Fabricated Visions (2018 - present)

When I moved to Charleston, I packed my printer, it went in the van, and I crossed my fingers. After I set it up in my new studio, it seemed like the printer head was slightly misaligned. I fiddled and fussed, fumed and swore, and bought a new printer. I decided to dedicate my old one to funky materials. I began printing on all kinds of stuff, including silk organza. Although it’s a fussy material to work with, I love the translucent effects and the ways I can layer it over other photographs or paper collage. The layered photographs can also have a three-dimensional effect, almost like a hologram. I have photographed some of them from the front and obliquely to give you a sense of that. They are available as “4 x 4 inch Littles,” 8 x 8 inch images and 15 x 15 inches. I also make free-flowing scrolls.

Fabricated Visions is a collection of evocative photographs printed on silk and combined with secondary photographs or paper collage. In some works, the fabric is mounted only at the top over a digital under-print on a panel to create free-flowing photographs that gently move with air currents or in response to the movements of viewers. In others, the silk is stabilized on a transparent substrate that, in turn, is lifted over a secondary digital photograph or hand-made paper collage to create an unexpected three-dimensional effect.

The combination of silk fabric with other photographs and materials creates mysterious images that allude to poems, myths, and transcendent experiences. Although the subjects are quietly commonplace – a ladder propped against an apple tree, a figure entering a doorway, a swimmer lifting an arm – the are presented in unusual ways that elevate them to poetic visions. The materials and processes support the metaphors in the work, as silk, whether flowing or three-dimensional, provides the underpinning for imaginative musings and fabricated visions.