For two days Jerry Spagnoli (second from the right) led a workshop, teaching students to create their own Daguerreotype images using the Becquerel method in the darkrooms at Art Intersection. These are the new Daguerreians (less one who was camera shy).
Many of the plates were exposed in a large format camera and some were contact printed from a film positive.
A Daguerreotype is a photographic image, produced on a sheet of polished silver, unmatched for its detail and clarity, and for its unique presence. The process has a rich historical legacy but has been largely lost to artists for over one hundred years.
The workshop participants learned all the steps necessary to make a Bequerrel Daguerreotype include polishing, sensitizing and finishing the plates, as well as how to make their own equipment to continue the process in their own darkrooms.
We finally broke in the awesome sink in the classroom preparing screens in our first silk-screen class Photo Silk-Screening 101. Elise Deringer, exhibiting artist in our current exhibition, ALL ART ARIZONA 2012, was the instructor. Participants learned several methods for creating imagery using the screening method. The most popular technique was using an original or borrowed photographic image. Other fun imagery included drawing with a wax pencil and using contact paper to mask areas of the screen out. Everyone was printing on paper, fabric and even wood.
For those of you familiar with the older method of preparing the screen for the image using messy light sensitive liquid emulsion, you’ll be happy to know we are using a new emulsion material that comes pre-coated on a sheet and is extremely easy to use. Visit our facebook page for more images!
