First Graders Respond to the Christine and Terry

This Tuesday Terry and I were invited to speak to Nancye Hesaltine's 1st grade class about our project. She began by asking them "what do you see" and we were immediately bombarded by talk of tire tracks, rocks, garage doors, bushes, weeds, antenna, and a fierce debate between whether or not the building on the left was made with rocks or bricks- an interesting response to flattened photographic space!

Nancye sent along these images of small watercolors the kids are making that will be assembled on the floor into a larger grid. I think they completely relate and can't wait to talk to the Third Graders.

Bench

This is the last piece of the collaboration for those of you following along.  I adore the composition on this one. Since we were shooting against an approaching storm the sky is far more grey than blue- a happy accident if you ask me since it makes the pinks in the bench pop out against the green of the landscape.

This piece keeps growing on me,  the wonky slats on the bench were a pain to work with when I was weaving but the picture just feels like a little bit of colorful fresh air like the knit graffiti that's been hitting the streets for the last decade and my neighborhood for the last year or so.

big print!

2' x 3'!!! It's absolutely incredible! That's my sketchbook next to it for scale. At this scale you can see a little blue post it against the silver tarp that escaped the wall during the shoot-again- exactly the same kind of move I'd make while drawing.

10b/Green Building

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Oh do I ever love the composition on this one. The two point perspective is so dramatic and the yellow flowers are just a little bit off center. This one is full of angles and big shapes and I feel like I build up drawings in much the same way.

Our super assistant Emma mentioned how much she likes all the little notes that have fallen down on the left side. I do too, it keeps the piece from being too perfect and brings movement into the expanse that otherwise feels almost diorama like.

Terry and I decided that for the exception of Niagara Falls each of the pieces would just use their locations as their title. This is the only one that I feel a little goofy about. I like saying 10b but it feels a little meaningless and random especially since we covered up the sign that said 10b with little yellow office-style post its. There's something to be said for keeping the title that we'd use in our conversations. Neither of us are big fans of titling.

Tractor Building

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This piece really benefits from being viewed at a larger size. Seriously- click to see it bigger and then continue reading.

When I've been telling people about the results of this project I often find myself talking about Terry's compositing technique and how the image therefore contains far more information than one could see with just your eyes. This one does this both with  the level of detail one can see within the image and in the composition. The location is so busy you simply can't take all this in at once when you're on site.  We'll be printing this one at 2" x 3" I can't wait to see that. There's just so much information in this image I think that'll be spectacular.

I'm really happy with how the post-its worked to create the image, the vertical surface seems key for making this kind of work. Terry was particularly interested in how the floral pattern made out of little squares references how digital images are built- that they too are made from little pixels the handmade meets the digital (meets STAPLES).

Niagara Falls

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YES!  As I told the group yesterday in the presentation I feel very excited about this piece. I think it's the one that resonates with the rest of my work most clearly.  The use of party supplies, the transformation of them into a faux-natural form, the way the man-made elements around the streamers mimic the rocks and river of a real waterfall.   

This image also really showcases the range Terry was able to capture with the image. When you view the print from a distance you see the colored streamers right away, up close it's clear they're covered by another layer of silver. So far we've only printed it at about 8" x 10". I'd love to see it at least double since the image has such a play between the graphic composition and the detail and texture of the stone, Mylar, and foliage.

The Hill

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Considering  how I felt after the shoot I was really surprised at this image. The plaid is even more unreadable than I expected but I love the way the light dapples across the image and how that cloud just seems to pose for us between the trees!

The angle on this hill was much more difficult to work with than we predicted so the image ends up acting as an abstraction rather than a readable pattern, again a fairly lovely image but more decorative than true to it's intentions.