Licensed to Practice Art: 5/4/08

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Art Car Parade 2008

Here's what was going on in Houston today. The Art Car Parade has been going on for a long time and it gets fancier and fancier every year. I went with Kristy. I brought my digital camera and she brought a Holga, which, as she put it, "has the better built in," so she's pretty convinced her photos will be ... better. I'm not letting that deter me, however, from posting what I got. Besides, Kristy also brought a digital.

The photos are really in reverse chronological order just because I am too lazy to resort them. By the way, it was hot as Houston today. Hence the beer. Appropriately, we were drinking Lone Star.

A couple of close ups of the details on some cars.
Mother and daughter volunteers and a "driver" of a diesel tractor that was tricked out as an art truck.

Kristy clowning around and a few of the 400 rubber fish on a car. The fish and lobsters were wired to move, dance, and sing. The car had pretty good speakers so the fish could sing anything from country to opera.

One car had a hole all the way through it and another was a disco ball, covered entirely with glass. Driving near it on the freeway must be fun.

The parade ended at a new park in Houston, where these girls were having a fairly inappropriate time. The dental car had literally everything associated with dentistry (except maybe the gas).

The head shot was just cool. The Texas sequin covered car was an ode to Texas cowgirls and was made on a working ranch.

The pingpong car was extremely cool. The balls were attached by springs so they would all wave around and perform a syncronized "dance." Speaking of dancing, this lovely couple looked like they were ready for one. This was their first Art Car Parade, but they liked it and often go to the Rose Bowl Parade. Nice folks.

It's Texas, and we like our livestock big here.

Yep, that's a port-a-potty on wheels.

Two of my favorites. The people on the missile car were allegedly housewives from Crawford, Texas, perhaps celebrating the Jenna Bush wedding. The giant head was the Opera Car. the guy in the mouth was actually a singer with the Houston Grand Opera and he was pretty awesome.

The doubleheader car was just that: each half has a steering wheel and an axle that moved. The car could go in virtually any direction. I'm hoping this won some sort of engineering award.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Beth Block passed away

I didn't know Beth personally, but I do like the work she leaves behind. Here's a link to a blog talking about her, http://horsesthink.com/?p=528, though I heard about this from Rachel. I'm really saddened by this. Beth's webpage is here. http://bethblock.com/ And though she made many amazing photos, here's one I really like.

Sincere condolences to her family.

Monday, May 5, 2008

A few more images from the ambrotype workshop

Materials for cutting the glass plate. Ordinary window glass is used but you could use any thickness of glass.

Jenni pouring collodion on her plate. (here's a link to her site: http://newworldalmanac.net/_jlfphotography/)

Rinsing a finished plate.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Scully and Osterman

These photos are woefully out of order. But essentially, we learned how to make ambrotypes. That's Jenni under the watchful eye of France Scully Osterman. She's pouring collodion on a plate. After that, it will be dunked in a bucket of silver nitrate to make it light sensitive, then put in a plate holder and a photo will be taken. The guy in the foreground is Mark Osterman, France's husband, who teaches at George Eastman House. He thinks polishing the plate is important, too.

Rachel decided that it wasn't a good thing to take photos at 1000 ISO without any humor. The darkroom was pretty dark, so I cranked up the sensitivity and cranked down the aperture. But it is kind of cool to see France Scully doing what she does pretty well.

Mark Osterman (the other half of Scully and Osterman) is warming the varnish (one of the last steps).

the developer. You can't buy it. You have to get a formula and order the chemicals. France did this the day before the workshop. By the way, their work is on display at the Houston Center for Photography (http://www.hcponline.org/.) and it is quite good.

High-tech equipment. Diligent student. That's Jenni polishing her plate. The foil was used to make a reflector. The collodion process isn't ISO 1000 by a long shot. They had to fabricate a reflector, much like they fabricate everything else.

The varnishing stage. Essentially, you take a plate, cover it with flammable material, and expose it to an open flame. Again, well out of order. This is the last step. After fixing the varnish by exposing it to a flame, you can either put the plate in an airtight container (as was typical in the 19th century) or park it on a bookshelf. After a few weeks you can touch it.

Mark Osterman tells us how to varnish the plates. Ironically, and despite what this photo suggests, one should not look up or the plate will catch on fire.

Out of order again, here's the development stage. And the homemade box that you need to hold either the silver nitrate (for sensitivity) or arsenic (f0r fixing). The boxes are identical. The footstool was used to hold distilled water used to slow the development process. Once you see tonality in the face, you throw water into the tray.