Tag Archives | abstract art

Years have passed…

Wow.  I haven’t updated this blog since January 2021.  Over two years.

Recently I have been in touch with people from way back, in the 1980s, from my years in Colorado.  It’s interesting.  We are all many years older.  Time has molded us all, as time does.  People have died.  People have had children.  Marriages, divorces, etc…the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that come to us all, I suppose.  My choices haven’t been theirs, and vice-a-versa, of course.   We all find happiness and our sense of being in our own way.

There is no denying that the pandemic has changed my thinking, as it has for many.  An old friend fled LA at the beginning in 2020 and moved ‘temporarily’ to New Mexico.  He’s still there.  He’s found his place, one of many in his lifetime.  Others have drifted until they found safe harbor.  Whatever it takes.  I followed the route of many others and bought a small house, renovated it and have been living in it since November 2021 (please see the previous blog entry).  I have also been taking piano lessons for over a year.  I’m better now than when I began.  I have picked up the guitar again after a long hiatus and am enjoying that too.  My photography has been fruitful, mostly analog, and my darkroom is a busy and deeply satisfying place to work these days.  Work.  I love that word.  I love to labor at my craft.  Once in a while I splash some paint on a canvas and see how I feel about that.  I try not to take things so seriously.  I think being happy is better than being right.

In my family, common questions were ‘How’s your work?” and ‘What are you working on these days?”  Of course this never applied to our day jobs, how we paid our bills.  “Work” was always “work.”  In my case it was music, writing, photography…my sisters each have their own artistic paths–visual, literary and academic.  That’s just the way we were raised.

There is a wonderful quote by the techno-music godfather Giorgio Moroder that has been informing me these days.  Taken exponentially, I find applies to anything, not just music…how I navigate life.  He said, “Once you free your mind about a concept of music and harmony being correct, you can do whatever you want.”  That’s it, isn’t it?  It’s so easy to fall into a pattern of ‘correct’ and ‘right’ whether it is in life or the arts.  It’s a place of stagnation and boredom.  The random and potentially exciting is supplanted by the predictable and mundane.  Work becomes toil.  I become serious, rigid.  Inflexible.  Moroder’s philosophy demands work, some internal yoga to loosen the thinking, stretch the concept.  As I said before, being happy is better than being right.

And so I work.  I take pictures, develop the film, produce the prints.  I use a digital camera too.  I play piano and guitar.  I study music theory.  I stretch canvas and splash paint.  I ride my mountain bike and even swim in the sea during these winter months.  I read good books and eat healthily.  I sleep well.  I try not to take myself seriously.  I find happiness.  I let go of the rest.

–JDCM

Welcoming 2021…

 “There is an insubstantial quality to life these days that is difficult to quantify.”–JDCM 2020

A friend wished me a happy rest-of-my-weekend the other day and qualified it by remarking “…as if there’s a difference in these amorphous and indeterminate days and weeks of the covid epoch.”  This sums up much of my emotional state since this ‘epoch’ began last February: one same day after the next with the same news feed, everyone seemingly watching the world turn while quarantined inside our homes.  This isn’t completely true but it feels that way.

Last February I was wrapping up a winter-long darkroom silver-gelatin printing project.  It was for a solo show in July. At the same time I was mapping out a 2-3 week bicycle ride through northern and western Greece that would have taken place in May.  Needless to say, neither of these events came to pass.  The show was cancelled and the ride was put off until the autumn (when it did not happen again).  By the end of October I was left with a porfolio that meant little to me and a lot of maps going nowhere.  But that is looking at these past months the wrong way.  So much may not have happened yet so much actually did occur.

On the advice of a friend (to whom I am eternally grateful!) last March or April, I bought a little house.  The papers were finalized in August and a full renovation began, finishing in the first week of November.  The place really needed to be gutted.  Ancient electrical, plumbing, crumbling walls, etc…I documented it online.  I have now rented it to someone who needed a home.  Then I got the wild idea that maybe I should stop paying rent and buy and renovate my own space!  So I did.  In a few weeks (crossed fingers) I will finalize that deal and begin renovations.  I hope by the end of November 2021 I will have moved into my new home.  So to my friend MM who started this process…many thanks and eternal gratitude for shifting my thinking.

                              Prickly Pear #1

Photography…writing…I have come to the conclusion that, for me, social media, as a whole, is a stifling and shallow platform for art or communication of any true depth.  These applications have actually hampered my creative process.  I have produced less photography and written fewer blog entries since I started being more on my phone with a popular social media app.  I let it suck the creative juices from my mind and soul.  So…I would like to make more real photographs in 2021, write more, produce more real work.  The new house will have space for a darkroom and a small digital area–room for a printer, perhaps a computer with a larger monitor than my laptop.  A place to work.  A home studio.

I have rested on what laurels I may have gathered long enough.  I will make a new commitment to my art, to my life.  Wheels are in motion.  Let them stay moving, well-greased and clean running.

–JDCM

 

It’s been a while…

I haven’t blogged in a long time.  I have had so many ideas about what to say, how to say it…it has all become a jumbled mess.  I should have taken notes.  I’ll try to untangle some threads…

News from the world of photography–some of my work has been chosen to be part of the Antiparos International Photography Exhibition in July.  It is a group show of about 14-15 different photographers and I have a feeling I will be a black sheep.  Going by what has been shown in the past, there will be a lot of street photography, travel/editorial work and landscapes.  I have submitted a new portfolio of abstract digital work–more of my Found Horizons.   They are very colourful and somewhat large, so they benefit from being seen from a few meters away.  When I have an e-poster, I’ll post it in a few places for you all to see.  It is a true privilege to be a part of this event.

–I have suspended my gum bichromate work until the autumn when the temperatures and humidity drops to a manageable level.  It has become too hot to work in the darkroom these days.  By that time I hope to have some new, larger digital negatives to work with.

–My work with the Photographic Club of Paros has come to an end for the season.  I had a wonderful time with them all and they printed some good work, some of which can be seen this upcoming weekend here in Paroikia.  I am very excited to see what it all looks like matted, framed and behind glass (ok..plastic).

–After years of waiting, the collection of my mother’s newspaper articles from the little local weekly has finally been collected and made into a book.  I dare to say ‘published’ since there is no ISBN number and it is not for sale.  I have given copies away to family and friends. I am so happy this has come about.  I began the process a few years before she died and I feel it is a fitting memorial for who she was, how she thought, what she believed, how she lived.

–I am hoping to embark upon another artistic path this summer.  That’s all I can and will say about it now.  If I follow through I’ll be sure to share.

–I go through eating phases. For instance, last winter I was eating a larger ratio of quesadillas than normal.  Sometimes for lunch and dinner.  These days it is caesar salads.  I have been making my own caesar salad dressing and have confirmed that this wonderfully garlicky, tangy aoili tastes good on just about anything–except fruit.  This may seem banal, but it is the little joys in life, isn’t it? I do not make them the way the Greeks make them.  For them it is a meal with chicken, corn, bacon…yummy, but I am more of a purest.  I even skip the croutons.  Just the romaine lettuce and the dressing.  Funnily enough, both the quesadilla and the caesar salad are from Mexico.  Hmmmm…

–I am convinced that TFitWH is yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize.  He’ll try to take credit for anything good that happens in Asia or the Middle East.  He’s a corrupt shark and we all know it.  He was corrupt long before he became TFitWH.  What does this say about the moral and ethical state of America?  I know that there is outrage, political movements, protests…and that is healthy and right and I support them all.  But what about the rest?  Have the citizens been gorging themselves so long on bread and circuses that they’ve become complacent cattle led by their collective noses?  I know many who are not.  This gives me hope.

I guess that’s it for now.

–JDCM

 

 

 

A painterly photographic ancestry…

Before digital, before silver (what we know as ‘silver gelatin’) there were ‘alternative processes.’  I find this amusing, since at the time (1840s to the mid-187os) there were no other alternatives. It is only in the digital age that we can approach photography this way.  There were several different types of processes.  You can look them up yourself.  I have chosen gum bichromate printing as my first step into this rich and varied past.

Gum bichromate printing entails mixing a potassium dichromate solution with gum arabic and watercolour pigment.  I have chosen black.   Potassium Dichromate is one of the more dangerous chemicals on the planet.  Needless to say I wear nitrile gloves, a Level 2 filter mask and safety glasses when I handle it.  I am using 4×5 negatives and I hope soon to be printing some larger digital negatives so I can make larger prints.

I made the first test strip a week or so ago.  The result is on the left.  Intervals are 15″, 30″, 45″ and 1 minute exposures under full daylight.

The problem was not the emulsion, or the paper, but me.  I wasn’t patient.  I had not allowed the paper to dry fully between each preparation stage (sizing, gesso, emulsion).  This resulted in flaking emulsion.  A common error and easily rectified.

Three days ago I began the process again.  Using 300 gsm Canson water-colour paper, I sized (soaked) this in 60C water for 30 minutes and left it to hang for 24 hours.  The next step was to make sure my gesso mix was as thin as milk, which is much thinner than one thinks.  The gesso needs to be thin so it can soak into the paper, not create a layer on top, as per a painter’s canvas.  I applied the gesso in the late afternoon and left it to dry under an exhaust fan for several hours.  Two nights ago, around 22:00hrs following the weekly Photo Club meeting, I went back into the darkroom and applied the emulsion coat after the gesso had completely dried.  I used 5ml of potassium dichromate solution to 8ml of gum arabic.  For colour I added about .5 gram of black water-colour paint (Van Gogh).  I mixed this well using a natural bristle brush and painted it onto the paper using a foam paintbrush.

Yesterday morning, after letting the emulsion-coated paper dry overnight under the exhaust fan, with a dehumidifier running and a small heater maintaining 20-21C, my paper was dry to the touch.

I used the same VW Bug 4×5 negative.  The first test strip was better.  Once again, 15″ intervals up to 1’15” under full sun at 10:00.  The result was a huge improvement in detail and resolution, although clearly not enough time.  I was on the right track.

Test strip at 15″ intervals up to 1’15”

I decided to increase the exposure time for the first proof to 1’45”.  After developing the print in three consecutive trays of 20C water for 20 minutes, this is what emerged.

1’45”, full sunlight 10:20, March 8, 2018, Paros.

Much improved!  The next time I print (tomorrow), I will expose the whole piece for the 1’45”, then burn in the top 30% for an additional 30″-45″ so the top of the hillside and the sky behind the car achieve some tone.

–JDCM

Birthday, friends, good food, Lent and photography…

I haven’t written much about photography lately.  Or if I have it has been fleeting.  I am not one to talk about my work a lot, especially work that I have not done or that may in process.  I learned from my father that this is a good way to “talk it out” and I end up not doing it.  This has been my experience.  But I’ll mention some goings-on.

My winter’s work with the Photografiki Omada Parou has been a real joy.  The 20 or so people that signed up in the fall for the 35mm analog project have all been enthusiastic, fun to work with and, without exception, have produced interesting and striking work.  Today I am meeting with one of them to develop their film.  Tomorrow I hand the camera over to another, and Thursday I work in the darkroom printing with a third.    I think I will try to print on Friday too.  This project has kept me busy through the winter but it has been much more.  I have come to know many locals who I had never met, and they I.  During the weekly club meetings (Wednesday, 19:30hrs) I get to hear at least two hours of solid Greek from numerous voices which has helped my Greek language studies which I work on every Friday afternoon with my teacher Stella.  So all around it has been a “win-win” situation.  They do all the work, by the way.  I am just a guide.

My own work?  This week I hope to submit a new portfolio of digital abstract work to the Antiparos International Photography Exhibition for the upcoming summer 2018 show.  This work is finished  so I can talk about the fantasy digital land-sea scapes I have found and photographed.  Very little Photoshopping, as you may guess.  Just a slight curve here or there for contrast and to keep it WYSIWYG.  Cross my fingers…I am also embarking on some alternative work which will open up some new technical and artistic avenues.  I won’t say much more except that if the winter time is for the darkroom, this project will be perfect for the summer and all of our sun.

Oh yes…the anniversary of my 53rd trip around the sun was a few days ago so I celebrated yesterday with some friends at a local taverna–that is was also ‘Katheri Deutera’, or Clean Monday, informed the menu.  The remains of the meal can be seen below.  Lent begins today.  I would like to keep the Lenten diet as much as possible for the next 40 days.  It is a healthy choice here in Greece.  Of course, this ‘diet’ predates any religious function as it was a result of the end of the winter, when the stored foods from the autumn harvest had run low (or out) and the agricultural population waited for the new crops of spring.  So it will be lots of veggies for me, seafood without backbones, no cheese, no meat…thank the gods the Greeks are sensible enough to still allow olives and olive oil…

The collection of my mother’s newspaper articles is all but done.  Last week I submitted the digital files to a printing company in Athens and the book goes to press this week.  Finally!  It has been years since I began this project, a memorial to my mother and a gift to family and friends.  And I like this book company.  They do nice work.  I may put together a book of my own.  A small collection of my photographs.  We’ll see…let’s not talk about it yet.

So thats it for February.  Right now there is a lovely, gentle, soaking rain blanketing the island.  It is supposed to rain all day.  Really great.  I am tired of winter.  I want spring, warmth and green things to see and eat.  I need to swim in the sea and shed some of the layers I have had to wear all winter to stay warm and dry.  The world moves ahead into the light and the alchemy I practice draws its magic from an ancient source.

clams, mussels, bean salad, pickles…

–JDCM

 

Another year…

I am 51 and a day today.  This past year has been one that is still hitting me in waves, endless ripples from countless stones tossed in my emotional pool.  I contemplate making a phone call and suddenly realize there is will be no one on the other end of the line.  I imagine a voice and the softness of a cheek…and they are gone.  My mother will no longer look up from the New York Times Sunday crossword, over her glasses, and announce, “Well, that’s done!”  My father will no longer smack his lips after taking a sip of something tasty and raise his glass.  He was always one for toasts.  “Hear, hear,” she would chorus during better times.

Polly and Hilary in Provincetown, 1970. photo by Sara Ballard

Polly and Hilary in Provincetown, 1970.

I was thinking the other day that I have never been the “cool” guy.  Never hip, never dressed in the latest fashion…I was feeling down that day.  Then I realized I didn’t  care.  When I was younger, maybe, but then again I was envious of those around me who had better or more or newer or sexier (or so I believed)…not much weight there.  Pretty superficial stuff.  I hope they are happy in their respective lives.

So these days I do what I am wanting to do and this makes me happy.  I am not treading on the lives of others and I am moving forward and slightly uphill.  I am honouring my mother and my father in my life and activities.  I am finally getting around to reading a short biography of St. Augustine given to me by my sister a few years ago.  I am reading some Epicurus.  I am back to building fine scale WW 1 aircraft which give me great joy and satisfaction, not just in their execution but in the research involved.  I am in training for a very tough mountain bike race being held here March 6th.  I have a photo shoot coming up next week which I have been looking forward to for months.  It will be several hours of intense work, and then that stage will be done.  Then I develop the film.  Then I choose what to print, etc…intervals and stages, tension and release.  One day I am 50, and then the next day…

Biking here on Paros is a good metaphor for my life.  The stress of the uphill slogs are rewarded by not only the accomplishment but also the release of the inevitable downhill run, slaloming around rocks and through washed out sections of red dirt roads.  Then it is uphill again.

It all feels pretty cool to me.

–JDCM

January on Paros…

The header image is from New York, a view of the family property in Ancramdale.  It is a winter scene.  Looks pretty cold and all but monochromatic.  That where I had been since December 1st, 2015.  Much has happened since then.  You all know that.  Life and death.  Pretty important.

I have been back in Greece since January 22 and today is February 1, 2016!  Kalo Mina everyone!  I am back on Paros and the weather has been lovely–mid-teens Celsius with light breezy winds.  It was pretty cold when I arrived.  It will get cold again, I think.  I am a fortunate man.

A view in Marathi, Paros, February 1, 2016

     A view in Marathi, Paros, February 1, 2016

It is so quiet here, so perfect.  In a couple of weeks I will begin a new photo project and I am looking forward to that.  There is also a mountain bike race on March 6th for which I am training.  After two months out of the saddle I need some time to get fit, but hey, it’s like riding a bike, right?  Ha!

One would think that I have some great wisdom to impart, but really I don’t.  I guess I’ll have to paraphrase my friend Jac who reminds us all to follow your heart, do your exercises, and eat your peas…or whatever.  The food is relative.

–JDCM

 

 

 

Just an update…

I have always loved the change of seasons.  Whether in the Hudson Valley where I grew up or the small island in the Aegean Sea where I now live.  I welcome each new season with joy and relief, only to say good riddance three months later after weariness sets in.  This autumn is no different and there are many changes to go along with the weather.  Clocks have been set back.  Tea time seems more meaningful as darkness falls.

I have been living in an apartment full of boxes for the past two months.  All of my books, shelving, camera gear, odds and ends…have been packed up and ready to be moved.  At first it was an exciting feeling, to come home to this pyramid of brown cardboard.  It has grown stale as the day approaches when I can finally begin to move from one side of town to the other.  As one friend remarked last night, moving house is inspiring and makes one reevaluate routines.  Like the change of seasons, this move will give me a new perspective.  I need it.

My small photo show was, on many levels, a superb success.  Many people came to the opening and I was struck by the wide variety of people I know here on Paros: people involved in the arts, those I know through the local biking community, others I have come to know over the years, students from a local art school…people who would ordinarily not mix.  They crammed into the space provided by a small Italian restaurant and had a good time.  I guess that was the point, really, to have a small gathering on a night in mid-October when there was ordinarily little to do.  Many compliments, many questions…alas, not a single sale so I am stuck with 22 framed and matted photos.  So I will choose one to put up in my new apartment.  There is a part of me that wants to just burn the rest.  But what to do with the frames and glass?  Eventually I will get around to scanning the photos so people can see them online, which suddenly feels like cheating.  Now I don’t want to do that.  If you missed the show, you missed it.  Is that so selfish?

I wasn’t asking a huge amount for these photos.  They were priced inexpensively.  If I had sold five I would have broken even on the costs.  I think many people have no idea of the work that goes into a single image.  Even had these been digital images, the work would have been substantial.  They are not, of course, so we are talking days of labor to get the picture right and that is before matting, framing, the overall cost for the exhibit opening…I guess I am taking page from Robert Fripp’s advice to artists–work for free–an expensive venture.

My list for today is as long as my arm and I must get it all done.

–JDCM

 

 

The Dancing Bear of Change…

It has been a month since my last post and, like a friend wrote so well, it is not because nothing has happened, but rather because so much has occurred that is tough to sort it all out.  I’ll try.

I have finally delivered my new portfolio to the framers. I am only a few days off schedule, and I am alright with that.  There are 24 pieces of assorted images, things that caught my eye.  In fact I am considering of naming the portfolio just that–“Caught My Eye.”  It feels very good to have this off my desk.  Now I am thinking of what is next…

Summer is beginning here on Paros and the tourists and weekenders are ambling off of the ferries in larger numbers, with backpacks and rollies, hats and sunblock.  The roads are more busy with cars and other vehicles so when I bike I must be extra cautious, especially in Paroikia or any of the other towns.  Those are the most dangerous places to ride a bicycle here.

The Circle of Paros bicycle race is this weekend and I will happily participate.  I have been riding more this winter and spring but not so much in the past few weeks.  The weather, combined with a serious head cold, kept me off the saddle for almost a fortnight and I was also out of town for a bit.  I am racing against myself, so I will keep it light and fun.

I have sold my high-end Canon gear and invested in a smart, small Fuji FinePix X-T1.  The images are sharp and since it is a mirror-less camera, it makes almost no noise when the shutter fires.  It has some gimmicky gizmos that I am not keen on, but I do have to use them.  It also has an array of Fuji film simulations that are pretty good too.  I find myself doing more with less.  I purchased it with the kit 18-55 mm lens.  I love that I can use my Voigtlander/Leica M lenses when attached to an adaptor.

Hazy Sifnos

Hazy Sifnos

Change seems to be all around me these days.  The days change, and with them the seasons.  Beginnings and endings are macrocosmic reflections of larger shifts.  The best I can do is embrace the dancing bear of change and revel in its sometimes disconcerting waltz.  I can try to lead, but only when the beast allows.  I can do my work, help out when I can, and not worry about the tune.  Like a young boy standing on the feet of an elder, I let my ursine partner carry me along…

–JDCM