Random Stuff

...........Just thought I would throw some images at you from the last few months with short explanations as to what they are. There is a minimum of photoshop manipulation in most of these. Some are right out of Lightroom. Things have been very disjointed this year and this imagery seems to reflect that, I guess. None of this material is for a client; shooting for myself here. If you want to see more on any of these sets please let me know.   pk

Bouldering in Acadia National Park, over, under, around and in between.
The grass up towards the top of the photo gives you a sense of scale.

I have been working on repairing my buildings outside.
One evening these two moths settled in very nicely right where I was doing some carpentry.
Not very shy!

While we were staying at some friends apartment in midtown New York,
I found this view around the corner from their balcony.
Holding the camera around the corner against the wall, I managed to get this shot.
This seemed to be a very New York scene with the Empire State and such a typical roofscape.

Here I was shooting outdoors with plants sandwiched between two sheets of plastic to flatten them. 

This allowed me to keep everything in focus.

There are some reflections off the plastic, but I found it worked well enough. 

These were shot as collage material.

Kristin is the model, Tracey helped with this shoot. Lots of props, and Dianne's lace.

The antlers (projected slide) were borrowed from a neighbor hunter.
Things finally started to get interesting many hours into a marathon shoot.

When the kids were small we made some blocks for them (for me?).

I got them out, cleaned them up, and did some building on a draped black cloth. 

They were lit by all the flashlights I could find in the house and studio.

Part of the Process

   This week I have returned to painting. It feels good. It's been a while. These images are tighter than usual. They are inspired by a small gem of an oil painting at the Wadsworth Athenium in Hartford. Not directly from Klee but indirectly I am sure.My image making process requires fresh painted backgrounds just as it requires new photographs from my travels. Inspiration comes and we shift gears.
In this blog, I am focusing on a part of the picture making process that I have not shown before, starting with the collage techniques I have been using since long before digital possibilities opened up. It begins with the unforgiving world of moving real paint around and ends up with the infinitely adjustable world of photoshop.Over the years, I’ve accumulated a vast library of these background paintings, as I call them. They become textural layers or stand alone sections within the finished digital collages. This library of painted imagery goes way back. It started in 2000, after returning from a trip to Japan, making digital collages from photos taken while traveling. These were made with an early Mac laptop and Fuji Pro digital camera. Seems like ancient history.

Back from my travels!

roadside attraction

not some shitty little piece of cement block and plastic

the absence of that for sure

holy light, open space

a reason to pull over

a reason to turn around and go back

taking a side road solely because the weather looks interesting in that direction

working the eternal fence line into the composition

wires too, why not?

now I can climb up on top of my van for a better perspective

hold on as the semi's roll by

always a herd of them in convoy

dodging rumble lines on the shoulder

pulling a "U" on the highway

I'm not a dawn photographer

get going late

smoke from fires burning thousands of acres has flattened the midday light

almost no contrast

just some slight variations in the mid tone range

good images in there somewhere

when I cross a just harvested field for a different view 

not roadside

I notice that there is no soil beneath the wheat stalks

just rocks and sand

later some huge woman tells me that this is considered desert

no shit! no literally. That's what makes soil

tilling desert, are we insane?

what I like is interesting weather

winds that blow my van all over the road

they bring in storm cells spreading far across the prairie

watching the sky

out of a road weary stupor

I'm brought back to life by her quickly changed mood

another still, silver, washed out day 

my god! it's Sunday

I'll sleep in till 8:30

campsites now bare

everyone else is on the road

edging towards tourist infected areas today

out of the car 

take a picture

back into the car

how am I different?

reassured, my camera is bigger

Corporate Art: Baystate Hospital's New Wing- Hospital of the Future

The daffodils are blooming here and some projects are finalizing while other are starting...I have been working over the last year on a project for Baystate Medical Center's new wing in Springfield MA. and it's finally coming towards completion! This project has been unique for me as many of my source images for my collages have been converted onto etched glass to create more of a decorative feeling within the architecture of the hospital. I had the pleasure of not only working with Deb Avery and Carla Santia, the design team for Baystate but also with artist Suzanne Tick and Raquel Barrios of Suzanne Tick Inc. who designed the glass panels. It was a project intended to transcend current thinking of what is appropriate art when renovating Health Facilities.Using locally derived nature imagery in new ways can be challenging as we did not want to use similar imagery of what has been used in other nearby hospitals. Here are a few source images for the glass panels before etching and then some of the installation shots after... Can you see some of the original photos in the etched glass?

Lamps

My last post featured some of the patterns I have been working on with my wife, Gayle Kabaker and my upcoming show at the Pushkin Gallery in Oct.

As we move into the realization phase of putting our texture and pattern show together we recognize that, like all things, we could only hope to assemble and make real, parts of our vision. However, we are enjoying how the backlighting of a lamp shade, whether it be 6 feet tall or 1 foot tall, greatly enriches the art. The soft warm glow of the smooth fabric we are printing on is very seductive. So we are making many lamps of all sizes and most of the show could turn out to be a very large marble walled room full of hanging lights. Right now I love this idea. Many lamps still to go...