PHOTOGRAPHS WITHOUT CAMERAS:
THE CYANOTYPE PROCESS
I use a creative process that combines my interest in both two- and three-dimensional art, the cyanotype process. My hope is that the final cyanotype prints create a conflation of dimensional perception, paradoxically suggesting further dimensions.
The majority of these art pieces are cyanotypes made from my ceramic sculptures. The cyanotype process allows me to explore both form and shadow captured in a two-dimensional image. This process is a photographic one but does not use a camera, rather it uses direct sunlight to expose fabric saturated with iron salts. These non-toxic chemicals are sensitive to sunlight. After a few minutes in the sun, with the sculpture placed on top, an image is created. This image is then made permanent by rinsing the fabric with water to remove the chemicals. My process involves first working in three dimensions with clay or concrete patterned blocks (see FULL MOON FRAGMENTS below for further explanation) to create an object. As I do this I predict how the shadows from the sun will fall on the fabric, and sculpt or compose accordingly. Second, I work in two dimensions to create the cyanotype print.
WAX RESIST PROCESS
Additionally, I make wax resists from my ceramic sculptures and from pre-cast concrete blocks and fragments (see FULL MOON FRAGMENTS below for further explanation) that inspire me. These wax resists are made by placing paper over the ceramic or concrete object and rubbing white wax in the desired areas for the composition. Next a wash of ink is applied that saturates all remaining non-waxed areas. The cyanotype process is most intriguing to me for exploring shadows. The wax resist process is most notable for exploring texture. However, there is a common ground within both processes that fascinates me and unifies the works. Both have a stage at which you cannot fully see how the image is made — the developing of the cyanotype in the sun and the rubbing of white wax on white paper — until later when water in the cyanotype process, or similarly, an ink wash in the wax resist process, is applied and brings the image to light.
FULL MOON FRAGMENTS
I am an artist who collects patterned concrete building blocks. In the construction, gardening and landscaping trades, they are referred to as “solar screen-blocks.” My fascination with these blocks, in their myriad array of different patterns, leads me to old houses most often inhabited by young people. Thus far in my searching, these people hold little appreciation for these abstracted signifiers of modern life. They were popular in the 50’s and 70’s, but now they give them to me willingly, seeing these fences, parapets and garden trellises as antiquated eyesores, concrete dinosaurs. I am thankful these people don’t want them, because to me they are so much more.
Tonight, I am unloading a score of wheel-within-a-square shaped blocks, some intact, some broken. As I stand in the truck bed, I reach for two at a time, one in each hand. At first, it is easy, my motions uniform, like the blocks themselves. Then as I reach for the broken pieces, I begin to slow down, reaching out for one at a time. I find myself holding up these fragments to the moonlight to highlight their silhouettes.
My father and I begin to remark on how these fragments of concrete rubble resemble glyphs, or runes or Chinese characters.
My father and I are holding up concrete rubble to the moonlight, speaking in sentence fragments, an Esperanto the moon chose to teach us.
My father, a language teacher, is now teaching again; his son is a teacher now as well; and tonight both of us are pupils again beneath the full moon.
These silhouetted fragments resembling glyphs, runes and Chinese characters, remind me of when my father taught me my first Chinese character — man, and my second — tree. And now, I realize the irony of the moon, not the sun, illuminating these so-called “solar screen-blocks.” Perhaps these blocks that screen out the sun by day can only show their true nature, become truly fluent, conversant and at ease, by moonlight.
How would the Mayans interpret this? Or believers in Shinto? Or the Kumeyaay? As a third generation San Diego native, am I privileged to something sacred now, here? Are spirits speaking through this rubble?
These ‘stones’ are rough, their voices gravelly, their texture abrasive.
These stones are speaking the ineffable, universal language of Luna.
Elijah Rubottom
September, 2007