2011

With the dawning of the New Year we all hear too much of the same thing: resolutions. I won't burden this page with mine. Instead, I'll make whatever pact I need to make with myself, then let the results of that pact spin out. Sometimes you'll see the results here. Other times they'll be elsewhere. Occasionally they won't be visible at all.

A start: As I've written elsewhere, I love snow. Some 20 years ago I awoke one January morning to find the landscape outside the artist colony where I was living decorated with two feet of beautiful, fluffy powder. The sun was beaming down, so I grabbed my trusty 6X6 camera (A Minolta 220, if you must know), a dozen rolls of Ilford FP4, and my highest boots. All morning I trekked up and down the snowy forest, finding a wondrous simplicity of sticks and light and white and shadow.

Three years ago I dug out those old negatives, scanned them in a Polaroid Sprintscan, and, using Adobe Photoshop made the tonal alterations I'd wanted to do "back then." My intent had always been to bronze up the darkest shadow tones, giving a metallic or sculptural sense to the work. This in my opinion gave just the right balance between decoration and minimalism.

This done, my visual snow cycle was complete. As an implement of drawing, it (snow) remains, but I have no more to say with it.

Good, to have completed a project, to be satisfied, to call it done.

Selection from "Snow, Peters Valley New Jersey 1990"