Wish You Were Here, Year Seven, Weeks 1-18
The Wish You Were Here project started in 2014, and I am proud to say that I have never missed a single week in all these years! We are a group of women photographers from all around the globe. We each submit a photo a week that represents what is happening in our world. Some of our members stay rather close to home (me) and some of our members have no home and travel the world with their families, posting from a different country on the regular. The images are curated on our blog every Wednesday and arranged in such a way that each image has connections to the one above and below it. Now that the quarantine is keeping us all at home, the images seem even more connected. As we navigate this worldwide epidemic, I see many similarities but still so many differences as well. These are my…
The Peace Of The Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in meand I wake in the night at the least soundin fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,I go and lie down where the wood drakerests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild thingswho do not tax their lives with forethoughtof grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind starswaiting with their light. For a timeI rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ~Wendell Berry You can’t really tell, but these images are from five different trips to a couple of my favorite places in nature that are close to home and easy to get to. Times are certainly unsettling, strange, and unnerving. But trips to nature are healing balms to the soul. I try to get totally immersed in…
Light through the darkness, Phillips Mill Gallery opening
The Philips Mill Photography exhibit is open as of today. I entered this exhibit because I love Emmet Gowin and he was the judge. I was excited to think that he would even look at some of my images, so I entered. I was thrilled to be one of the award winners, it feels like one of the highest honors to know that one of the great living photographers has seen my work and liked it enough to grant my image an award. The images selected are so strong and beautiful, if you have time, please take a look! The exhibit has been moved entirely online due to the pandemic. The Phillips Mill Gallery is located in New Hope PA. Meadow and I were planning on going to the opening. We were really looking forward to this trip for two reasons, we would see my friend Jennifer (who was the…
Lockdown Poem from Ireland
Right now it seems like time is standing still. We are all waiting to see what will happen. For now, it all seems surreal and we can’t quite make out what we are seeing. We are trying to calm scared children, we are trying to calm ourselves. But during this time of uncertainty, during this pause, so much good is happening. We are taking the time to slow down in hopes of helping others not get sick, but we are also slowing down for the earth. We are working in unity with humanity and the earth and all of the animals. This pause is giving the earth a break from toxins. Cruise ships are not out in the ocean with their noise and environmental pollution, giving the ocean wildlife and plants time to heal. The sky is not full of planes, the roads are quiet with much less traffic, giving…
How To Make Cyanotypes, a step by step guide
People have been asking me how I make my cyanotypes, I know we are all cooped up for the next few weeks or the foreseeable future, and maybe you are looking for a new activity. Cyanotype is an alternative photographic process, you can read all about it on my past blog post here. Basically a cyanotype is a contract print exposed in the sun, instead of in a darkroom. The images in this post are mostly just utilitarian, to show the process, but you can see some of my other finished cyanotypes here, and you can see how much I love adding gold leaf to them these days! Step one is to mix Part A and Part B of the chemicals together in a bowl. The chemical mixture is then painted onto watercolor paper. This needs to be done in a light tight space. I use my basement to mix…
HumaNature film double exposures plus cyanotype plus gold leaf
Combining a few of my obsessions. HumanNature, double exposure film images, printed as cyanotypes and altered with gold leaf. What is creativity? Is everyone creative in their own way? Who is an artist? What is the thing that makes you an artist as opposed to a craftsperson or someone who is technically proficient? Who decides these things anyway? Lately, I have been thinking about the questions above. Many people tell me about TV shows they love and think I should watch. And many of them sound great, but who has time to watch TV? I posed this question at dinner and Chris said, “Well, remember last week when you made at least a million cyanotype prints? That is when you could be watching TV.” and he is right. What logical sense does it make to be an artist? There are famous people making a ton of money in every art…
Found Film
Photography work gets light for me in the winter. I am using some of my spare time to create a separate fine art website, while this site will focus only on client work. For now, they are still interconnected here. Part of the process has been for me to go through my immense image file library, including my film files. Some of the images I dismiss at the time are now images I love. The images below are some of the film images I never even moved from the archive to the finished folder. I never even gave them a second glance. And now I am finding that I love them! Here they are, in no particular order… I do have a new fine art photography series that will be created on film and inside. I am looking for some woman to come model for me, age, size, shape, color,…
Cyanotypes in preparation for my Sketchbook Project 2019-2020
I have participated in the Brooklyn Art Museum’s Sketchbook Project for six years now. Meadow participated in the first four years of sketchbooks, so she has four and I have six that you can check out if you visit the library! You can visit the library in Williamsburg any day, it is free and totally amazing! When you are there you can check out our past sketchbooks by asking for Phyllis Meredith or Meadow Rain. The place is seriously floor to ceiling with beautiful sketchbooks from all over the world! There are a few photos at the bottom of this post from drop off last year. I never tire of feathers, I wish we were still doing the Feathered Project! This year the base of my sketchbook will be made of the cyanotype images I have been working on for the past month or so. I plan to draw, paint…
Wish You Were Here year six 2019 wrap up
The Wish You Were Here project is a cooperative 52-week project involving woman photographers living and working all around the world. We are just ending our sixth consecutive year! We have been through so much together, we have seen babies born, people move from country to country, or state to state, we have experienced losses and gains together. I can say that I have made some truly great, and very real friends through this project. Social media can bring people together! This blog has my images from 2019, year 6, weeks 40-52. Links at the bottom for weeks 1-39. Week 40, Wish You Were Here, Paris Edition, Paris~~~ You can read about our exhibition in Paris here! Week 41, Half Century, Massachusetts Week 42, Autumnal, Massachusetts Week 43, The Halloween House and Cara, Connecticut Week 44, Nourish in Motion, Massachusetts Week 45, The Start of Cold Sundays, Massachusetts Week 46, Frozen, Massachusetts Week…
The Swan ~by Mary Oliver
“The Swan” Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air – An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies, Biting the air with its black beak? Did you hear it, fluting and whistling A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall Knifing down the black ledges? And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds – A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river? And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life?…