033298" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Embracing the lens and the digital dark room - I intend to focus on wintery Catskill landscapes over the coming months...</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-123351002412737152009-10-22T12:18:00.002-05:002009-10-22T12:22:13.761-05:00Group Show at Catskill Artist Gallery, Liberty, NY<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30n1V77HMpXVf8wc0Ed0N-bGK6AkdCKjklCDqtpFNz8h5ArAowN4voeqFyqFaX4nM9HHCo9KWQM8u_sCf-AsfD5hqehXZzyn27rPwZRekp14eQsZi3carhoQAu2QABafWaVVCurEHv60/s1600-h/Branches+6.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 367px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30n1V77HMpXVf8wc0Ed0N-bGK6AkdCKjklCDqtpFNz8h5ArAowN4voeqFyqFaX4nM9HHCo9KWQM8u_sCf-AsfD5hqehXZzyn27rPwZRekp14eQsZi3carhoQAu2QABafWaVVCurEHv60/s400/Branches+6.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5395475404262796898" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: verdana;">Some of my work is currently in a group show at the <a href="http://www.catskillartistsgallery.com/">Catskill Artists Gallery</a>, 38 Main Street, Liberty, NY. The show will be up until November 29.</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-64743052035529291322009-10-22T12:12:00.002-05:002009-10-22T12:16:41.896-05:00The Importance of Physcial Processes In Making Art<span style="font-family: verdana;">Here's a link to a video of my lecture at SUNY College at New Paltz for anyone who is interested in watching:</span><br /><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://imsnp.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=cda0329a26894e13903e66a8a7da8a69">http://imsnp.mediasite.com/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=cda0329a26894e13903e66a8a7da8a69</a>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-79901967799737745712009-10-19T15:33:00.003-05:002009-10-19T15:39:08.967-05:00Lecture At SUNY College at New Paltz<span style="font-family:verdana;">I have been invited to present a lecture on my work at SUNY College at New Paltz on 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday evening, October 21. Check out this link for </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.newpaltz.edu/events/event_view.cfm?event_id=11735">more info...</a>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-90206113507799835852009-09-08T13:33:00.006-05:002009-09-08T13:47:36.395-05:00Deja Vu Series<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5pIZHRfPaMb4iJa9qtf-OM6Gzm1YWB2u9vN47pg86xKdsDOjI9bQ7CaR7NJuWWm8omQyiZ0KtnlEiC7eugE3r8dDEaALeHEW-2P4vQLTjUbp6HWCQvStNapMhiYKeQxKxDUbPkq7jPFQ/s1600-h/deja+vu+4.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5pIZHRfPaMb4iJa9qtf-OM6Gzm1YWB2u9vN47pg86xKdsDOjI9bQ7CaR7NJuWWm8omQyiZ0KtnlEiC7eugE3r8dDEaALeHEW-2P4vQLTjUbp6HWCQvStNapMhiYKeQxKxDUbPkq7jPFQ/s400/deja+vu+4.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379169519960877698" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZzvNuFZqHNDbLtp4Kqd3OCFS5zlQ3I6LtJ3HrrGBDQ_teQEKwKtvQXWxlRC3rQLDP1IPmPZekda_R9wol3SVFVoSWwUXIxnkqDRU84kwMpKgXtn30H3K20PYDRHWhlx-MksIvzBz1Fw/s1600-h/deja+vu+5.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZzvNuFZqHNDbLtp4Kqd3OCFS5zlQ3I6LtJ3HrrGBDQ_teQEKwKtvQXWxlRC3rQLDP1IPmPZekda_R9wol3SVFVoSWwUXIxnkqDRU84kwMpKgXtn30H3K20PYDRHWhlx-MksIvzBz1Fw/s400/deja+vu+5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379168917115238306" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" >Deja Vu #5 and Deja Vu #4 •</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">Pinhole Photographs with digital TTV effect</span></span><br /><br /></div><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I feel the pull of distance everyday. My daily life is separate from the land. I am too busy to stop and notice. I am too busy to connect. In her book <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lure of the Local</span>, Lucy Lippard claims, “Virtually all ancient spiritual models in every culture emerge from or exist in intimate relation to land or place.” Therefore, doesn’t our growing distance from the land ultimately represent a weakening of our spirituality?</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">My desire to close the gap motivates my work. I want to stop and notice. I want to connect. Perhaps it is more accurate to say, “I want to feel,” since spirituality and place are sensual.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">How can I depict these feelings with/in my work? I appreciated Lippard’s quote of Richards Misrach’s comment, “…beauty can be a very powerful conveyor of difficult ideas. It engages people when they might look away.” But I also agree with Lippard’s observation, “Conventional landscape photography tends to overwhelm place with image.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">I am trying to visually capture the essence of an idea. I am trying to show a feeling. I am trying</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> to portray a hidden world. A world we don’t take the time to </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">connect with. This world may only exist in the past. How do I show that?</span> </span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-21679097635829368842009-03-01T16:20:00.003-05:002009-03-01T16:32:01.903-05:00A Sense of Yearning<span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >As the ongoing winter months cause the walls of my studio to close in on me, I find it appropriate to revisit some earlier writing. Here are some thoughts I penned a few years ago:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" >A Sense of Yearning</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> Since I was a child I can remember experiencing bouts of melancholy that are perhaps more accurately described as a sense of yearning. These moments seem to come to me more often in the fall, which has always been a reflective time for me. I keep a journal – have for years – but only write in it periodically. When I thumb through the pages the most common entry dates are between September and November.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> I recently read a book that offers a possible explanation for my seasonal ruminations. Gretel Ehrlich sums up my thoughts most accurately in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Solace of Open Spaces</span>. She writes:</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;">All through autumn we hear a double voice: one says everything is ripe; the other says everything is dying. The paradox is exquisite. We feel what the Japanese call “aware” – an almost untranslatable word meaning something like “beauty tinged with sadness.”<span style="font-size:85%;">(Ehrlich p. 127)</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;">Perhaps I become reflective in the fall because it is the time of year when the passage of time is most apparent. As each new day blooms, I am aware that another day has passed. My yearning stems from a desire to capture the passing days – or rather, to return to an earlier time. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <br />In <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Sun</span>, Julia Kristeva discusses the idea of a lost thing as the reason behind melancholia. She tells us, “My depression points to my not knowing how to lose – I have perhaps been unable to find a valid compensation for the loss?” (Kisteva p. 5) Kristeva’s thing defies an absolute definition, but I see a connection with my sense of yearning in a section where she notes, “Kant asserted that nostalgic persons did not desire the place of their youth but their youth itself; their desire is a search for the time and not for the thing to be recovered.” (Kristeva p. 60)</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <br />I find this concept interesting because the focus of my recent work and writings has centered on the idea of place and our physical connection with place. Until now, I believed my interest stemmed from my attraction to the landscape of my youth. Is it possible that my fascination with place actually represents a longing for a specific time (or even an earlier self)?</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <br />Rebecca Solnit observes in <span style="font-style: italic;">As Eve Said to the Serpent</span>, “Landscape’s most crucial condition is considered to be space, but its deepest theme is time.” (Solnit p. 48) While I have been considering my connection with place (my earliest home), I have actually been considering how I interacted within the space of the landscape at a specific time (my childhood). I chose to concentrate on my physical experience because, as Diane Ackerman claims, “Our senses connect us intimately to the past, connect us in ways that our most cherished ideas never could.” (Ackerman p. xvi) My physical (or sensory) experiences create memories, which in turn can represent time. Memory is recorded time. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <br />Furthermore, in their groundbreaking book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Memory: From Mind to Molecules</span>, Larry Squire and Eric Kandel maintain, “Loss of memory leads to loss of self.” So, if landscape’s deepest theme is time – time that is recorded by our memory of experiencing its space – and our memories build our perception of self, then it can be reasoned that landscape can represent our identity; our shifting identity of self. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <br />I believe it is also possible for this identity to travel beyond our life span, powered by the vehicle of our imagination. As a child I use to love to listen to my grandmother’s stories about growing up in the very home we lived in. I would walk barefoot along the cool dirt paths in her garden with my denim skirt swishing around my legs – imagining I lived in the “olden days.” Of course, my play romanticized the time. My grandmother’s world (as I created it) was much more attractive than my own. This is not so uncommon. Rebecca Solnit declares, “Our culture is pervaded by nostalgia for things that may never have existed.” (Solnit p. 1) We imagine the lives of earlier generations as simpler than our own. Much like the promise of a peaceful afterlife, time provides distance from the discomforts of reality.</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> <br />Ultimately, I believe my yearning for an earlier, romanticized time is actually a longing for a return of innocence. It could be the innocence of my youth, before pubescent and/or adult concerns began piling up. Or perhaps my desire should be traced back over time to the concept of original sin – the innocence of our species. We all have fantasies of simpler times because as we shed our naiveté we can’t help but see death on the other side of beauty.</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-6376842423353906252009-02-22T13:01:00.009-05:002009-02-22T13:25:46.528-05:00New York Wildflowers<span style="font-family:verdana;">I am by no means a botanist and only know the common names of a few flowers from having grown up in a rural environment. Of course this didn’t stop me from impressing some out of town friends years ago during a hike through the Catskill Mountains. I began naming all the plants we encountered and they were amazed by my skill until some of the names became so outlandish they couldn’t help but realize I was making a majority of them up as I went along. : )</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />All humor aside, I wasn’t terribly concerned by my lack of botanical knowledge until I began to focus on tiny weeds as subjects in my </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >Roadside Flowers</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"> scannography series. I was less than satisfied with titles like <span style="font-style: italic;">Yellow Weed</span> and was hard pressed to discover the true name of my subjects. I will be eternally grateful to the </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/index.html">Connecticut Botanical Society</a><span style="font-family:verdana;"> and their wonderful website on </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/galleryindex.html">Connecticut Wildflowers</a><span style="font-family:verdana;">. Obviously, as neighbors Connecticut and New York share a lot of the same wildflowers and the great images I found on the Connecticut Botanical Society’s website enabled me to identify a number of my subjects. Here are some of my discoveries:</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdfdgOMnHZiqkMPQ29DMH3X3yGrtk9KGcDnaDWe9kd6wCRiDH2hoNGQhUyMCtme7PkH7OE_VcvY6wwVoBMOBDx19gZ3EFa99VMh2RydouXRjA7RalNwGyoYlMvk5RuYNmz379RL5Nh8Jg/s1600-h/Paper+White.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 397px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdfdgOMnHZiqkMPQ29DMH3X3yGrtk9KGcDnaDWe9kd6wCRiDH2hoNGQhUyMCtme7PkH7OE_VcvY6wwVoBMOBDx19gZ3EFa99VMh2RydouXRjA7RalNwGyoYlMvk5RuYNmz379RL5Nh8Jg/s400/Paper+White.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305685598822929298" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">This is a great example of my ignorance. I discovered this flower while hiking along a trail at <a href="http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/preserves/art12207.html">Sam’s Point</a> </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">in late October. The details captured in the scan were barely discernible by the naked eye and I named the image <span style="font-style: italic;">Paper White</span> because of the quality of the petals. At the time, I did not know that there is another kind of flower called <span style="font-style: italic;">Paper White</span> and the title I had come up with is a misnomer. The true name for this tiny flower is <span style="font-style: italic;">Sweet Everlasting (Catfoot)</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium (Gnaphalium obtusifolium)</span> as seen <a href="http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/pseudognaphaliumobtu.html">here</a>. </span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5DFh3LKsc7qDpkNxQ5NNSKfCJxakSLec9QitKuAyLnKDfZT4ZMuqsWY58q_Jg8Nuy0ITDWAXCwsXSQmLThUjJ6RROHuDRvHweO37ruNNkU1Rfz67410n_VaLSoQgbzO4toYJZx9-zDxs/s1600-h/Blue+Wild+Flower+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 319px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5DFh3LKsc7qDpkNxQ5NNSKfCJxakSLec9QitKuAyLnKDfZT4ZMuqsWY58q_Jg8Nuy0ITDWAXCwsXSQmLThUjJ6RROHuDRvHweO37ruNNkU1Rfz67410n_VaLSoQgbzO4toYJZx9-zDxs/s320/Blue+Wild+Flower+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305686714092580914" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDBa4Yqnf38zc8dSIvGpF1sTOK358jWPGr5iUcBrSRAUAgf0O_YfPRVY-cAw3m_7Mb5owRuyIAuJXFlXLwltz-3Y534IxkdVq_YLwWe5F-n3tAYLc9lgeAeO-OuHFXunoHjlNLET8M6A/s1600-h/Blue+Wild+Flower+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 319px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizDBa4Yqnf38zc8dSIvGpF1sTOK358jWPGr5iUcBrSRAUAgf0O_YfPRVY-cAw3m_7Mb5owRuyIAuJXFlXLwltz-3Y534IxkdVq_YLwWe5F-n3tAYLc9lgeAeO-OuHFXunoHjlNLET8M6A/s320/Blue+Wild+Flower+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305687007152701554" border="0" /></a><br />This series was dubbed <span style="font-style: italic;">Blue Wild Flower 1 & 2</span>. The true name is <span style="font-style: italic;">Chicory</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Cichorium intybus</span> as seen <a href="http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/cichoriuminty.html">here</a>.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;">I remember reading about how Chicory roots were used to make a coffee substitute during the civil war – but I never knew it was the pretty blue flowers growing along my road.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_WTML_2y4Ng8wdHxIkCs61n363jIah80_md9DBZCpAD_ZzkmuUUzwVnptW7xrvushnfkz9d1Z3MB2HPiJHnspAoTIDg1Hh3veTH72frgk848gE5u9yh9cBJyxYf1x7haJGse_Zc6YufU/s1600-h/Yelllow+Weed.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_WTML_2y4Ng8wdHxIkCs61n363jIah80_md9DBZCpAD_ZzkmuUUzwVnptW7xrvushnfkz9d1Z3MB2HPiJHnspAoTIDg1Hh3veTH72frgk848gE5u9yh9cBJyxYf1x7haJGse_Zc6YufU/s400/Yelllow+Weed.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305687617806751970" border="0" /></a><br />And what I </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">simply </span><span style="font-family:verdana;">called <span style="font-style: italic;">Yellow Weed</span> is really <span style="font-style: italic;">Common St. Johnswort</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Hypericum perforatum</span> as seen <a href="http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/hypericumperf.html">here</a>. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcOQoXHxR9leheW9sCkprerlLvQW26VelkGpEMq3ZK15hlmOadU2zUURr1chK6RExwYdqIOUiCMnAzw2nUEYbv81e2YgGOYasuZcsRSVxrtPFMFYObWcFYEHeyoVKakvRhdSuXeDrtS0/s1600-h/pink2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 171px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHcOQoXHxR9leheW9sCkprerlLvQW26VelkGpEMq3ZK15hlmOadU2zUURr1chK6RExwYdqIOUiCMnAzw2nUEYbv81e2YgGOYasuZcsRSVxrtPFMFYObWcFYEHeyoVKakvRhdSuXeDrtS0/s400/pink2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305688742207991410" border="0" /></a><br />This tiny sprig from a bush I titled <span style="font-style: italic;">Pink</span> – for obvious reasons. But its true name is much better. It’s called <span style="font-style: italic;">Meadowsweet</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Spiraea alba (Spiraea latifolia)</span> as seen <a href="http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/spiraeaalba.html">here</a>. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />Just as focusing on tiny subjects in the Catskill/Hudson Valley Region caused me to be more appreciative of the details in the surrounding landscape, learning more about my subjects has proven to be equally delightful.</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-17629785261549147372009-01-10T11:57:00.005-05:002009-01-10T12:46:53.808-05:00The Increasing Popularity of Scanography<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPakpBH1_goBdoOPxXJKTnNf0rowf6AAWar1hA66GgoVK9H6C0KivZopuxi5c9yIlwQA0tDu16Velbfuw7kmy_3up83mn1kh_3xJqwhsTfOYVFEpEERiNDJvNaH7ivT23ZD3j7jD6ER6g/s1600-h/Yelllow+Weed.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPakpBH1_goBdoOPxXJKTnNf0rowf6AAWar1hA66GgoVK9H6C0KivZopuxi5c9yIlwQA0tDu16Velbfuw7kmy_3up83mn1kh_3xJqwhsTfOYVFEpEERiNDJvNaH7ivT23ZD3j7jD6ER6g/s400/Yelllow+Weed.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289711659367084738" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" >Yellow Weed</span></span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">A few years ago when I began scanning subjects directly on my flatbed scanner I wasn't sure what to call the process. Ever willing to conduct some research, I searched the internet to find what others were calling the technique. I figured I couldn't be the only one having so much fun. But when I first began my search I had a difficult time finding other examples. I did eventually come across a few folks who were working with the medium in similar ways and called the process "scanography." I'm not crazy about the name… it sounds medical to me. But the name seems to have stuck and there appears to be a growing interest in the process. Now when you google "scanography" a whole slew of sites come up. Here are a few that I find informative:</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.scanner-magic.com/index.html">http://www.scanner-magic.com/index.html</a><br /><br /><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.scannography.org/">http://www.scannography.org/</a><br /><br /><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.shows2go.si.edu/exhibitions/2007/12/scanner-photogr.html">http://www.shows2go.si.edu/exhibitions/2007/12/scanner-photogr.html</a><br /><br /><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://blog.scannography.info/">http://blog.scannography.info/</a><br /><br /></span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-25929187204421235622008-08-08T17:00:00.003-05:002008-08-08T17:07:31.896-05:00The TTV Effect<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGwp_8r3xLtQQYRw6Bw47TNA7jGojRj5G7RPdCpnWEia5t-bqaNIDTTxRT3Xq69DCGKiyiB464TmlzHFVdkzPM3tusvshYdLl7x9NXPWBaOQZeWWOtW6BP3jFOTyMVZ5jlxR7VCJRM1w/s1600-h/beach+path.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGwp_8r3xLtQQYRw6Bw47TNA7jGojRj5G7RPdCpnWEia5t-bqaNIDTTxRT3Xq69DCGKiyiB464TmlzHFVdkzPM3tusvshYdLl7x9NXPWBaOQZeWWOtW6BP3jFOTyMVZ5jlxR7VCJRM1w/s400/beach+path.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5232270364140330130" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;">Beach Path</span></span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have been experimenting with digitally creating the TTV effect. TTV or "Through the Viewfinder" is the photographic process of taking a picture with one camera through the lens of another camera. Typically, it creates an image with a distinct dark border and some lens distortion with dust and imperfections. Since many of my images are captured without a lens (using a scanner or pinhole camera) I thought it would be interesting to explore the unique results achieved by bringing these divergent processes together.<br /><br />This image was originally captured with my pinhole camera.<br /></span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-26781774219401298412007-12-28T11:33:00.001-05:002007-12-28T11:46:10.207-05:00About My Pinhole Camera<a style="font-family: verdana;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHH4Aa-rAf0p9qbqeDeQQXj0yKdzsCrrjFnPUpo-UO7kPcdTjad7B0uS5gRa__MNk7hAgII_x4viURhgh0iQ5kahlbFFUn_Y-26ingEkfg6aEojgAlIHoJDRHY1CgpT3OAy_niZc9Jnw0/s1600-h/camera.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHH4Aa-rAf0p9qbqeDeQQXj0yKdzsCrrjFnPUpo-UO7kPcdTjad7B0uS5gRa__MNk7hAgII_x4viURhgh0iQ5kahlbFFUn_Y-26ingEkfg6aEojgAlIHoJDRHY1CgpT3OAy_niZc9Jnw0/s400/camera.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5149062964392546402" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;">People frequently ask me about my pinhole camera and pinhole photography in general. I first learned about this process when I was attending the <a href="http://www.lesley.edu/aib/curriculum/graduate.html" target="_blank">Art Institute of Boston</a> for my MFA. One of the faculty members, <a href="http://www.mhf.krakow.pl/wystawy/otwork/jf.htm" target="_blank">Jessica Ferguson</a>, presented her work. She makes lovely pinhole images of dioramas she creates with collected objects. Her work intrigued me and I decided I wanted to know more about the process. I was fortunate to participate in a pinhole photography workshop with her the following semester. She then put me in touch with <a href="http://www.craigbarber.com/" target="_blank">Craig Barber</a>, another outstanding pinhole artist who doesn’t live far from me. Craig was kind enough to provide me with instructions for building the camera you see pictured above. He also provided me with the aluminum shim with the appropriately sized pinhole (which acts as the lens.) His instructions for operating this device were the equivalent of licking your finger and sticking your hand in the air to see which direction the wind is blowing… but I understood it’s an intuitive process. You have to go by “feel”. That’s one of the things I like about it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Pinhole photography stands on the basic physics behind photography. Light passing through a tiny hole will produce a reversed image on a perpendicular plane. References to this phenomenon have been traced back to Chinese texts from the fifth century B.C. Many of us are familiar with the Camera Obscura, a drawing device used by some Renaissance artists, which was, essentially, a pinhole camera. Subsequently, lenses were developed to gain greater control over the refracting light and chemical processes evolved to create a permanent image – leading up to the wonderful world of photography we have today. (This, of course, is the highly abridged version of the history of photography.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">In an age when you can take a picture with your cell phone, I enjoy exploring photography’s roots. As you can see, my camera is pretty simple. It is made out of black mat board and duct tape and is fitted with a Polaroid sheet film holder. The Polaroid film holder is great on many levels – one being I don’t have a dark room and two, I’m not the most patient person. Since pinhole photography can be tricky at best, I like know right away whether or not I got a good shot.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">The interesting thing is, I scan the Polaroid images and print digitally. So by using a pinhole camera, Polaroid film, and digital printing, my process just about covers the entire span of the history of photography. : )</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-25909175761567141772007-09-27T08:19:00.003-05:002009-09-08T13:29:07.782-05:00Scanner Photography: Revealing Wonderful Details<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx-s8Kc0DYxsPV4HaLcRpR_-fjPlD3buTCs3gjKNGwjWIVFhyphenhyphenJq5sVr0VnjmFDHdx687fr32RSExUgFR90_uYOSLvWpds0im_8oiLXMzSKtkYECuCAaUiOH29apIjURZIV3Jskl9PRrUw/s1600-h/Onion+Blossom2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 254px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx-s8Kc0DYxsPV4HaLcRpR_-fjPlD3buTCs3gjKNGwjWIVFhyphenhyphenJq5sVr0VnjmFDHdx687fr32RSExUgFR90_uYOSLvWpds0im_8oiLXMzSKtkYECuCAaUiOH29apIjURZIV3Jskl9PRrUw/s320/Onion+Blossom2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5379165331025920210" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >Onion Blossom</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">8"x10" • pigment ink on archival paper • 2007</span></span><br /></div><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />Artists tend to work with the tools they are familiar with. I know a master printer who creates beautiful paintings with a brayer that are highly dependent on precise registration. His art has a direct correlation with his profession. I would even go so far as to say that the way his process transcends the expected use of printers’ tools and methodologies exemplifies the act of artistic expression.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Similarly, when I decided to pursue fine art photography – after working as a graphic designer for nearly fifteen years – it wasn’t long before I began experimenting with the tools of my trade. While I am well versed in Photoshop, I found I wasn’t much interested in manipulating my images digitally. I was, however, quite fascinated with what I could do with a scanner. Just about every designer I know has scanned a three dimensional object at one time or another, but I began to do so in earnest. Each day I’d collect small bits of plants during my morning walk and spend hours enlarging them (many times their original size) with my flatbed scanner. The results were stunning and had a profound impact on me.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />Technology has never been difficult for me – but it had changed me over the years. I began my graphic design career in the late 1980s – just as the transition to digital production was beginning to occur. I gravitated to the field because I possessed the right combination of creativity, logic and craftsmanship. I could do amazing things with technical pens and x-acto knives. What’s more, tasks considered mind numbing by many, I found relaxing, even restorative. But, after years of fast-paced work on the computer, I no longer had the patience for the methodical precision I once enjoyed.</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><br />When I began using my scanner as a camera, my use of the computer changed. I slowed down. I was using the very tool that had sapped my patience to contemplate small details in the natural world – with an intensity and awareness that I hadn’t experienced since I was a child. The progression of the work that followed can best be summed up with the words of artists/authors David Bayles and Ted Orland in their book <span style="font-style: italic;">Art and Fear</span>:</span> <span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">The need to make art may not step solely from the need to express who you are, but from a need to complete a relationship with something outside yourself. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">(p. 108)</span></blockquote></span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-47791075269841920972007-08-22T18:51:00.000-05:002007-12-26T08:29:45.554-05:00Pinhole Photograph of the Delaware River<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI1eQun5FOcVY29dEv0QqLJcFWPps92ZFBJwwo1iETP-moJ-5jo0VAz73nMRT2KdfVXbufUf1O4O6_NWMhhkUfgADlGtAh6A79cLJtECxFBtm5NKqmUMVycx6E_vOgonu3gbg8EAiXj10/s1600-h/Rafting+on+Delaware.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI1eQun5FOcVY29dEv0QqLJcFWPps92ZFBJwwo1iETP-moJ-5jo0VAz73nMRT2KdfVXbufUf1O4O6_NWMhhkUfgADlGtAh6A79cLJtECxFBtm5NKqmUMVycx6E_vOgonu3gbg8EAiXj10/s400/Rafting+on+Delaware.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148272875093676114" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" >Rafting the Delaware 1</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">16"x12" • pinhole photograph - pigment giclée on canvas • 2007</span></span><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Last Sunday my family and I took a rafting trip on the Delaware River, PA/NY. It was cool and overcast - a perfect day for being out on the water. A number of people had the same idea - but with the long exposure of this pinhole photograph (about 1.5 minutes) you can't really see any of our fellow boaters. Instead, the image captures the serene tranquility of the beautiful landscape we all enjoyed.</span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-62916596605106682402007-04-21T11:00:00.001-05:002008-08-08T17:00:06.497-05:00Pinhole Photographs at Jersey Shore<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjPD0RswlgNrkkLI_opymjOO7ZC0maPnzG-XGbOYZwWop4OXBYr7JBwTw1igOHcot0NbqdSw47OVouMqzlf7Iy_69ClZYXrZ_WtQVfFl6OOpeSnbEGFV862e0RvofreTz9af2YTXzQG8/s1600-h/Pier.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjPD0RswlgNrkkLI_opymjOO7ZC0maPnzG-XGbOYZwWop4OXBYr7JBwTw1igOHcot0NbqdSw47OVouMqzlf7Iy_69ClZYXrZ_WtQVfFl6OOpeSnbEGFV862e0RvofreTz9af2YTXzQG8/s400/Pier.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5232269974676594162" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">My husband and I took our children to Wildwood, New Jersey for a mini vacation early this spring. We had the whole beach to ourselves and spent the days flying a kite, searching for shells and riding our bikes along the boardwalk. I took plenty of candid snap shots of our family with my digital camera – but nothing could capture the vast open space and quiet solitude of the beach like my pinhole camera.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">I shot my beach images with Polaroid 54 sheet film on an overcast day. I used my handmade camera (that I made with black mat board and duck tape) that’s fitted with a 4x5 Polaroid film holder. I sit this camera directly on the ground when I compose my shots. Exposure time was about one minute (during which time I was usually squatting to hold the camera steady in the gusting wind and counting the time quietly to myself.) I guess I looked a little suspicious squatting among the dunes because at one point someone called out “What are you doing?!” I don’t even want to contemplate what it looked like I was doing! I’m sure I looked like a crazy person bundled up in my rather worn LL Bean coat, lugging around a yellow shopping bag (of supplies) and squatting in various locations.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Fortunately, the remaining parts of my process occur in the privacy of my home studio. Here I scan the Polaroids and tone them digitally. If I look crazy when I’m doing this, only my dog knows.</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><a href="http://mdh.imagekind.com/JerseyShore"></a></span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1724032230460234392.post-49495791508677484802007-02-04T15:57:00.000-05:002007-02-04T16:18:16.417-05:00The Impact of Place<span style="font-family: verdana; font-style: italic;">[The following is an excerpt from my MFA thesis.]</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />For most of my adult life, my attachment to my childhood home has been a reoccurring theme in my art. I grew up in a farmhouse, built by my great-great grandfather, in a small town in the Catskill Mountain region of New York State. My fondness for the area is evident even in my commercial work as most of my clients are non-profit land-stewardship organizations seeking to protect the very streams and hillsides so deeply embedded in my psyche.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">During the first semester of my MFA studies, I produced an artist book that portrayed my emotional associations with a stream that flows through my family’s property. Upon viewing my efforts, a faculty member suggested I read the book <span style="font-style: italic;">Lure of the Local</span> by Lucy Lippard. This book was instrumental in providing me with an understanding of the ideas I had intuitively sought to express in my work. Lippard introduced me to the concept of “place” and perhaps more importantly, the reciprocal relationship between self and place. I began to appreciate that because I am a “placed person” (having developed a strong identity with a locale) I return to this place (in actuality or metaphorically) as a method for remembering who I am.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">1</span> Lippard described Kennebec Point, Maine as her “soul’s home”; my book project enabled me to visit my soul’s home and reestablish my emotional connection with the landscape of my youth.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">2</span><br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, as much as I valued this emotional connection, I suspected my bond with this patch of land could be traced to another level, that it could even be reduced to a symbiotic relationship among the very cells in my body. The next book I read was pivotal in the development of my theory. Gaston Bachelard’s <span style="font-style: italic;">The Poetics of Space</span> introduced me to the notion of phenomenology – the philosophical investigation of how things are perceived. According to Bachelard, the physicality of the space we initially inhabit affects how we perceive and relate to all other spaces throughout our lives. He claimed, “But over and beyond our memories, the house we were born in is physically inscribed in us.” He continued, “…the house we were born in has engraved within us the hierarchy of the various functions of inhabiting. We are the diagram of the functions of inhabiting that particular house, and all the other houses are but variations on a fundamental theme.”<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">3</span> Bachelard caused me to think about my physical relationship with the landscape of my childhood home – as it was instilled by my senses – and these thoughts became even more interesting to me than my emotional connection with the place.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Poet/author Diane Ackerman maintains, “There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.”<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">4</span> This biological system is the window of our awareness and shapes how we perceive and function within a space. As I type these words my senses tell me I am sitting in an office chair. I see its black leather upholstery in my peripheral vision and feel the cool, smooth texture of the material under my legs. I sense the warmth of the room and the stillness – maybe even a slight stuffiness – of the air. Without looking up, I have a pretty good idea of how high the ceiling is above my head. My senses quietly go about keeping me informed of where I am in space and enable me to process more than one piece of information at a time. For example, I am aware of the distance of the ceiling as well as the other attributes of my studio, in spite of my preoccupation with writing, because of a phenomenon author Tony Hiss refers to as “simultaneous perception.” In his book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Experience of Place</span>, Hiss explains:</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><blockquote>We can experience any place because we’ve all received, as part of the structure of our attention, a mechanism that drinks in whatever it can from our surroundings. This underlying awareness – I call it simultaneous perception – seems to operate continuously, at least during waking hours, even when our concentration seems altogether engrossed in something else entirely. While normal waking consciousness works to simplify perception, allowing us to act quickly and flexibly by helping us remain seemingly oblivious to almost everything except the task in front of us, simultaneous perception is more like an extra, or sixth, sense: It broadens and diffuses the beam of attention evenhandedly across all the senses so we can take in whatever is around us – which means sensations of touch and balance, for instance, in addition to all sights, sounds and smells.<span style="font-style: italic;">5</span></blockquote> </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our five senses combine to create a sixth sense – a sense of attentiveness – on a subconscious level. Author Winifred Gallagher describes the same idea in a slightly different way. She says:</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><blockquote>…the senses convey to the brain far more information than we can consciously be aware of; it is the totality of all that undifferentiated input that we perceive in a general way as ambience.6</blockquote> </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Additionally, in her book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions and Actions</span>, Gallagher provides some excellent examples of how place can impact us on a biological level. She views “the earth and its processes as a unified living organism rather than as a grab bag of separate biological and geophysical systems.”<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">7</span> According to Gallagher, everything is connected. She acknowledges how “even the simplest microorganism depends on environmental interactions to survive” and extends her examples from “our simplest [cellular] level up through any state in our development.”<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">8</span><br /><br /> </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Gallagher supports her opinions by explaining how light, temperature, altitude and even geophysical energies affect us biologically. However, her most winning argument is embodied in her discussion of the womb as place. When one considers a developing baby’s physical dependency on its environment – a connection made so apparent by the coiling umbilical cord – it’s not too far of a stretch to accept our dependency on the places we inhabit. The light, the air, the temperature, the space – “our relationship with the larger world is built from countless sensory interactions between us and our settings.”<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">9</span> <br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I am fascinated by these ideas of how we subconsciously respond to the spaces and objects around us. That our response is primarily physical (biological) is even more intriguing and suggests a degree of dependency that most of us are unaware of. In her book, <span style="font-style: italic;">As Eve Said to the Serpent</span>, Rebecca Solnit observes:</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><blockquote>In making landscape art, contemporary artists recognized landscape not as scenery but as the spaces and systems we inhabit, a system our own lives depend on.10 </blockquote></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;"><br />Notes<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 1. Lucy R. Lippard, The Lure of the Local: sense of place in a multicentered society (New York: The New Press, 1997), p. 33.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 2. Lippard, p. 4.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 3. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space: the classic look at how we experience intimate places (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), pp. 14-15.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 4. Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. xv.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 5. Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place (New York: Knopf, 1990), pp. xii-xiii.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 6. Winifred Gallagher, The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions (New York: Poseidon Press, 1993), p. 24.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 7. Gallagher, p. 23.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 8. Gallagher, pp. 15-16.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 9. Gallagher, p. 127.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> 10. Rebecca Solnit, As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender and Art (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001), p. 47.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span>Margaret Helthalerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02833139934679604396noreply@blogger.com0