Tag Archives: gum bichromate

Light Sensitive

To celebrate the art of handcrafted prints, Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, our eleventh-annual, international juried exhibition of images created using traditional darkroom, historical, and alternative photographic processes and methods.

In the current takeover of imagery presented on computer screens and the overwhelming volume of digitally printed pictures, the purpose of our Light Sensitive exhibition is to celebrate, promote, and reaffirm the art of handcrafted prints that uniquely belong to the tradition of light sensitive creative processes. Each year we search for work representing creativity, passion, and display of the beauty these light sensitive processes bring.

Banner image by Rebecca Zeiss


Awards
Special thank you to Brian Taylor for his insightful vision as our juror. Choosing awards in an exhibition of highly amazing works proved to very challenging and much consideration (and pacing through the galleries) was given to all of the darkroom creative art in the galleries. Congratulations to the awardees and everyone juried into Light Sensitive.

First Place – Rebecca Zeiss
Second Place – Richard Hricko
Third Place – Sara Silks
Award of Excellence – Diana Bloomfield
Honorable Mentions – Allan Barnes – Matt Connors – Wendy Constantine – Susan Elizabeth de Witt – Elizabeth Davis – Anne Eder – Jeannie Hutchins – Jen Leahy – Maureen Mulhern-White – Emily Penrod – Gerado Stübing – Vaune Trachtman


Juror
Art Intersection is honored to have Brian Taylor jury this year’s Light Sensitive exhibition. He is known for his innovative explorations of alternative photographic processes including historic 19th Century printing techniques, mixed media, and hand made books. His work has been exhibited nationally and abroad in numerous solo and group shows and is included in the permanent collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.

Brian served as the Executive Director of the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA for 4 1/2 years, retiring in 2019 to return to his art practice in the studio. He received his B.A. Degree in Visual Arts from the University of California at San Diego, an M.A. from Stanford University, and his M.F.A. from the University of New Mexico and served as a Professor of Photography for over 35 years, and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at San Jose State University.

 


Exhibition Images and Titles


Video Walkthrough of the Exhibition


 

Tri-Color Gum Printing with Diana H. Bloomfield

We have a full class of students.
Please call or email to be placed on a wait-list.
480.361.1118 – info@artintersection.com

In this intensive two-day workshop, we will learn how to print in the 19th century photographic process of gum bichromate. Using color separation negatives, we’ll learn how to make multilayered, tri-color gum bichromate prints on watercolor paper.

After mixing an emulsion of watercolor pigment, potassium dichromate, and gum arabic, this mixture is brushed on watercolor paper, dried, and by placing a negative on top it is exposed to UV light.

We then ‘develop’ the prints in plain tap water. Layers are built by repeated coatings and careful registration of negatives until a full, rich image is achieved.

We will also explore one-coat, gum over cyanotype, made using black and white negatives.

No prior experience with this type of printing is necessary, so join us for two days of fun and experimentation with this interpretive, intuitive, and infinitely creative photographic printing process. Once you experience the joy of gum printing, you will never be the same!

The making of digital negatives will be shown, but for the workshop itself, please send four color image files (300 dpi at 10” on the long side), and one black and white image file if you would like, at least one week prior to the workshop.

Please complete the WORKSHOP SIGN UP FORM attached below before payment!

Learn more about Diana on her website Diana H. Bloomfield.

Thank you to our sponsor Hahnemühle.

BK Skaggs, Shari Trennert, and Maylee Noah rinse their prints while others hang to dry. These prints show the first pass with the cyan layer.

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Finished prints by Maylee Noah showing one-color, two-color, and tri-color prints.

Workshop

Please complete this workshop sign up form before payment! This helps us stay in contact with you as well as update you with any information you may need before the workshop.

Call for Work – Light Sensitive

Submission Deadline Extended to January 23

Art Intersection presents Light Sensitive, our ninth-annual, international juried exhibition of images created using traditional darkroom and historical and alternative photographic processes and methods. In the current trend of imagery presented on computer screens and the overwhelming volume of digitally printed pictures, Light Sensitive reaffirms and promotes the art of handcrafted prints that uniquely belong to the tradition of light sensitive creative processes.

As our juror this year we are honored to have Christopher James, University Professor and Director of the MFA program in Photography and Integrated Media at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Awards for Light Sensitive 

First place $350
Second palce $250
Third place $150
Three honorable mentions

Art Intersection will pay return postage for individuals receiving one of the above awards and honorable mentions.

Acceptable Processes

Process  include, but are not limited, to the following: silver gelatin prints, albumen, anthotype, argyrotype, athenatype, Bayard direct positive, calotype, carbon, casein, chrysotype, cyanotype, dusting-on process, gum bichromate, gumoil, Herschel’s breath printing, photopolymer gravure, Ivorytype, kallitype, mordançage, platinum/palladium, printing-out-paper, solarplate intaglio, van dyke brown, wet plate collodion, whey process, Ziatype, combinations of any of these processes, and all photographically based image-making techniques that incorporate traditional studio-based mediums such as printmaking, ceramics, or painting. 

Both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional work may be submitted.

Conventional, unmodified digital inkjet prints are not acceptable for entry; however, the use of digital negatives, created for printing any of the above processes is acceptable.


Important 2019 Dates

  • January 23 – Submit online with JPEG files and paid fee by midnight MT (GMT-7)
  • January 30 – You will receive an email notification of selected Work
  • February 27 – Due Date for selected Work to be received and ready to install at Art Intersection
  • March 9 – Light Sensitive seven-week exhibition opens for viewing
  • March 16 Light Sensitive Reception from 5 – 7pm, please join us!
  • April 27 Light Sensitive closes at 6pm
  • April 25 – Local Work pick-up
  • May 2 – Return shipping of Work will begin
  • May 23 – Last Date to pick up or arrange shipment, after this date Work is considered abandoned

About the Juror

Christopher James is an internationally known artist and photographer whose photographs, paintings, and alternative process printmaking have been exhibited in galleries and museums in this country and abroad. His work has been published and shown extensively, including exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman House, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art-Boston. Represented by the Lee Witkin Gallery in New York City for over two decades he has also shown at Pace-McGill (NYC), Contrasts Gallery (London), Michelle Chomette (Paris), Hartje Gallery (Berlin), and Photokina (Germany). He has published extensively including Aperture, Camera (Switzerland), American Photographer, Solstice (for short fiction), and Interview magazine and in books such as The Antiquarian Avant Garde, á Prova de Aguà: Waterproof, Human Documents, and Handcrafted: The Art and Practice of the Handmade Print (China).

All three editions of his book, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, have received international critical acclaim and are universally recognized by artists, curators, historians, and educators as the definitive text in the genre of alternative process photography and photographically integrated media. A significantly expanded 900 page / 700 image, 3rd edition was published in 2015.

Christopher, after 13 years at Harvard University, is presently University Professor and Director of the MFA in Photography and Integrated Media program at Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA. He received his undergraduate degree from Massachusetts College of Art and his masters from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is also a painter, graphic designer, author, and a professional scuba diver. Christopher offers individually customized alternative process workshops and portfolio consultations in his Dublin, NH studio. Christopher’s web site is www.christopherjames-studio.com

 


 

You can view images from Light Sensitive 2018 by clicking here.

Tri-Color Gum Bichromate – Round 2

Our first Tri-Color Gum Bichromate workshop with Diana Bloomfield last September was such a hit, we decided to do it all again! This past Saturday and Sunday Diana led nine students through this labor-intensive and difficult process. The workshop included many first-time gum printers, and despite the tricky nature of the process, all produced fantastic prints! As we gathered around to look at everyone’s completed work at the end of the two days, one thing was apparent: there is nothing like the magic of gum printing, and no one better to teach it than Diana Bloomfield!

We are grateful for all of our students, but we especially would like to extend a big THANK YOU to our four class participants who travelled from far, far away to take this workshop with us – Cary from Alaska, Timothy from Michigan, and Scott and Kelly from Pennsylvania. We’re so glad you could join us!

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Diana discusses digital negatives during her demonstration at the beginning of the workshop

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Diana “develops” an exposed print in water

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Diana discusses the cyan-layer exposure she demonstrated as it hangs to dry – Terry, the student who provided the negative for this print, will later add yellow and magenta layers

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Janet washes out her print after exposing the yellow layer

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Karen coats her paper with a mixture of watercolor pigment suspended in potassium dichromate and gum arabic. The potassium dichromate hardens the gum arabic upon exposure to UV light; the parts of the coating blocked by the negative remain soft and wash away in water.

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Tim washes out his print

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Kelly very carefully registers the negative for her next layer

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Janet, Tom, and Matthew attend to their prints

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Each layer of pigment make a big impact when gum printing. The print on the left includes cyan, yellow, and magenta layers; the print on the right includes cyan and yellow. Both prints by Karen Hymer

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Diana discusses the finished prints one by one with the class

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Karen, Diana, and Tom mask off the brush-marked border of Cary King’s image in order to look at the print without visual distractions

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Scott Wrage shares his tri-color print, not yet dry enough to pin up, with the rest of the class

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Prints clockwise from left by Matthew Covarrubius, Kelly Wrage, Karen Hymer, and Timothy Wells

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