The Painted Photograph Exhibit is Open! Now til Feb 16

Greetings and happy Monday everyone!

Jen Perena here with big thanks for everyone who has supported my exhibit!

The show opened on Sat, Jan 12, and starting at 1 pm (an hour prior to the reception start time) we had visitors in the Gallery! I was in the process of folding the artist statement brochures and arranging food when the first person showed up to get a peek before the crowds. That started a steady stream and by 1:30 pm we already had a dozen people in the gallery!

Exhibit day poster
Me with the exhibit poster

Long-time friend, fellow volunteer and amazing, inspirational photographer and artist, Susan Andersen, brought the flowers for the exhibit and they were fantastic! Three displays that included flowers and vegetables – they were the PERFECT compliment to my work, especially the “Vegetation” series, matching the colors (greens, oranges and yellows) and specific vegetables (cabbages and artichokes!). Thank you so much for this thoughtful and really creative gift Susan!

exhibit flowers
Gorgeous vegetable ‘flower’ display for the exhibit from Susan Andersen

We had a great buffet of food (savory bites, cheeses, fruit, veggies and lots of sweets), which no one seemed to get a photo of, along with a full bar featuring the usual wine and beer, plus hard cider, water, pop and kombucha from Katboocha. Thanks to all my friends at the Center (Janice Gouldthorpe, Kate Whorton, Audrey Shaughnessy) plus friends and family (my Mom, my sister, friends Jennifer, Kathy, Hope, Angie and Amber) for contributing to the spread and ensuring we had enough for the throngs!

And, I have to note, I was amazed that we seemed to guess right with the food and there were hardly any leftovers !!

with former monitors
Susan Andersen, Thomas Schaeffer, me and Beth Lyons-Cary (Photo credit Fran Cary)

Altogether I counted (by name!) 163 people I know and talked to, and in photos I can see numerous others who I didn’t know, who came with friends or just showed up, so I estimate we had maybe 175 people in the Sunken Room throughout the duration. At times the room felt totally packed, and it was loud, but so much fun!

The room
Visitors in the Sunken Room – this was right around 4:30 pm (Photo credit Tammie Malarich)

It was great to see so many  ‘old faces’ – former volunteers, people I have worked with, former Studio 678 graduates and teachers, former darkroom classmates, cousins, etc. We had several surprise visitors from Colorado (Erin!), North Carolina (Tammie!) and Costa Rica (Elizabeth!), plus folks who traveled in from Syracuse, Buffalo and Long Island. It was really awesome!

And we got lucky that the weather cooperated. It was cold but dry, and that combined with daylight hours on a Saturday afternoon was convenient too.

with friends
With surprise visitors Tammie and Erin, plus Sharon and Jay (Photo credit Jay Perena)

As you might imagine, I spent the whole 3+ hours (really it was more like 4 hours) talking, working the room, greeting so many friends and listening to feedback. I am overwhelmed by the super positive reception, and more so by the fact that we appear to have set a record with 8 photos sold during the opening! Thank you to everyone who has purchased work, for supporting me AND supporting the Photo Department, who also receives a portion of the sales!

showing work
Talking about my photos with my uncle Ted (who came in from Long Island) and Bill Bates (Photo credit Tammie Malarich)
comments in the guest book
Some comments in the Guest Book

And finally, thanks to the Photo Dept staff, Megan, Liz and Mark, for their help preparing the Sunken Room, for all the last minute tasks, and for help with the bar and with clean up; thanks also to fellow AIR Megan May for affixing corrected labels on all the pieces in my Vegetation series (literally minutes before the opening started), and for her positive energy and encouragement; and to my friend Adele for hanging the show and making it (me) look so good! I could not have done it without you guys!

The show will be up now thru Sat, Feb 16, so if you missed the opening, you still have plenty of time to get over and see it. Gallery hours are:

  • Mon, Tues and Wed from 10 am to 5 pm
  • Thursday from 10 am to 9:30 pm
  • Fridays and Saturdays from 12 pm to 5 pm

Let me know if you want a personal tour…I live close by and I have keys til my Residency ends (end of this month).

And don’t forget I’ll be doing an Artist Talk and Kallitype Process Demonstration on Sat, January 26, from 2 to 5! Hope to see you there!

 

 

The Painted Photograph Exhibit: Almost Ready!

Happy Monday everyone!

Jen Perena here with good news: my photos have been hung!

Thanks to Megan and Adele for all their efforts to sequence and space and hang the work (I helped for a few hours….but it was really all on them)!

work waiting to be hung
My work, patiently sitting in Digital Studio 1, waiting to be hung – note the ’empty’ frames in the middle….

We started putting the show up on Wed, Jan 2, amid the building construction (knocking down walls in the Pottery and Book Arts area) and the re-organization of the Silver Den. It was pretty hectic, and we decided we could probably only tackle the brick walls.

adele sequencing
Adele, our master show installer, sequencing the work for the brick walls

Adele and Megan kicked things off with sequencing the first 12 images in the ‘vegetation’ series, which were all completely matted and framed and ready to go up. Megan thought that these particular images would look best on the brick walls, where the warm tones in the brick could bring out some of the subtle color in the images.

It was surprisingly hard to settle on the sequence because we all felt that so many of the images worked well side by side, but after about an hour of moving images back and forth to see how they looked next to each other, we finally started hanging.  Megan showed us how the hanging system worked, Mark helped us get the ladder, and with a few fits and starts trying to do math and figure out the optimal spacing, we got everything up!

We left room for my Artist/Show Statement, which will also go on the brick wall (a different spot than we’ve used in past exhibits), along with a ‘bonus’ 25th image which is matted differently to specifically show the brush strokes and highlight the ‘painted’ nature of the work.

work on the brick wall
Some of the ‘vegetation’ series on the brick walls

After we finished hanging Wednesday afternoon, I took a dinner break, and then went back to the Center to finally finish matting the remaining 7 pieces I had left off with the previous weekend. I had attempted to do them earlier in the day Wed, but it was too dusty with all the activity and I gave up.  I ‘finished’ around 10:30 pm, but still wasn’t done as I decided I didn’t like how the “25th” image looked unmatted….so more tweeking would have to happen.

Even without that one done, on Friday, Jan 4, Adele proceeded with hanging the next 12 images, my ‘winter’ series, which she reported was easier to sequence. The work is displayed in groups of 4 on the white walls, and the plan is to put the vinyl show signage on the far wall, below the lights and above the 4 portrait-oriented frames.

work on white walls
‘Winter’ series work on 2 of the 3 the white walls

Then on Saturday, Jan 5, I fixed the ‘mounting’ for the ‘bonus’ image, and while I was at it I reviewed a few of the frames in the winter series where the prints had appeared to have slipped under the mats – upon review it was just shadows caused by the lighting, and the fact that the watercolor paper doesn’t sit totally flush under the mats. We tried fixing this with frame springs and extra backer board to no avail. At this point it is what it is!

Finishing touches are still to be done: affixing the labels and vinyl signage, touching up the glass (removing finger prints!) and frames, putting putty on the corners of the frames, and printing and posting the show statement. But it will all get done this week, and we will be ready for the ‘vernissage’ (new word learned from a European friend who asked me about the opening reception…)!

I hope you can join us – this upcoming Saturday, January 12, from 2 to 5 pm. We’ll be in the Sunken Room Gallery on the 2nd floor. Free parking is available on the street and in the lot of the Blessed Sacrament Church across the street. The building is also ADA accessible and we have a lift for anyone who needs it. There will be snacks and beverages too! See you then!

Kallitype Update: Review and Feedback

Hi everyone! Jen Perena here with a quick Monday morning note about my progress over the last week. Unfortunately I have no photos to accompany this article, but there has been progress!

Over the last week I painted more and am almost completely done with the hand watercoloring of the kallitype prints in my vegetation series. My goal had been to finish all of the painting by Saturday, but there was just too much going on at work, and too many interesting distractions with the ROC holiday village, Christmas markets and winter activities all around town last week and weekend….and…shiny object! I had to find a balance…

So, I applied at least a base layer of color to the majority of the images, and then on Sunday morning, I showed the entire body of work, at it is, in progress, to a group of Artist friends, to get their feedback and input. And it was very fruitful!

My hopes going into the session were the following:

  • Decide which 10 images of each theme (winter and vegetation) would be the ‘final cut’ for the exhibit (driven by the fact that I have 20 frames to work with) – out of the roughly 14-15 images in each theme grouping; it was hard to decide and I might end up with 24 total images instead….
  • Get a rough idea of how to sequence the images in each theme; we achieved the ‘rough idea,’ but need to see them all matted to really finalize it since the prints are a mix of landscape and portrait formats…
  • Get feedback on the hand coloring – some of which is more bold and some of which is more subtle, and then determine if making all of the prints uniform is important or not…some liked the bold, some liked the subtle….we did not come to a perfect agreement on this topic….
  • Decide how to mat all the prints: cut tight mats to the image dimensions? Cut larger mats to expose the brush strokes at the edges? Skip cutting the mats altogether and instead affix the images to the top of the mat board using double sided acid free tape? I think we are going with tight mats framed to the size of the negatives – it will look neater, more traditional, more ‘standard’, and will hide the edges on a few of the prints where the brush strokes are more of a distraction than interesting…

While we accomplished everything I had hoped, there are still some decisions I need to make on my own, and that means a bit more work, so I am back at it this week.

Next goals: scan all of the images towards the creation of a photo book or zine, come up with titles for each piece, and then begin the cutting of the mats….

Stay tuned! I’ll post more photos next week!

Kallitype Update – Hand Coloring Continued

Greetings and happy December everyone! Jen Perena here with a short update on my progress with hand coloring my kallitypes, and a few notes about what comes next.

I’m now about half way through painting the prints in the vegetation series, and am starting to feel a little pressure to get everything done, including having all my work peer reviewed, then scanned, then matted and framed, by the end of December. The way that Christmas falls this year (on a Tuesday) means we have a very small window of time that we can hang the show (based on Photo Dept/FCAC holiday closures and end of year tasks), and while we have a back-up date (a single day in January where we could work around groups that will be using the Sunken Room) I would really like to have everything done and in the hands of the talented Photo Dept folks who will hang the show before the end of the year. So yes, some of the pressure is self imposed, but it has to be that way or I will procrastinate!

Here are a couple of my latest works. The first is an image of a cactus that I saw in Austin, TX. I had never seen a cactus like that before, but since seeing it I am noticing similar ones all over (botanical gardens, plant sales, at friends’ homes), and so I finally looked it up and it is a ‘crested euphorbia lactea’. (If you disagree leave a comment and tell me what it is!) The color ‘in real life’ was sort of yellowy green to blueish green, and very pastel; for the watercoloring I did a mix and I have to say this is my favorite one so far.

cactus1
Hand-colored kallitype of Crested Euphorbia Lactea cactus

The second one is an image I made during a recent trip to Ganna Walska Lotusland in Santa Barbara, CA. If you’ve never been, it is like a botanical garden on steroids – you could walk around for hours and hours and still not see everything; in each ‘season’ it is different, and they are always updating the gardens and displays. I’ve visited twice in the last few years and it is one of my favorite places – full of color and texture, and lots of amazing things you won’t see anywhere else. This is from a row of aloe-like plants that lined a walking path. The sun was at just the right angle to make a lot of shadows and thus a lot of contrast, and I took numerous shots of this same section. I think this one is the most interesting composition-wise, though I need to play with the color a bit more – I want it to be more subtle/less saturated.

aloe1
Hand-colored kallitype of giant aloe-like plant

I hope to finish up all the watercoloring this week, have my peer review next week (my choice to show the entire body of work to some trusted friends for input and final culling), then scan everything (I might create a zine….), and finally mat (or affix) and frame everything the week of Christmas so that by Friday 12/28, all 20 images are ready to hang.

I’ll write at least one more blog post between now and then with some of my final decisions (cut mats or affix to the top of each mat board? make a zine or not? etc). In the meantime, hopefully you have received the promotional postcard in the mail, and if not, here it is, front and back. Included are the gallery details and hours, exhibit dates (start and end) and dates/times for the reception as well as my Artist Talk and Demo. I hope you can make it!

 

Kallitype Update: Layering on Color

Hafa Adai! Jen Perena here, fresh off the plane from Guam….well, actually I have been back in Rochester now for a few days, but with the jet lag (Guam is a 15-hr time difference), I am all kinds of messed up time wise, and I have been mostly sleeping since arriving home, so it seems like only yesterday I was on the beach….

My two weeks in Guam went very fast; there were ups and downs: we were lucky with awesome weather and lots of sunshine (only sprinkled on us once); but my back went out on day 3 of the training workshop I was delivering and I had to be hospitalized (briefly – I was released 6 hrs later….); my husband was able to fly over from the Philippines to celebrate our 24th anniversary with me and we had a great day touring the island followed by a very nice dinner; but I gained too many pounds to count stuffing myself like a pig from the decadent and delicious island food; my training workshop was a great success thanks to the hard work and dedication of my students; and then I arrived home to roughly a foot of snow, 38 degrees, drizzle and gray skies. Hafa Adai! (Which means hello and welcome in the local Guamanian Chamorro language).

Anyway, I have been using the time I have been unable to sleep productively! Finally I made some progress watercoloring the ‘vegetation’ set of kallitypes I made in between Italy and Guam.

Me, bundled up because I don’t want to put on the heat yet, watercoloring one of my kallitypes

Getting back into it reminded me of the challenges I faced the last time I hand colored some of my kallitypes a few years back: when to stop and leave it alone! And, surprisingly, I used some of the darker images as practice, and I kind of like them better than the lighter, more underexposed ones, which I thought would work better. But you be the judge. Here are a couple samples:

This is the print that I deemed overexposed – but the color against it looks really nice
This is the slightly underexposed print and I don’t like it as much. What do you think?

Check out my  #kallitypegirl Instagram page for a few more examples of recent hand-colored kallitypes and let me know what you think! I’ll leave you with one photo from Guam to get you through what looks to be a cold and dreary week:

View of Ypao Beach on Tumon Bay, northern Guam (also the view from my hotel room….)

Adios! (Guam was colonized by Spain in the 1600’s and a lot of the Spanish language lives on in their day to day speech!)  And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Kallitype Trial and Error

Greetings and Happy Monday to everyone!

I have been managing to get into the Darkroom to work on my kallitypes about once a week (I work a full time job out in Victor and am away on weekends a lot sailing during the summer months), and slowly I am troubleshooting my errors and building up my skills. For this post, I thought I would share a glimpse behind-the-scenes into my efforts and progress.

Over the past few Tuesday nights I have made a total of 18 prints; most of them are new images, though one or two are images I have printed before but am now printing with new negatives, thanks to the help of Jon Merritt.

One of the things this process requires, if you intend to  use digital images to make large plastic negatives for printing (which I am), is skill with Photoshop so you can create enough contrast and tonal range to make an interesting image with the kallitype process. I would say I am between a beginner and an intermediate Photoshop user, so I have been consulting with Jon, who teaches the Kallitype class at the Photo Dept, for assistance with some of my trickier images.

Here is an example of an image I printed earlier this year:

Kallitype where snow detail is good but bark and debris detail are too dark

In order to get the snow-drift detail, I had to make a longer exposure, but that resulted in the details of the bark and debris becoming too dark. So, we had to isolate areas of the image and adjust the curves for each separately. The new negative results in a better, more balanced image:

Kallitype of the same image after more editing in Photoshop to produce a better negative

Another challenge I am having is that the humidity in the room and the paper I am using are resulting in lots of streaky-ness in my prints. I am using watercolor paper I have used before with a beautiful result, and ‘think’ my coating technique is the same as before….but obviously there is some room for improvement here! Here are a couple prints that really show the challenges I am having with coating smoothly:

This one shows areas where I completely missed coating

And another:

And this one shows more brush strokes / streaks

I am looking forward to getting back in the Darkroom again soon and to hopefully resolving some of my issues, and I will share more of my progress as I go!

I have also set up a new instagram account for my residency. Check it out: kallitypegirl