Ok. SO the color is not totally being reproduced properly when I upload these files to Blogger. They are much lighter on the computer screen than what I am seeing here, please keep that in mind. I will be making some prints this week of these to show my mentor Lana next time we meet. This is the first run for the Albers inspired photographs. I am still working on the value scales and fabric dyeing. I have some amazing colors!!!! I added some images at the bottom of what to come…..

-fabric patchwork

-map of the world with prints on top….have to wait til it rains again to finish this piece

-more play on color, Albers style. 

Run, rake, color….Albers

Sorry for the delay on the posts. Lots of things going on in life and art! Raking leaves that were left unfinished from the fall, getting back into my running routine and eating lots of carrots! So I met with Lana, my mentor, last Monday and had a wonderful discussion with her all about color! In my most recent studies I have been looking at this decay or deterioration of color of the organic matter I am using and seeing if it might be possible to relate both the longevity of the color to the nutritional value of the food. I am biased, I eat organic and buy mainly from a farm stand around the corner but I think this evidence also reveals the truth. The difficulty I have right now is being able to re-create another test of another matter such as beets, kale, etc. because the growing season is so limited still right now but the good news is that summer is right around the corner!!

So if you don't know Josef Albers, now you do. I will be making studies of color from inspiration of his color theory work. Check out his work here: http://albersfoundation.org

These are some quick images for the night but I will be photographing tomorrow with lights for a better image and most likely doing some color work as well with film, exciting!!! The color is not exact but I will have a better digital image tomorrow. Promise. 

I will also be looking into making value scales based on what the naked eye can see for change within this color. I have produce to work with tomorrow for this idea. I will be sticking to the idea of the rainbow. Trying to represent the colors of the rainbow, a common color tool we all know, within the organic matter of its original state. I will also be continuing with the idea of the quilt and sewing and dyeing more fabrics to create another representation of the rainbow. Not much time to work this quarter of the semester so its going to be short of blogs and images but work is more upstairs (thinking and planning) process than the previous play work I had been doing. This is difficult for me to accept right now but I have faith the end product will be worth it. This journey has been grande so far and to think I have another whole year left still. Wow! One other task for this time period before my next meeting is to make a "map" of the world by one of the rain prints (or snow) I have been doing and then making the mono print on top of the print where that produce is most produced. Just an idea following the farmers almanac idea and wanted to pursue it.

Artists I will be looking at :
Bridget Riley
Albert Munsell
Josef Albers
Mary Reid Kelley
Mika Rottenberg

Goodnight! Its research time and its been a long Monday so far…..

Little play, write, and preparing today. Paper making round 2 tonight!!

Ok, here are some play images again I have been doing. I have been selecting the scan of the actual carrot and placing it over the paper mono print of that carrot. Thoughts? I would be interested in seeing this in other fruits and vegetables. I also made a diptych….if thats the proper word for this because I have never really made one before. Maybe its just a comparison. Take a look, paper mono print of carrot with real carrot at the same location on the carrot next to each other.

this one is a mono print and a scan

a scanned color swatch of that carrot approx a month after coating and scanned carrot

a different carrot with no color barely left on its color swatch after about a month…...

another overlay test of a different carrot

Writing tonight.

Its a paper writing night but I wanted to throw a couple images out there for you all to see the transformation of color etc. I have also been reading about color and it may be that this work will bring me into an idea of almost making a rainbow….out of original colors…..let that sit for a while.

This was my last great find… have a handful of them and I have been trying to overlay them to see what kind of image I can make from the real and the print along with the natural color. Here is a sample:

I forgot how difficult sewing is.

Here is some work I have been doing. Debating writing on the carrot linens but we will see. I am working on making a graph chart and possible a book of the carrots as well maybe this is something....I attempted to make paper with carrots and it was unsuccessful but I learned a lot of things! Don't worry I'll try it again! Trying to find a better binding agent that is not a toxic chemical an I am not interested in bleaching the papers either. Check these couple images out.

Problems with Blogger App

Just an FYI I have new posts but my blogger app apparently was not publishing correctly and I was unaware of it. Thee posts never got published in the past couple weeks…..boo to that. I am working on it now.

Thoughts....more to come tomorrow.

Alright here is the attempt at making my first legend. I have focused on some basic information like size,price, taste, tops, location and store purchased. Take a look: 

I would then put them into the prints.....which I think I should be make g larger coated papers for that. I have not taken notes on my prints again but I plan too. I think maybe to study my calligraphy more. :) 

I tried to look up facts about carrots this afternoon and I stumbled across what seems to be the carrot museum. Apparently there are a lot of people that are just as crazy about carrots as I am. I don't plan to stick to just carrots I just thought I needed some grounds to test a couple ideas before I go ahead and make series of them.  

I plan to work on the computer tomorrow so you may get another post of the progression of this work. I took on a little sickness so I am hoping to clear it out by the morning by taking it easy tonight. Couple ideas while researching and reading......

1. Could it all be from the same material to make the beautiful prints I was making prior. For instance. Can I make a piece of paper out of carrot remains or shreds from juicing it and then print a slice of carrot with its juices on the handmade papa we from its pulp! Wow! That's like no waste which coincides with my idea previously. 

2. Would it be possible to scan a slice of a tomato, make a sheet of paper from the tomato and not bleach it and then put a digital negative from the scan on the coated paper to then expose to the sun and get a more photographic print from the process. 

3. Depending which one I do I am highly intrigued by the book idea. 

Thursday is a big day. Making paper out of pulp. This will help guide me in a more clear direction and in a couple weeks I meet with my mentor again so it'll be nice to discuss it all. 

Thata it for now. 

Carrots Carrots Carrots

Ok. This week I have been obsessing over carrots and I don't know if I can really delve into the entirety of it all. Its nearly madness!

So I said I would do a study and boy did I. I went to eight different stores and got eight different bags of carrots. I kept prices, receipts, made notes, etc. I taste tested them all and I have notes to prove it. I also made three prints and one dipped fabric swatch. I cut strips of paper to make a print of the carrot itself cut in half, I scanned that half of the carrot as well which you will see both below. I also made two 7x7in square painted prints, one which I exposed to the recent snow but didn't get a good print so those were kind of a wash….. And the other I am saving to see about making something on, not sure what yet. I also made a smaller swatch for color. I plan on scanning these and doing something crafty in Photoshop possibly with RGB color. Not sure yet. I also dipped a 6x6in square piece of cotton into the juice for each carrot. WOW! Thats a lot of each one!

Things I am working on:

Making patchwork with the fabric. Maybe exposing it to the sun and documenting the fading colors through photographs? Not sure. Each one is labeled and have notes to coincide with them.

Color- I got cooks on color and I need to do my research. I will be working on that next week as I get ready to write my second paper. Time flies and I will be playing with the color swatches I made for each carrot.

Prints- scanned both the actual carrot on the scanner bed and made a print of that halved carrot on its own juice. Going to compare the two.

Prints- i want to make prints of the scanned carrots in their insides and see what I can get out of them

Graphs- with one of the squares I want to make a graph of information about that carrot. I thought about making books with these graphs on certain produce like beets, carrots, kale etc. They all have a different color and a print on the front and then give factual evidence and personal about the taste, quality, price etc. on that produce.

Studies- I am also studying the carrots I printed and their death…i guess….that sounds creepy.

Look at the pictures below. I apologize for the short and brief post but I have work to do. Other ideas I was pursuing were printing on digital snow prints to kind of create a color system of fruits like the farmers almanac……not sure if that is going anywhere but still playing. I think I gave up on the dish printing. Not having any success there at all. Its very frustrating. I also tried some synthetic material and that was not very successful either unless I can come up with a way to extract the color easier from the material, we'll see. I also have friends coming over and am going to be making paper out of the pulp I saved from the carrots….why because its on my list but not sure where it will take me.


I also made a placemat! Wow, haven't sewn in years!!

take a look, more to come soon…….
nothing here is color corrected yet. You will have to wait for that.

Dont know if I will get to making a full blog post tonight because I am working hard. A couple things that I am looking to accomplish this week:

Nine different bags of carrots, different prices, companies, etc. all carrots. I will be dipping fabric in all the juiced kinds of carrots to see the difference in color. I will also be making two swatches of each carrot one to write notes on and one to make snow prints possibly with. I will also be making one larger print to make a graph on and documenting taste, texture, smell, etc. I will also attempt to make a print of the carrot on its juice.

I will hopefully also get to juicing beets, cabbage, chard and kale tonight to prepare for possible snow and rain......

I will also hope to sew together two placemats tomorrow and also making grids from the color and scans onto the computer.

Along with this I am still documenting all my waste, I think I will try to put together a grid image of all the images I have wasted during this semester. I also will photograph my fridge and try to do this maybe once a week? Once a day? I am not sure......as well as taking note of all the jars and food I am observing still.


I got two books on color and will be poking around in them this weekend. I also will be cooking some food to lay on the plates that I coated last week.

Lots to do....no time to do it. Cross those fingers that I will get a snow day tomorrow.........

At work again..

Sooooo I did a grocery store stop today after work.I arrived at the store tired and ready for a nap. It was 5:02pm when I entered and retrieved my cart. I felt awkward knowing I was entering the store attempting to make a study of it and the people around. After reading the books Waste and American Wasteland I am becoming more and more repulsed by the idea of contributing to this dilemma by shopping at the supermarket. I find myself more and more disgusted thinking I have the ability to purchase all these items and some I should have never been allowed to taste because of my location. I should not know what a banana tastes like, don't get me wrong they are my favorite and I eat about 2 a day but this never would of been exposed to them a hundred years ago. I am fascinated but appalled by what has happened to our food of today and I can not possibly think about how much we throw out. It makes me nauseous.

Carrying on my notes go something like this....
 It was clam and quiet at the store, not overly crowded. My goal by coming to the store was to pick up produce that doesn't look appealing to others. I wanted to see what it would be like to make a meal out of material that seems to not be picked and some of that decision came from the idea of waste. I was concerned that if I didn't pick it that someone else wouldn't pick it and it would have a higher chance of being thrown into the dumpster and I couldn't stand that thought. So I picked this tomato.

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I slowly sterred away from the original idea of the ugly foods because I became simply....overwhelmed with it all and started to shut down. Its a complicated process grocery shopping for myself and for work. Weird. I found myself touching food to decided whether it was good enough to take and as I read from the books that makes the fruit bruise and become unmarketable to others easier...so I tried to be more aware of that. Wow, my life is changing!! As I was walking around I heard two girls in the bakery talking to one another and girl #1 says "...and he was like what do you want to eat tonight? I said just pick up a frozen pizza! He said, you consider pizza dinner? She replied, of course! his response...'i love you'" the other girl just laughed and said that is great. I thought.....you dont even make your own pizza and you buy a frozen one? Taking nearly five minutes of prep time to half an hour of cook time and almost not mess to clean. Easy! But what a taste. I consider pizza dinner but not a frozen one! What a difference between her and I. I continued through the store and the words kept running through my head, who buys this stuff? How does it all get consumed before the next batch comes in? Impossible! I saw a woman come in and get one item from the produce section and walk out. I saw mold on a container of organic tomatoes. I wondered if I go back by the due date of the baby carrots that seemed to be stacked a mile high on March 25 if they will all be there or a new selection would replace them? I mean is it possible that many people would buy those carrots?

I started to loose myself. I was asking too many questions and feeling an overwhelming amount of guilt almost being in the store. I almost became embarrassed when I was looking through the canned and frozen aisles, I dont want people to think I eat this stuff! So I lost track of myself and I left. There were just simply TOO MANY CHOICES!!!!

I experimented when I got home.

synthetic vs. organic?
organic would be anything made from the earth regardless of gmo or pesticides
synthetic would be packaged materials like Doritos and other man made items.
would I experiment with just these two ideas almost like a battle between the outside of the store and in the inside. You know what they say everything you need is on the perimeter of the store, not in the aisles.

Should I start photographing my fridge? I have started to photograph the produce or "extras" i am throwing away now. And I find myself way more cautious of it. But does it go deeper then that. Do I start to photograph other people and their fridge and specify their family size etc.....

here are some images of "trash" or waste.

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This is the pizza I made from all the scanned items. Without hardly any waste. 

These are scans my mentor and I spoke about. I placed them on the scanner bed and these were very quick selections but trying to see if you can tell the difference between an organic raised item compared to one that might have chemicals and gmos to grow.

Zucchini organic:

Zucchini :

Orange:

Orange Organic:

Tomato:

Tomato Organic:

Experiments my mentor and I also spoke of were to see if I could fix the image with some kind of sealant. I used matte medium on this one and you can see it dragged the color around in the paint. Maybe this is something I experiment with more but it will not fix the item needed without smudging it. 

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This one is of a coated print with rubber cement and what happened when I took the cement off. Nothing was damaged so it might be worth me playing with these printing to create a more interesting background. The thought is to make a "snow drawing" on the back or in the negative space of one of the fruit prints I have been doing. We shall see.... I might be out of luck with snow for a while. 

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I also made some large prints of the snow drawings the other day and I will be hanging them up in my house and thinking of what they mean or how they relate. Not sure.... maybe the fruit prints become stars in the whole constellation but is that too literal? Haha. 

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