3-day Mordançage Workshop with Elizabeth Opalenik, July 15, 16, 17, 2022, from 9am to 5pm each day with lunch included.
I vividly remember that first Provence meeting in 1983 when I heard Jean-Pierre Sudre say, “In mordançage you have the possibility….” For the next 30 summers I visited his studio and work discovering them all while learning the process in 1991 directly from this master. In this workshop we shall begin with a brief history of the mordançage process, looking at original work as we gather valuable insight into directions for making it your own creative voice.
Together we mix the chemistry and begin with an instructor demonstration on understanding the test strips to discover proper exposures for negatives and working with photograms, which is the best way to learn the possibilities. Mordançage takes time to master when working with intent and begins with a darkroom print. Information on making negatives, film or digital, and materials to bring shall be sent prior to the workshop. You will discover, when the silver print is put through the mordançage solution, the silver gelatin in the densest areas of the photographic print swell and can be removed with the pressure of a jet of water or cotton ball. Darkroom days will be spent testing various paper and redeveloper combinations, experimenting with oxidation, toners and hand painting to alter color, and deciding to save or not to save the veils. Often, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Papers, chemicals and notebooks with formulas will be supplied.
After more than 30 years of committing to the mordançage process, Elizabeth has many possibilities, pitfalls and discoveries to share. Working collectively with a group of photographic peers, students can combine information on papers available today to further enhance their creativity. Experimenting is highly encouraged. A working knowledge of the darkroom is essential.
As artists, we much each find our way and hope to leave something of value behind. The “draped spidery veils” in the images are my contribution to this process, accomplished by using my breathe or drops of water to preserve and alter the delicate floating silver skin. As such, each piece is unique and truly made by hand even when created using the same negative.
After a couple years it was wonderful to host our Exploring Photography teen summer camp again!
Over four afternoons this week, instructor Lisa Zirbel taught our students the fundamentals of photography across both digital and traditional film mediums. Students learned how to shoot 35mm black and white film with manual SLR cameras and make enlargements from their film in our photo lab. They also had the opportunity to make studio-lit portraits, which they processed using Adobe Photoshop to make inkjet prints of their photos. They even mixed film and digital photography both by making cyanotypes using negatives printed digitally from their own images, as well as by using botanicals and expired photo paper to make lumen prints in the sun during class.
To end all of our teen camps, on the final day we pin the students’ work on the wall and invite their families for a critique session to reflect on what they learned and the challenges they faced while creating their art.
There are still slots open for our July session of this summer camp as well!
It’s great to have a “Teen Photo Camp” after a two year break due to cautions taken during the pandemic.
In this workshop teen students explore the fundamentals and foundations of photography with fun photo projects every day!
Students will gain an overview of photographic techniques from digital capture and printing to using black and white film in the darkroom and historical processes.
Using both digital and film cameras, students will print in the digital lab and in the darkroom, and experiment with hand-coated alternative photographic methods. They will use the lighting studio to experiment with strobes and continuous lighting.
Each student will leave with a collection of their artwork made during camp and be featured in an online exhibition at artintersection.com.
Students are welcome to bring their own cell phone/digital camera and film cameras OR use cameras provided by Art Intersection.
Teen Photography
Enroll in the Art Intersection Teen Photography Workshop
It was great to have Fred Ullrich share his photographic journey with our members over some wine and bruschetta this past Friday evening at our After Hours Member Mixer.
Art Intersection’s eleventh-annual All Art Arizona exhibition opened its doors on May 14th, 2022! Local artists, their families, and their friends joined us for wonderful evening to discuss and appreciate the talent and broad range of creativity here at home.
Submission Deadline Extended To Thursday, August 4
Submit your images taken from marches, protests, rallies, and demonstrations, whether you are in solidarity with the marchers or documenting their voices. Your images should show people, in the public view, voicing their passion for change. This Picturing Resistance exhibition at Art Intersection gives your photographs visibility and exposes the energy you captured.
There are no timeframe restrictions for photographs, only that you are the photographer or you own the copyright to an historical image from your collection. We wish to present the landscape of people engaged in the act of creating change by exercising their right to be noisy.
If you use a phone camera to photograph protests and marches, let us know if you need help printing images from your phone for this exhibition.
Our juror, Ken Light, photographer, author, and a Reva and David Logan Professor of Photojournalism at the University of California, Berkeley, will select from submitted images.
Melanie Light and Ken Light’s book, Picturing Resistance, serves as the inspiration for this juried exhibition, and a must own book for anyone interested in social justice movements in the past seven decades.
In Ryan gallery Ken Light’s images from his book Midnight La Frontera will be shown during the Picturing Resistance exhibition.
About the Juror Ken Light, a freelance documentary photographer for over fifty years, focuses on social issues facing America. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, his work has been published in twelve books, in magazines, exhibitions and numerous anthologies, exhibition catalogues and a variety of media, digital and motion picture.
His most recent book Course of the Empire, published by Steidl, portrays a decade of mounting tension in a polarized America, from Wall Street to the rural heartland and is a portrait of the American social landscape and is a riveting historical and visual record of a complicated country in a complicated time.
Midnight La Frontera (TBW Books) illustrates, in piercing words and in strobe lit images caught against the dark of night, the struggle and defiance of those who make the perilous hike for days and weeks in search of the American Dream.
Important Picturing Resistance Exhibition Dates
August 4: Online submissions due by midnight Arizona time
August 9: Email notification of artists selected for exhibition
This year’s No Strangers exhibition presents a diverse range of artwork created by Art Intersection members. This annual exhibition showcases the creative energy from the vision and talent of our members.
Memberships support Art Intersection, and through our membership program we strive to create an engaging atmosphere for creativity, networking, sharing work, and learning from each other. From a range of membership levels including Student, Friend, Sponsor, Patron and Collector, you can find the membership that works best for you!
Banner images by James Syme, Charlene Engel, Jason Salecki
Little by Little, a juried exhibition of small artworks, presents a wide variety of art expressed in a size no more than twelve-inches in any dimension. Amazing, beautiful, and impactful small works of art presented in a dedicated exhibition from a more intimate viewpoint that begs for a closer look!
These incredible artworks make wonderful gifts for family, friends, or for you too. If you purchase a piece, we will take it off the wall to take it home with you that day.
Banner images by Brandi Kole, Liz Nicklus, Tamera Poff
Thank you to everyone who joined us at Art Intersection for this year’s Light Sensitive opening reception! It was wonderful to see a lot of the artists and their amazing creativity using traditional photographic processes.
