Caroline Coolidge Brown
  • Home
  • What's New??
  • 100 Million Gallons
  • Portfolio
    • Sea of Stories
    • Patterns & Pieces
    • Blue Sky Thinking
    • Botanical Prints
    • Mountain Monoprints
    • In the Spirit
    • Mixed Media
    • Linoleum Prints
    • Commissions
    • Journals
  • Workshops
  • About Me
  • Musings & Newsings
  • Contact

Collecting Fragments

10/8/2018

Comments

 
Picture
Picture
My family teases me about my odd collection of "found nature" - things like feathers, rocks, snakeskin, butterfly and cicada wings, and most recently a deer antler. Maybe not everyone likes to study dead bumblebees, but who can resist picking up seashells at the beach? 

This summer I took home a collection of shells as usual. But I chose fragmented shells that had interesting textures and holes, shells that might look like something other than a shell when examined closely.

I made some more solarplate etchings and began to play with composition and layering. Here you can see my three different versions of this seashell image. The light-sensitive plates are exposed with a photo transparency and when the emulsion is washed out, you are left with a plate etched with the photographic image.

Here's a first run of what I've done with them. I'm starting to feel like the images are not really about seashells, but about something deeper - a reflection of time, age and memory, perhaps. I'm sure this was influenced by the he said/she said news of the last weeks. I was thinking that my memories are stitched together fragments, a blur of what I have done and might have done, with great holes of forgetting as years pass.

Picture
I was reminded of an excellent two-part episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, Revisionist History, that explored the science of memory. I highly recommend it to you.
A Polite Word for Liar (Memory Part 1)
​Free Brian Williams (Memory Part 2)
Picture
Picture
Picture
The best part about all of this is my renewed creative energy. Working in a big, bright studio has done wonders for me!  As John Updike wrote, "What art offers is space, a certain breathing room for the spirit."
​Amen to that! 
Comments

    News from 
    the Studio

    new art, classes, & ideas

    Archives

    September 2021
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly