Creative for a Second…or Two

Just under two weeks ago a parcel arrived containing Journal #5, one of the journals travelling the world as part of Creative for a Second.
If you haven’t heard, this is the second time this project, which is for people with CFS/ME (PWCFS/ME) has run. If you follow the link above you can look through the first edition which was published through the print-on-demand service issuu.
And below is a video of Kirrliy Anderson who initiated the whole project. She is speaking at the launch of the tour which the first project made.

To keep the project rolling along, once the journal is in your hands you can only keep it for two weeks. In order to work quickly and also because I wanted to make something that was “recognisable” as my work, I decided to dig into what I call my “collage box”.  This is where I keep test prints from previous works, a stash of Japanese papers and a few very select pieces of ephemera I’ve collected.
I began by physically putting different imagery together and when I had made a selection, I moved onto the computer which allowed me to work with the same imagery but to alter the scale and translucency.
I was aiming to make work that spoke about the experience of living with CFS, without being blatant and in a way which incorporated both the loss and grief, as well as the hope and potential. Below are the results.

I really enjoyed this process and found that there is a lot more work to be done with the imagery that I’ve developed in the past. It was very satisfying to bring together some of the work I did for my masters with more recent work. It also seems that this is a productive and effective way to work when I am quite low on energy.
There’s quite a lot that I could say about the imagery, connections that I can see and interpretations that could be made, but I think I’ll let the work speak for itself.

Topic #30 - Windows

Burke Road Window

Amazingly I had an exhibition in 2002 with this title, Windows, and I had hoped to use an image from the documentation of that as my entry in this weeks' Artwords challenge. Unfortunately all my images are on slides and I haven't been able to get them scanned in time. Still, with buildings a major partof my iconography, I have plenty of images of windows in my resources.

I decided to create something new using one of the photos I took when living in Melbourne. I am continuing my explorations with Photoshop - working a lot with the adjustment layers and a couple of simple filters. This allows me to explore more photographic post-processing type effects. I am still trying to work out what I can do, but I think I am starting to get a bit of a feel for what I like. I like these colours, somehow they are muted yet bright - how can that be? I don't like the fact that the image is obviously derived from the negative - it makes it look too obviously "photoshopped".

I was thinking some of these images would be interesting as transfers, maybe using Jonathon Talbot's technique, described here.

As I am still very much in a developmental stage with Photoshop, I have decided to post a couple of my other versions here in the hope of getting some constructive criticism.

Topic #29 - Birds

I have been struggling to contribute to Artwords for the past few weeks. I haven't been able to achieve anything creative because my energy levels have been so low. A few days ago I managed to start experimenting in Photoshop and created a couple of images I was fairly happy with for starters (see my photos on Flickr) and then today I started working on my entry for this week's topic "Birds".

I knew I had appropriate photos because when I was living in Melbourne I had this wonderful experience with the geese at Studley Park. My husband and I were just sitting reading at one of the picnic tables and about 20 geese came and mobbed us! I know geese can be aggressive so I was a bit alarmed, but they were just lovely. They came right up close, checking us out and honking, letting me take loads of close-up shots. Then our mobile (cell) phone rang and the person on the other end was quite concerned - the geese were so loud she could hardly hear me speak and she thought we must be getting attacked!

They really were such beautiful healthy creatures, so brave, just looking us in the eye, but with curiosity, not animosity. Wonderful!

I've had the feeling that Photoshop could be a good way for me to express myself creatively when I'm pretty tired because sitting at the computer is something I still tend to do unless I have a headache. It's just that I haven't been able to create anything I was really satisfied with up until now. I discovered a great group on Flickr, the Photoshop Support Group. They put up short tutorials on how to achieve certain effects and you can start discussion threads on how to create a particular look that you are after. Already I've learned a lot from them and it is showing!