DCist Exposed Exhibit

i have not participated in the DCist exposed exhibit since the very first one several years ago. however, i was happy to hear that my image taken at the rally to restore sanity / march to keep fear alive last autumn was chosen to be a part of this year's exhibit.  though it was shot with film, it's one of my rare non-holga images that one can actually see displayed in person, so if you can, check it out.  

more info on the show, which runs from march 15-27, can be found HERE.

where: longview gallery

1234 9th St NW

washington, DC 20001

202.232.4788

  

business hours:

wednesday-saturday 11-6

sunday 12-5

+ by appointment

holga walls

because we had unseasonably warm weather toward the end of this year (up until december!), andy and i had been trying to take our days off together to take trips to outlying towns and locations in order to take photos there. this holga image was made during a day trip to annapolis.  i was drawn to all the various wall textures, both natural and man made, and liked how this combination came out.

holga patterns

this is an extremely close up detail of a tile mural in adams morgan, washington dc.  we were heading home from crafty bastards in october and stopped to take a few photos (when i say "we," my husband is a photographer too).  using the manual holga film advance, i overlapped the frames to combine the tiles to enhance the mosaic feel.

steel + glass

modern plan of survival, steel and glass, 2010

i've been up to some very different (for me) work over the last couple of months, and the culmination of that experiment is just about done - i am delving into sculpture, specifically with steel and glass!  the pic above is my first piece in what i hope will be a series. 

if you are in the dc metro area, you can come see this piece, along with tons of other really awesome work by the glass school artists, at their open studio and sculpture market TOMORROW (saturday), december 11, from 2-6 PM.

the washington glass school

3700 otis street

mt rainier, md  20712

from the glass school's blog post:

"See some of the new directions the artists of the Washington Glass School are moving the traditional craft with integration of modern process, mixed media, and narrative.  Some of the artists showing include: Erwin Timmers, Tim Tate, Elizabeth Mears, Chris Shea, Allegra Marquart, Michael Janis, Nancy Donnelly, Robert Kincheloe, Sean Hennessey and Rania Hassan.  Music, Demos, Class Specials and more are on the agenda for the day!

The recent Glass & Steel Sculptural Development class will present their final projects in one of the galleries at the school - this semester's class has created some of the most impressive works yet! See what happens when you have set loose a class at DC Glass Works and Washington Glass School and toss in some aluminum pour castings & metal welding - you will be impressed and wanting to know when the next class occurs!"

finnish embassy holga

it is a little known fact that while in high school, i co-founded the finnish resistance movement in chemistry class with my good friend who now also lives in the dc area. it's a long story of how that came about, but can be summed up with us playing off of a spelling error on the part of our teacher. fast forward 20 years (yikes!) when we passed by the finnish embassy during our october sketchcrawl. needless to say i got very excited. it wasn't open, but the architecture was so cool looking, so i swung into the courtyard to make some exposures.

viva finland!

NYC apple store holga

i don't have many holga images from my nyc trip this past october as a opted to shoot with the xpan most of the time i was there, but i did make this shot at the apple store in manhattan. i was visiting with my friend rob (the one pictured a few posts back who is levitating!), who is a long time employee of that store. i had never been to that particular apple store before, and it was pretty neat to see how very different it is from the apple stores around dc. i was standing underneath their glass stairs looking up at all the people coming and going... while rob was answering customers' questions about iphones even though he was not technically working that day. :)

dead end - annapolis holga

this is one of quite a few new holga images i have to share. it's easier to save film and develop it all at once rather than a roll at a time as i take them, but the downside is that i have a ton of images in one swoop. so, i'm going to spread out my sharing a bit so that it's not so overwhelming for you or for me. :)

this one was taken during a day trip to annapolis. andy and i have been trying to get out on our rare days off together to roam and take photos, and this came from one of those trips. fun fact: we were officially engaged in annapolis a decade ago!

old town alexandria holga - eel

i made this holga image back in july during a stroll around old town alexandria, though am just now getting around to posting it. it was very hot that day, so we only stayed out for about two hours, and all i can say is the lack of ice cream shops on the main drag is a deal breaker for future summer visits to that area!

trust me

this is another holga photo i made during the july 31 sketchcrawl through washington dc. this was taken near the mall, where i saw this strange banner of the colonial drummer. while i wish i could take complete credit for the words overlapping like they did, i discovered the amusing juxtaposition after i developed the film. sometimes even i am a little surprised by what comes out of my holga. :)

museum of the americas holga

this holga photo was taken on the very last stop of our july 31 sketchcrawl through dc at the museum of the americas. i had never been there before, and that's one thing i love about sketchcrawls - we make pit stops in lots of places around the city, ranging from heavily traveled to more obscure and everything in between. anyhow, i was drawn to the minimal nature of some of the elements i was finding in and around the building, and thought it would be fun to combine them. the hunch paid off, and this is the resulting image.

DCCAH - permanent collection

a while back i entered some of my original toned silver gelatin holga prints to be considered for purchase by the dc commission on the arts and humanities art bank.  the work in this collection is purchased from local DC area artists and is displayed in a variety of government buildings throughout the the district. anyway, they accepted two of my images into the permanent collection, which is pretty awesome!  the images they chose are incidentally one of my oldest and one of my newest holga images: "chinatown" and "the mall."

so, if you are in any government buildings keep your eyes peeled for my contact prints, matted to 11x14 inches! if i ever find out where they are displayed i'll be sure to announce it.
:)

glen echo - crystal pool holga

a few weeks ago i went to glen echo to make a few prints in the photoworks darkroom, and after i was finished there i took a stroll around the park with my holga. this is one of the images that resulted: the crystal pool. the front doors have been fixed up a bit since i first started photographing there several years back. the pool has long been filled in, but the front door is now new and painted. i actually sort of preferred the decaying version, but i can see as how it might appear unattractive to visitors!

LottoHEART mordançage

i've been sitting on this image for a while because it was created as a donation to LottoHEART and was just auctioned off along with 199 other works of art for their annual artwork lottery. every piece of work, donated by hundreds of artists ranging from beginner to established, is exactly 5x7 in size, and is presented anonymously so that no one knows who created each piece (hence the reason i had to wait to post mine publicly). see all the artwork that was auctioned HERE at this link, and you can also see more about the organization and get a list of the participating artists there as well.  i had fun trying to match the works donated to the artists on the list, but am not sure anyone would be able to do that for mine... this piece is a little different than my more widely known artwork. but, hopefully it will end up in a good home and help raise money for a good cause!

oh, and happy 4th of july, everyone!

Brookland Holga

this is the last holga image from the brookland sketchcrawl in may. technically this is the first holga i took that day, and this is the corner of 12th and newton NE streets, underneath the CVS overhang. the sketchers all went their separate ways to sketch and arranged to meet at the CVS, and i was there earlier than most... so i whipped out the holga for the remainder of my time there. 12th street is the main drag in brookland, and there were a lot of signs, letters, numbers, and various other things we're probably supposed to be paying attention to. i like jumbling them all up together in my images. ;-)

Franciscan Monastery, Brookland DC Holga #2

this is the second holga image from my latest dc sketchcrawl outing, again taken in the franciscan monastery gardens in brookland, dc. i tried to showcase the architecture a bit more in this one, and i was immediately drawn to the door labeled "private". i find myself photographing doors and fences a lot with my holga work, and while part of the appeal is the aesthetics of these details, there is a psychological intrigue as well. i don't know what it is, but i always want to open doors that tell me i am not welcome there. ;-)

Franciscan Monastery, Brookland DC Holga

this is one of several holga images i made during the latest sketchcrawl on may 15 (#27, for those in the know) where we walked around the brookland neighborhood of dc. one of our stops included time in the franciscan monastery gardens, which are huge and gorgeous - definitely worth a visit whether you are religious or not, as it is a very peaceful and pretty place to chill out and enjoy being outdoors. the mosaic of mary in the center of this image was one of many pieces of art i found throughout the gardens, and you can also see the architecture to some degree in the photo.

it is official: i love brookland, and want to live there someday!

overlooked holga image

i shot this image a while back during a session in washington dc, but overlooked it because it did not fit with the theme of the shoot i was going for at the time. often times, when i have one goal in mind, i only collect / process / print the images that allow me to accomplish that preset goal and skip over the rest. fortunately, i kept this frame in my holga folder and came across it today while searching for holga images for another purpose. so yay for new found old images!

everything old is new again

here are two new 16x20 mordançage prints that i made from old (previously 8x10) negatives of cherry blossoms. the finished product is always a one of a kind image, so it's cool to rework images at different scales and fun for me to see how many different looks i can achieve with the same image as a base.

washington dc holga

another holga image taken in washington dc... i think this was around the portrait gallery.

bethesda holgas

i recently photographed these images on the way back to my car after dropping off artwork at the recent fraser gallery photography exhibit in bethesda. i had not been using the holga as much lately in favor of mordançage work, but since i have a feature exhibit coming up next year, i want to try to get some more new material to work with and possibly display. therefore, i bring the holga with me everywhere and see if i happen upon anything interesting...