Canal Prints, 6x8”, Dynamic Cyanotype Prints, $30 each
The process of making Canal Prints
Though I make work about Rockaway, I’m actually a Gowanus, Brooklyn based artist. Each October, Arts Gowanus puts on Gowanus Open Studios, a beautiful and diverse festival of arts that happens across about 20 blocks of Gowanus. This year, I’m proud to be managing a show at Gowanus Dredgers, featuring artists such as myself, who are based in Gowanus yet for various reasons don’t have a studio to open there.
My work is very much a response to environments: the spirit of the environment, but also the culture and community there. Looking at my work, I decided I wanted to show sometime site-specific, but also make it accessible to the community in a way that my giant, $8k prints of Rockaway have not been.
It was a sunny day, and I realized I had a huge stack of cyanotype-coated paper stashed away, so off I went to collaborate with the canal and create a site-specific response.
Working at the canal’s edge, I was moved by both the water and the rocks beside it. Cyanotype is a light-sensitive material that, when exposed to the sun and then washed with water, will turn blue where it was exposed to the sun; the remainder washing off.
The resulting works are both a record of the rocks at the shore, and the water’s ebb and flow as I dangled the works in the canal to be washed. Hung together, they form a sort of rhythm that mirrors the activity of the canal itself: overall quiet, but in that subtlety there is some gentle agitation as forces yonder – boats, cleanup efforts, even wildlife! – impact the quietude of the water’s surface.
The resulting, dynamic cyanotype prints are unique 6”x8” prints that I’ve made available to the community for $30 each.
The show, showcase / gowanus, also features works by Chris Baily, Richard Eagan, Elise DeGarmo, Manju Shandler, and Clayton Price.
Come have a look this weekend, during Gowanus Open Studios
Saturday & Sunday, Oct 20-21; 1p-6p
Reception with drinks and treats, Saturday, Oct 20 3-5pm
Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse
125-153 2nd St, Brooklyn, NY 11231
