Pinhole Photograph of the Delaware River

Rafting the Delaware 1

16"x12" • pinhole photograph - pigment giclée on canvas • 2007

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.

Pinhole Photographs at Jersey Shore

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.

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.

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.

The Impact of Place

[The following is an excerpt from my MFA thesis.]

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.

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 Lure of the Local 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.1 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.2

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 The Poetics of Space 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.”3 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.

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.”4 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, The Experience of Place, Hiss explains:

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.5

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:

…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

Additionally, in her book, The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions and Actions, 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.”7 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.”8

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.”9

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, As Eve Said to the Serpent, Rebecca Solnit observes:

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

Notes

1. Lucy R. Lippard, The Lure of the Local: sense of place in a multicentered society (New York: The New Press, 1997), p. 33.

2. Lippard, p. 4.

3. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space: the classic look at how we experience intimate places (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), pp. 14-15.

4. Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. xv.

5. Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place (New York: Knopf, 1990), pp. xii-xiii.

6. Winifred Gallagher, The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions (New York: Poseidon Press, 1993), p. 24.

7. Gallagher, p. 23.

8. Gallagher, pp. 15-16.

9. Gallagher, p. 127.

10. Rebecca Solnit, As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender and Art (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001), p. 47.

Mixing The Old and New In Mixed Media

Interpretive Landscape 4
2005 - mixed media, 9"x12"

During my years as a graphic designer, I spent a fair amount of time in front of the computer. So when I decided to return to making fine art, I re-discovered the joy of tactile experiences. Materiality is very much a part of my process – and yet the computer remains a familiar tool.

I enjoy mixing old and new technologies/media. In my Interpretive Landscape series I combined digital collage with pinhole photography and encaustic medium. The digital component enabled me to seamlessly execute my vision with disparate mediums (photo and abstract watercolor) while pinhole photography and encaustic require the physical engagement I find so desirable.

The concept of an image captured through a tiny pinhole was around long before photographic processes became available to make the image permanent. (It was the basis of the camera obscura - a drawing tool used by many artists in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, documentation of such a device can be found as far back as the writings of the Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti in the 5th century BC.) The pinhole camera is based on a simple law of the physical world. Light travels in a straight line and when some of the rays reflected from a bright subject pass through a small hole in a thin material they do not scatter but cross and reform as an upside down image on a flat surface that is parallel to the hole.

Encaustic (a medium comprised of bees wax, resin and pigment) is another "old process." This sensory-rich material was used by ancient Greek and Egyptian painters and is currently undergoing an overwhelming surge in popularity.

So today, when it is so easy to capture an image with a digital camera, it is utterly appealing to “go at it from another angle” – to bring physical engagement to the process – and to combine ancient technologies with modern. For me, the computer is a tool among many.

Why Do We Make Art?

In some of my previous posts I have shared reading responses - writings I did while pursuing my MFA. Reading plays a large role in the shaping of my art practice. It helps to solidify my ideas and identify my direction. In other words, I find it inspirational. I also often confess to getting my best ideas in the shower. (I don't know what it is about warm running water - but it's a conduit for my imagination.) Basically, I am always thinking and try to respond to my thoughts in a genuine way.

I was recently asked, “How do you stay fresh and come up with new ideas?” This person might as well have asked me, “Why do you make art?” I found the question difficult to answer. Continually asking “What if?” is just simply how my mind works. So one thing always leads to another. I guess I approach my art practice as I would a puzzle – constantly seeking a solution, yet recognizing that the achievement of the ultimate solution would mean the demise of my art practice. You can imagine that all this seeking can be somewhat frustrating because I never really experience a sense of completion.

So to be an artist is to be in the constant state of frustration of one pondering a puzzle with no hope for an answer. Because our work is really about the process of response – not the response itself. Heck, half the challenge is figuring out what the question is in the first place. The “why” should come before the “how” but sometimes we don’t even know “why” we do something. Often, we have to do it first and then figure it out. (To read more on this idea, take a look at Relying on Process.)

I believe we make art simply because we have to. It is our way of functioning in this world.

Memory of Place

While making plans to get a dog, my husband and I had a discussion about the size of our yard. His first choice for a canine companion was a large breed notorious for its need to run. I argued that owners of such an animal should have a big yard. To which my husband replied, “We have a big yard!”

We don’t have a big yard, but I can understand why my husband might think otherwise. Chris grew up on a narrow street where the houses are so close together you can almost reach out the window of one and touch the side of another. His yard consisted of a small patch of grass and a sidewalk. By his standards, our one-acre parcel is huge.

I, on the other hand, grew up in a farmhouse surrounded by 100 acres. Our yard feels small to me, but to be fair I was willing to give it a verbal upgrade of “medium.” In spite of this, we ended up getting a small dog that can run like the wind in our medium sized yard.

The small dog was my idea. I guiltily admit to sabotaging all of our plans by coming home with him unexpectedly. (Not one of the smoother moments in our marriage.) While the acquisition of the little black ball of fluff truly was spontaneous, I suspect the idea of a large dog bumping around in our small (okay, medium) sized home was more than I could take. In addition to our conflicting spatial perceptions, my husband’s tolerance of how the space around him is filled also differs from mine. Prior to moving in together, Chris accused me of being “sparse” in my decorating, while I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of “stuff” crammed into his little apartment.

I believe our differences stem from an inherent sense of space imprinted on us as children. The environment we are raised in continues to influence our adult perceptions for a number of reasons. For starters, us humans cope with the phenomena we encounter by slotting them in to the understanding of the world we have already developed.(1) In other words, we process what we don’t know with what we do know. Our memories determine our response.

Now, I can remember growing up with a lot of land around me, but I can’t say I consciously think of this when I consider the size of my yard. My response comes from a feeling. What feels spacious to my husband feels closed-in to me. Our property is tucked into a hillside and surrounded by trees – it’s very different from the open fields of my youth.

However, my perception of closed space isn’t the result of a single observation or a specific memory of my childhood home, rather it is the result of all the messages carried by all of my senses and how these messages compare with previous messages I have received throughout my life. Obviously, our senses carry more information than we can process at any given time. The totality of all this undifferentiated input we perceive in a general way as ambience.(2) Thus, the ambience generated by my current yard feels different than the ambience generated by my childhood yard. I interpret or generalize this difference as a feeling of being closed-in.

Memory is key in determining how we categorize the ambience or feeling of a place. Memory functions on a number of levels to determine our response. As scientists continue to unravel the functions of the human brain and establish how memories are formed, they have recognized two different kinds of memory: declarative and nondeclarative.
Declarative memory is for facts, ideas and events. (i.e. I can remember growing up on a large piece of property.) Nondeclarative memory typically involves knowledge that is reflexive rather than reflective in nature. This memory is unconscious and results in performance without awareness.(3) (I inhabit space with stored perceptions of other spaces I have inhabited – I unconsciously refer to these perceptions and respond accordingly.) Nondeclarative memory greatly influences our interaction with space.

While declarative memory can create an emotional connection to a place (For example, the association of a place with a memory of a particular event or time.) I propose nondeclarative memory plays a role in the development of a physical connection to place. Nondeclarative memory is subconsciously recalled through a response or behavior and behavior can be reduced to biological function.
In her book, The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions and Actions, Winifred Gallagher provides some excellent examples of the impact place has on biological function. She views “the earth and its processes as a unified living organism rather than as a grab bag of separate biological and geophysical systems.”(4) 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.”(5)
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 place 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.”(6)

A high percentage of our sensory interactions and subsequent biological responses are primarily recorded by nondeclarative memory. In their book, Memory From Mind to Molecules, Larry Squire and Eric Kandel explain how early behavioral psychologists unknowingly characterized a number of nondeclarative forms of memory. Specifically, they identified two major learning procedures: nonassociative and associative learning.

Habituation and sensitization are examples of nonassociative learning. In these types of learning, a subject learns about the properties of a single stimulus – such as a loud noise – by being exposed to it repeatedly. [The subject will no longer be startled by the loud noise after hearing it over a period of time.] Classical and operant conditioning are examples of associative learning. Here a subject learns about the relationship between two stimuli (classical conditioning) or about the relationship of a stimulus to the subject’s behavior (operant conditioning). Thus, in classical conditioning, an animal that learns to associate a bell with the taste of food will salivate when it hears the bell. In operant conditioning the animal will learn to associate pressing a bar or key with the delivery of food… (7)

Squires and Kandel’s discussion on nondeclarative memory supports Winifred Gallagher’s claim that “much of what we assume is ‘instinctive’ behavior has actually been learned in early life.”(8) “In a very real sense, the places in our lives get under our skin and influence our behavior in ways we often don’t suspect.”(9) The authority place has on our behavior can be traced to the formation of nondeclarative memories and offers proof of our physical connection with place.

Notes:

1. Bender, Barbara, "Time and Landscape." Current Anthropology 43.4 (August-October 2002): p103(10)

2. Winifred Gallagher, The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions (New York: Poseidon Press, 1993), p. 23

3. Larry R. Squire and Eric R. Kandel, Memory from Mind to Molecules (New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2003), pp. 24-25

4. Gallagher, p. 23

5. Gallagher, pp.15-16

6. Gallagher, p. 127

7. Squire and Kandel

8. Gallagher, p. 168

9. Gallagher, p. 127

A Sense of Awareness

I have been skimming James Elkin’s How to Use Your Eyes and The Object Stares Back, Joseph Alber’s Interaction of Color, Martin Kemp’s Visualizations, and Katherine Harmon’s You Are Here, while I have begun to read The Power of Maps by Denis Wood. If I were to focus on a single thread these books have in common, it would be a “sense of awareness.” An awareness of the unnoticed, the hidden, or information we usually don’t take the time to think about; and perhaps more importantly, an awareness of the past as it manifests itself in the present. The past is revealed when one takes the time to notice and/or learn about its physical evidence. In other words, if we take the time to truly look, there is narrative in everything we see.

James Elkin’s book How to Use Your Eyes was instrumental in bringing me to this conclusion. I was first drawn to the chapter How to Look at a Map and was mildly interested in Elkin’s observations on the European influences apparent in the map maker’ efforts. However, it was his chapters on cracks in pavement (of all things!) and paintings that really caught my attention. Cracks are fairly common elements and are easy to overlook. The map-like quality of the chapters’ photos caused me to pause and Elkin’s text urged me to look closer. He explained how crack formations are indicative of specific events or conditions (material, weather, etc.) and in each case, the physical appearance of the cracks tells the informed viewer what those events or conditions were. So in a way, cracks are maps of the past. Maps that tell a story.

In my last post I talked about how we carry a sense of space derived from our birth house with us for our entire life. Now I am looking at cracks in paint and wondering what story they have to tell. While seemingly divergent, these thoughts do share a commonality: both require an awareness of the past.

Allow me to expand on my reverie by referring to the exercise in Joseph Alber’s book where you stare at a page of yellow circles and then focus on a blank white paper and see an after-image of yellow diamonds. The exercise is meant to demonstrate the interdependence of color (and does so quite nicely), but for the sake of my line of reasoning, let’s use it as an example of the physical manifestation of the past in the present. Although we are no longer looking at the yellow circles, their evidence remains. However, unless we are specifically doing this exercise and looking at white paper, we are not likely to notice the after-image. A “sense of awareness” is highly dependent on the act of observing.

Which brings me to another point (or the same point, but more so!) In his book Visualizations, Martin Kemp uses the power of observation to create a hinge between Art and Science. Both scientists and artists study an object in order to gain understanding, and sometimes their observations enable them to see things in a different way.

In Visualizations I was attracted to Susan Derge’s Taw series where she treats the surface of a river as a photographic transparency. The resulting patterns offer the viewer a new way of seeing the rivulets on the water’s surface. The topographic quality of the images is striking and I can’t help but think of Elkin’s cracks and wonder what stories Derge’s rivulets have to tell.