Vernacular ambrotype

Came across this great ambrotype at the Science and Society Picture Library. It looks like they are having a picnic, perhaps.

JL

And a warm round of applause, please, for Tammie!

We would like to welcome Tammie Malarich, fellow collodiac and friend, to our ranks. As you may recall from Jenn's post on our brief history, Tammie has really been around since the beginning. We are pleased as punch to have her officially join us here and we think you will be too! We are positive her talent, wisdom, and sense of humour are sure to delight and you will look forward to all she posts. Welcome Tammie!

Warmly,
hf & JL

Tammie at Penland, Session 5, Summer 2008
Ruby Ambrotype, 3" x 4"

Defunct

Cover Image: Wet-plate Collodion Photogram on black glass
  Quarter Plate (4¼“ x 3¼“)

I thought I would take just a few moments to share a little about something I have been up to these past few weeks. I don't know how many of you know about Defunct Magazine, but it is a pretty cool online publication. In their own words:

Our far-flung contributors have interpreted “defunctness” in their own often idiosyncratic ways and have brought back the dead, salvaged the past, revealed their obsessions as writers do.  We hope you’ll enjoy their fine review/essays on defunctness, as we have, and that you’ll pass along the word of this new and unique literary journal to your friends. 

I first heard of Defunct Magazine back in January after Talk of Iowa, the local NPR station, had a story about it back on January 23rd. A friend of mine from the Center for the Book, who is also an extremely talented writer and is also on the editorial board at Defunct, encouraged me to contact the Art Director (who as it turns out, I also had a class with at the Center...) to inquire about submitting images to the magazine. To make what I could easily turn into a long story maybe just a little bit shorter, after some correspondence, I was oh-so-pleased to be invited to be their first featured artist. 


I have had a great time completing this "assignment", if you will, and am very honored to have had the opportunity to contribute to a publication that is all about "defunctness" - a way of life for me! I encourage you all to read the amazing essays (and check out my images while your at it!), not just in this issue, but in back issues as well as future ones. In fact, I think it's best if you just subscribe!


Defunctly,
hf

A Brief History

Once upon a time in Rochester, NY, two lives intersected at the Visual Studies Workshop. Jenn Libby and Heather Wetzel met as grad students and came to realize they were kindred spirits who shared a love for things old and well-crafted. Both artists preferred making things with their hands, in ways that some people thought were inefficient (why not use a filter in Photoshop to make it look old), aesthetically displeasing (why would you want a photograph with imperfections), or impractical (why use wet-plate when it is so labor intensive and messy). Despite the naysayers, they pursued antiquated processes in their artmaking endeavors and continue to do so.

In 2005, they created the laboratorium to promote these processes. They rented studio space at VSW, spruced it up, and started promoting ambrotype portraits. Their first customers were a group of students from the Photographic Preservation and Collection Management program at Ryerson University and George Eastman House. These were people who knew what an ambrotype was and recognized a rare opportunity to be immortalized on glass.

Heather built ingenious portable darkrooms and the labortorium became mobile. One of their initial traveling portrait endeavors was the first Artist Row at the Rochester Public Market. In 2007 they traveled to Whitesburg, Kentucky to participate in the annual Seedtime on the Cumberland festival. Ambrotypes proved to be a hit with the bluegrass crowd and they worked non-stop making portraits that day.

the laboratorium's biggest accomplishment during it's brief existence was Past is Present – an exhibition of work by 43 artists who employed historic photographic processes. It was on view in the Aaron Siskind Gallery at the Visual Studies Workshop in the fall of 2006. Friend and fellow collodiac, Tammie Malarich, designed a fabulous, hand-bound catalog for the exhibition which sold out.

So there you have it. A history in a nutshell of the laboratorium. Now let's move on.

-JL

Heather and Jenn at the 1st Annual Artist Row at the Rochester Public Market.

Postcard for the Past is Present Exhibit

Workshop Whirlwind

Jim Snitzer, Quarter Plate Ambrotype, Day Two

Allison Welch, Quarter Plate Ambrotype, Day Two

This past weekend, I taught a very small (one might even say semi-private) wet-plate collodion workshop. It was a fun filled, delightful two days with Jim Snitzer, University of Iowa School of Art & Art History faculty member, and Allison Welch, UI MFA photography student.  They both managed to make quite a few great plates in this whirlwind of a weekend, and my two dogs were both very happy to have company – especially company that so readily handed out the rubbin’s!

Happily,
hf (and Fergus & Frannie)

Fergus

Frannie

The Venus Series

Figure #7 from The Venus Series by Lindsey Beal
 Ruby Ambrotype, Quarter Plate (4¼“ x 3¼“)

Figure #17 from The Venus Series by Lindsey Beal
  Alumitype Photogram, 4¼“ x 7¼“

The Venus Series, Lindsey Beal’s MFA thesis show featuring ruby ambrotypes and alumitypes of handmade paper torsos, is on view now through the 26^th in The Print Space at Studio Arts in Iowa City. There is a closing reception on March 25^th from 6 until 8 pm.

I first met Lindsey nearly two years ago in Anne Marie Kennedy’s summer papermaking class at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. Since Lindsey is an MFA photography student, and my background is in photography, specifically historic photographic processes, we had some common interests to talk about in addition to papermaking. (We also had a copperplate photogravure class later that summer where our newfound friendship continued to develop.)

We continued to talk on a regular basis and Lindsey expressed an earnest interest in learning wet-plate collodion and other historic photo processes. Since these are not offered at the University of Iowa, she found a way to learn it on her own, which led her to work with me beginning in the summer of 2010. 

As it turns out, some of the work she did in that auspicious papermaking class – hand-made paper torsos - has proved to be the foundation for her thesis project. Lindsey’s dedicated and focused work in The Venus Series has been wonderful to behold. The wet-plate process can be difficult and frustrating to learn and yet Lindsey persevered with great enthusiasm, her positive attitude never wavering. She did not give up, as some students do, when those initial exposure times weren’t yielding the desired results, or her plates had “holes” where the developer didn’t flow properly. She kept working at it until she had excellent exposures and beautifully developed plates. I see her apply the same work ethic to all her projects - indeed this dedication is evident in all her work.

If you are in the area, I highly recommend you go check out Lindsey’s Venus Series  - and if you are not, check out her work here.

Respectfully,
hf

Artists & Alchemists

I came across this and thought it worthy of sharing. When I first started working with historic photographic processes about seven years ago, there really weren't that many people working in these antiquated ways. It is heartening to see the population of photographers employing old tactile chemical processes grow by leaps and bounds since then. Interest is evident not only by the growing ranks of artists practicing the black arts, but also by the numbers of documentaries produced about artists working in with said processes. Artists & Alchemists is one such feature and includes artists Sally Mann, Chuck Close, Adam Fuss, John Coffer, Mark Osterman, France Scully Osterman, Irving Pobboravsky, Mark Kessell, Jayne Hinds Bidaut, and Jerry Spagnoli. The trailer looks awesome and I am eagerly anticipating its release sometime in 2011.

Supportively,
hf

Resurrection...

"It's alive!"  Image from Frankensteinia

Well, we’re back! It’s been more than a few years since the laboratorium closed it’s proverbial doors due to geographical distance and other obligations, but our commitment to preserving and promoting the photographic processes of yesteryear has never wavered. Even though Jenn and I are now 800 miles apart and resurrecting the lab as it was before is not possible at the moment, we have realized we could still do something. We could start with something manageable that could be done despite the miles and see where it takes us. In that spirit, we have decided to join the world of blogging and do our best to stay abreast of what is happening in the photographic process, film, paper, and artist book world and share that with you, gentle readers.

We hope to use this forum to share our musings as well as compelling projects and work contemporary artists are creating using antiquated processes, any opportunities that may be of interest to those who work with these processes, intriguing historical notes and images, and of course, our own projects and experiments from time to time – and anything else that somehow pertains to obsolete ways of working and tickles our fancy! (We will do our best to stick primarily to photographic processes, but our interests are vast and sometimes expand to other antiquated technologies. On occasion, we do find ourselves focused on something else, but rest assured, it will probably be old, and it will be delightful!) We hope you will follow us, and most of all, we hope you will find some inspiration here.

Experimentally,

hf