back in the dark......

quakes have died down ...

a bit 

demolishing and renovating is at a balance and I am not "quite" so worried about being trapped in a chemistry full room in the dungeon labyrinth of the old house ....printing my Ancient Olive project .... so I have rebuilt and got my little darkroom up and running ... 

hose through the window for print washing in big post earthquake rainwater tub ....

tiny enlarger on top of fridge in storeroom ... 

read 

"pro photographers darkroom facility in Christchurch New Zealand April in the year 2011"

over 100 more beautiful 5x4 inch negatives to proof before working out the best for limited edition printworks ...

(I did a lot of work in the last month of my artists residence in Italy ) which was not possible to actually develop and see before the shows .... so now half of the project is still coming to light ... 

it's amazing ...

allorra 

today is a top secret code day ... 

the person concerned will know what I mean...

                            and if he doesnt he needs a good dong on the head with a saucepan....

                                       fmjd

                                 22 april 2011

collecting hearts ....

once upon a time 
many many years ago

in an enchanted forest
in the Schwartzwald in Germany....

fast forward 

through centuries untold and family history lost in the European winds of time

franz ...franzisca...franz...fran... frances...franchee...francesca and finally it is frances

......................who takes a quick jump to the East coast of Puglia...  

in between squally rain showers....and finding my first Nonna ( la Nonna Ana) picking wild ciccory on the sea coast and telling me the first recipe.....

"la grotta della poesia" ...... a huge and beautiful natural swimming pool with caves from out to sea and internal caves with words carved everywhere...

 old houses cut into the limestone seafront at San Foca

 "amore"... Italia....

 love is all around

at this moment i would like to thank my next 3 backers who have got me up to 54% of the project target !!! thank you so much !!!!

thank you to

Jana Trupovniece a very talented jewellery designer from Kotka Finland who works under the title Helmitarha ... thank you Jana!!!!

Pamela Angus whose work I adore ... Pamela breaks glass in the French Alps and creates beautiful hand blown stained glass garlands for your windows ... they are to die for !!!!

Mark Bannerman a total creative genius-slash-guru who is a master of 3D imagery and brilliant sillyness, not to mention a really good painter , and he quite frankly has the funniest sense of humour in the land ...!  

thank you !!!!

songs in the key ... part 3

the set..

test prints ready to pick up tomorrow from Poia at the the ever obliging lab  ...

intention : 

 ...utilise my photographs of a  friend's Milanese abandoned house,.........................prior to its renovation by Dutch interiors space design  guru Geert Koster, 

"before" images for my shabbychic "nobilita cadente" location for my stop motion animation music clip...

wallpaper of woven silk and damask

imprinted with images of the paintings that once hung there ...

the acids from the golden gilt Borghese frames have absorbed into the fabric walls over the century 

leaving 3 dimensional feeling markings....

hmmmm my door seems a bit klunky and oversized....

(feel free to step right in here Koster !)

the puppet armature is in Norway having a wetfelted body sculpted...

the door and frame is being made by an amazing artist called Kallia ... in Greece !!!

 (more on Inger and Kallia to come ...)

character development

female

victorian

insecty

elegant

gung-ho

eccentric

full of personality and wit

quiet and pensive

looking at what could have been or what has been ... we never know...

 inspiration:

some of the fabulous works by blackeyedsuzie  and Ryiochi and Yinka Shonibare


and one of my own shoots in a Milanese apartment ... ... this is an apartment ..can you believe ?

not an apartment by "our new world " standards...
I havent really seen any "normal peoples" apartments with real candelabra fittings on the walls that are all made of gold .... and lightable candles...and museum piece portraits that must not be photographed for insurance reasons...
hmmm


well not so often anyway ...


aggghhh I love my Italy ....
just cant help it

I seem to have accidentally become an honorary spider fellow.....

black and white spider awards
is it a good thing ?....

eyebrows moving ....

*looks with magnifying glass at judges....

the "ghostgirl" does it again ....

shot on 5x4 inch, black and white, infrared film on a mono rail camera in an  abandoned house in Sydney Australia circa 1998

styled by Claire Potter .. (who has alot of letters after her name but I cant remember what they are ...something something something PhD philosophy, feminist studies... poet...psychoanalisi... something something .... another book launch about to happen... something something ...style guru  )

ghost girl

a long time ago
in a land far far away ...
there grew an obsession ...
for abandoned houses
and ghostly presences



"ghost girl" were my first ever published abandoned house shots ... they were shot about 15 years ago, on 5x4 inch infrared black and white sheet film ... not easy stuff to deal with ... film that has to be loaded by hand in a dark bag on location...

film which is affected not only by light and chemistry but also by heat (hence the fingerprints)






these images will be shown by the Arthaus66 gallery New Mexico.
10 x 12 inch prints in an edition of 10 each...

they are to be printed on the most luxurious Japanese black and white paper that is so matte you cannot see where it begins and ends .... zero reflectance ... it's wonderful stuff ...like the Yves Klein torso of Venus ...matte blue that fools the eye and makes spatial distance recognition impossible ...
(she most certainly wasn't in a case when I saw her ,.... I guess too many people just had to try and touch her ...)

hmmmmmmmmmm...............something something... something ...the dark side