Weblog Entry - 04/15/2004: "MICA at Angelfalls"

During the past few Saturday afternoons lurking in the basement darkroom area at MICA, my alt-process class cohorts and I have been sharing some counter space with a senior student working on her thesis. It was a rather dangerous proposition for me, as the young lady was printing in palladium and platinum. I've been drawn to this process for months, trying to work up the nerve to plunk down the serious change for even the smallest kit. This was the first opportunity I'd had to observe the process itself. It's almost magic the way the image instantly appears when the developer rushes across the paper. The entire process is a little more involved than the simple methods I've worked with so far but doesn't appear to be out of reach, even for an alt-process newbie. Perhaps some greater care in measuring, mixing and coating due to the expense of the materials, but really not that much different than anything else in the alt-process world.

Last night I took a short break from the printing marathon to attend the opening of the MICA Photography Senior Thesis show at Angelfall Studios. Of course my first reaction was a beeline towards the previously mentioned palladium prints of Michelle Morin. They were tiny jewels of 4x5 prints on Bienfang paper, the translucency allowing the bright white of the backing mat board to shine through the highlights of the prints. Michelle put me on the hot seat by asking me to pick a favorite but I begged for mercy and was allowed to pick three instead of just one.

Across a short space from Michelle's luscious prints was a series by Jenifer Whitaker exploring the male figure in almost abstract shapes. They were quite different than the usual or classic figure work I've seen, clearly reaching the goal inher artist's satement, "searching for a way to portray a sense of vulnerability in the stereotypical masculine ideology."

Another exploration of the figure was Cory Donovan's distorted portrayals. Through use of the view camera's movements, more commonly used to correct distorted perspective, Cory added to the shape shifting elongation and contraction of the forms with a carefully selected focal plane. The shallow depth of field cutting through the image at odd angles brought small areas out in sharp focus against the mysterious blurs of the majority of the figure.

You know I had to be drawn to the work of Ann Diegelman, a series of cemetery scenes shot in IR. I didn't have a chance to speak with her about her work but I'm guessing they were done with Maco 820c IR film. The grain structure was just too fine to have come from Kodak's HIE and there were occasional motion blurs in some of the trees, most likely due to the long exposures needed by the slow Maco film.

There was much more to see at the show but for me, these three were the highlights. Well worth checking out if you're in the area and worth a trip if you're not.