We’re living in historic times, no doubt, but history is made every day, isn’t it? Think about it. In war rooms, board rooms, living rooms & all the spaces between, every moment, every decision, big or small, travels with us as we propel through space and time.
Every moment, every experience, individual & collective, is spun together to become threads on the warp & weft of time weaving that tapestry we call history.
What if this dark time that we’re in now is being laid as a background for a brighter, bolder story? What if, when it passes, the darkness that we call Covid-19 – what if we can see that it wasn’t as devoid of light as it appeared?
What if there were tiny moments of beauty, and grace, and humor that were right there before our eyes there in the midst of the darkness? And what if the darkness really only served to emphasize the light? How important would it be then, to gather up those tiny, luminous threads and weave them into the tapestry so that the chronicle is complete?
The artists of World Cyanotype Day present to you…
“Something To Smile About”
A collection of beauty, grace & humor.
Enjoy.
Artist: Ikkan Saiki Title: “Daremo Shiranai(誰も知らない)” Description: Cotton Paper, Digital negative, Salt, Soapsuds
Contact: https://www.facebook.com/ikkan.saikie
Artist: Manuela Osorio
Title: "My Girl Smiles And The Sun Shines To Her"
Description: This piece is a collage. Is printed from a negative of portuguese tile, cut into pieces and glued to form another tile.
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Contact: https://www.facebook.com/blancheproject/
Artist: Jenifer Bryan Title: "Spring Baby"
Contact: http://www.lucybluestudio.com/
Artist: Clover Cruz
Title: "Spring is in the Air"
Location/Description: "I live in Shetland, the most northern part of the United Kingdom. I have always had a passion for photography. I have a passion for landscape photography and living in Shetland ticks all the boxes for wildlife and spectacular scenery. As well as my photography I love to go back to an alternative form of photography creating photograms using the Cyanotype process. I love making prints from the nature that surrounds us, flowers, and leaves, weeds, seaweed and nature all sourced in Shetland to produce beautiful blue prints. I mainly concentrate on the traditional cyanotype method but sometimes like to play with the wet cyanotype process also."
Contact: Facebook: https://shetlandinblue.co.uk/
Artist: Antonio de Almeida Title: "Make A Wish"
Description: Dandelion, Vegetal Negative, Handmade Classic Cyanotype
Location: Baldellou - Huesca - Spain
Contact: https://www.antoniodealmeida.art
Artist: Valerie Cargo
Title: “Dancing Dandelions, Flitting Fireflies”
Description: Spicy Cy. Wet into wet cyanotype with diluted vinegar, turmeric, rooibos tea, garam masala, table salt and Himalayan rock salt covered with scrunched plastic wrap then glass and left to cook in the sun until well done. Hahnemuhle Platinum Rag paper.
Location: Kincardine, Ontario. Canada
Artist: Jill Welham
Title: "Treescape"
Description: Wet cyanotype on Hahnemuhle Platinum Rag paper. Photogram using geranium leaves from my garden, soap suds and diluted white vinegar.
Location: United Kingdom
Artist: Dennis Humphrey
Title: Pacific Buttercup
Description: Wet cyanotype
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Artist: Heidi Knudsen
Title: “Wild Beauty”
Description: wet cyanotype photogram, double exposure
Location: Sacramento, California, USA
Contact: www.hknudsenphotography.com
Artist: IJBer/IJda Smits
Title: “Secret Observation or My Shadow Is A Peeper”
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Contact: https://www.ijber.nl FB: https://facebook.com/ijber
Artist: Joni Sternbach
Title: 01.01.05 #5
Description: In camera 5x7 negative and cyanotype from original; negative ©2001
Location: New York, USA
Contact: www.jonisternbach.com
Artist: Parvathi Kumar
Title: "Grace"
Description: This image was first shot digitally at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, CA in 2015 and the cyanotype was created in 2019 based on its digital negative.
Location: New Jersey, USA
Contact: www.ParvathiKumar.com
Artists: Victoria Cooper/Doug Spowart
Title: "After A Lunch Of Prawns"
Description: The print was made after a Christmas seafood lunch including prawns, on a warm summers day at the beach.
Location: Australia
Contact: https://wotwedid.com
Artist: J. M. Golding
Title: “Mandala 251 (We Celebrate The Magic of Spring)"
Description: This piece is cyanotype photogram on watercolor paper.
Contact: www.jmgolding.com
Artist: Karen Hillier
Title: “Pool”
Description: This cyanotype was made by drawing a negative on clear acetate. A pen nib dipped into India ink was used to draw the negative. The negative was contact printed onto a cotton handkerchief.
Location: Texas, USA
Contact: www.KarenHillier.com
Artist: Koji Tokura
Title: Phlox Subulata Sacoche
Description: A cyanotype print on a deerskin with a digital negative.
Location: Kashiwa, Japan
Artist: Rebecca Macfie
Title: "Demolition Site Flowers"
Description/Location: These flowers were enjoyed during lockdown at a demolition site in New Zealand.
Contact: macfie.co.nz
Artist: Kathleen Friedrich
Title: "Martha"
Description: I made this toned cyanotype from a recently discovered photograph of my grandmother, Martha, taken a couple of years before the flu pandemic of 1918…it made me smile to see her standing in this amazing field of flowers happily holding a huge bouquet of them for the camera. I wonder how she must have filled the house with them later.
Location: Ithaca, New York, USA
Contact: IG: @friedrich.kathleen
Artist: Ronald D. Butler
Title: "Girl's Night"
Description: This is a wetplate collodion image printed as an 8" x 10" cyanotype over platinum palladium on Arches Platine watercolor paper. The model is Cheryl Esposito. The mannequin is Carrata.
Location: New York, New York, USA
Artist: Sue Jeffries
Title: “Dancing In The Flowers"
Description: I found a child's vintage dress on eBay and the quality of the cotton was so beautiful and crisp I thought cyanotype decoration from the flowers from my garden might work. Oh and some chicken feathers! It was completed over a number of days, as each section was painted with the chemicals and had different flowers and leaves laid onto it.
Location: Hertfordshire, UK
Contact: Instagram: @suejeffriesart Twitter: Sue Jeffries Arts @sue_arts
Artist: Melissa Wilgis
Title: "Believing"
Description: In September of 2018, Hurricane Florence sat above my small coastal town and dumped nearly 30 inches of rain on us. Sadly, a good bit of that went into my darkroom and I wasn’t able to work there for close to eight months. Being in the darkroom is like therapy, so I had to find a substitute. Since I primarily make silver gelatin photograms, the obvious transition was to make cyanotype photograms. "Believing" was part of a series created while I was waiting for my darkroom to dry out after the hurricane.
Location: Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
Contact: www.melissawilgis@live.com
Artist: Suze Jans
Title: "Peas On Earth"
Description: Sweet Pea Leaves
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Contact: https://cantinhocaeiro.wixsite.com/
Artist: db Waltrip
Title: "Heart Song In The Key Of Blue"
Description/Location: This piece is a 22"X30" collage of cyanotype photograms made of organic materials found on location near the Encampment River at the Spirit West River Lodge in Wyoming, USA. Many friends collaborated on these pieces and I created the collage on watercolor paper when I returned to Florida. The river, the sunlight, the deep bond of friendship, all are represented in this piece.
Contact: https://kodachromegirl.blogspot.com IG: @db.kodachromegirl
Artist: Natalia Tcherniak
Title: "People Flower"
Description: Stamps made out of craft foam of people silhouettes, stamped sensitizing solution to make a flower, on Kozo Natural japanese washi paper, that made the solution flow like an inkwash. Words, constellations, people - all mixed and blooming.
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Contact: B
Artist: Marian S. McLellan
Title: Before The Banana
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Artist: Sheila Masson
Title: "Wings"
Description: Photogram on cartridge paper using pheasant feathers.
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Contact: www.sheilamasson.com
Artist: Margarita Skiadas
Title: "Blue Heart"
Description: Wet Cyanotype Process on Glass.
Location: Mobile, Alabama, USA
Artist: Kathy LaForce
Title: “Love Will Save Us”
Artist: Jo Howell
Title: "Birds"
Location: Sunderland, UK
Contact: https://maverickbeyond.com
Artist: Mary Thomas
Title: "Fishy Gingko"
Description: These are cyanotype prints on Gingko leaves that I collected last Autumn and dried. Gingko are a favourite of mine, they make lovely prints. I put two coats of cyanotype chemistry on and used an Escher digital negative. They were left to develop for about an hour then rinsed. I thought the image had washed away so I used a weak hydrogen peroxide solution and the print popped.
Contact: IG: @marytcyanolumen
Artist: Tom Dunne
Title: "Last Posts"
Description: Image toned in coffee.
Location: Kilmore, Wexford, Ireland
Artist: Gerardo Stübing
Title: “Natura Naturata”
Description: Classic cyanotype on Arches platine paper from 35 mm negative.
Location: Valencia, Spain
Contact: http://gerardostubing.com/
Artist: Lucretia Moroni
Title: "Macro Flower"
Description: Cyanotype printed on aluminum leaf.
Location: New York, USA
Artist: Melissa Nunez
Title: "Lake View in Isolation"
Description: This cyanotype piece was created as a series of postcards to send out to artist colleagues during COVID-19.
Contact: http://www.melnunez.com
Artist: Zachary Thompson
Title: “First Water”
Location: Omaha, Nebraska,USA
Artist: Mauricio Eduardo Contreras Esparza
Title: "Acueductoslp"
Description/Location: This blueprint is part of many photographs I took during my work as a photographer and assistant to a civil work called el realito in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. I made a small selection of some photos to print on letter-sized blueprints. The first ones I printed on different papers that I do not remember very well, but this blueprint is printed on Albanian paper. In truth, I was never curious to use it until one day it no longer had supports to emulsify so I decided to use it and this is the result, I keep experimenting with this and many papers since the cyanotype is so fun that you can print on almost everything or everything if you set your mind to it.
Artist: Paul Delpani
Ttle: "At The Pool"
Description: I am using cyanotypes as an artistic expression - especially with panoramas - for a long time already. Though having a lot of other projects I am always coming back to it for its uniqueness. My cyanotype work had been on exhibition for several times.
Location: Vienna, Austria
Contact: www.paul-delpani.com (under construction) www.facebook.com/PaulDelpaniArt
Artist: Walt Polley
Title: “Galveston Pleasure Pier”
Description/Location: The historic Galveston Island Pleasure Pier, midafternoon one cloudy day in Galveston, Texas - before COVID-19. Original image made with a Nikon digital SLR, hand tuned digital negative using Peter Mrhar's Easy Digital Negative system, printed using Epson P600 and standard inks onto Fixxon transparency medium, exposed using a home-brew UV light box, with traditional cyanotype solution applied to Canson XL Watercolor paper.
Artist: Meg Porter
Title: "She said I was a spade"
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Artist: Ariane CBrejnik
Title: "Show For Cats"
Description: Cyanotype on washi paper 30g.
Location: Ibiza, Spain
Contact: www.arianecantabrejnik.com
Artist: Raimond de Weerdt
Title: "Dog Patrol"
Description: My work is constructed out of historical images that carry the label CC0, which means that all copyright restrictions have been lifted. In my artistic practice, I combine and alter these images to create a tension between the forces of reason and un-reason. Within this process, I am exploring and testing the limits of explanation.
Location: Australia
Contact: www.artofblue.net