Day Eight - She Made Her Mark

Aurora Horribilis, © Nancy Erickson.

Well, I think the phrase is "hoist on her own petard." My living room is twenty two feet long but due to cabinetry I can't get more than nineteen feet focal length. I was in a big hurry this morning. Cold, grey, bleak, shooting in ambient light, I thought I had this image famed properly. It's easier to fudge as it is not rectangular. Notice the tell tale of the line between the wall and the ceiling. I screwed it up.

This is the exact same image dropped into photoshop and custom rotated 1º right. See how it is not even with the text. If I had cropped out the ceiling line I could have gotten away with this one. Yes, the bottom is uneven; it is built that way.

This is the first one I took from about twenty five feet back and maybe ten feet to the left. Are you beginnng to see how important it is that your camera and the work are square with each other?

This one was taken from about ten feet back and maybe twelve feet to the left. See the keystoning that is looking like visual perspective?

All this to show you that good photography is not easy. If you do not own a tripod, the least expensive is about $30 retail. Look for the levels. There should be a leveling bubble on the tripod body. There should be another leveling bubble on the head that actually holds the camera. Use them; they are there for good reason.

One of the problems a tripod solves when it comes to keystoning is the winder that makes the camera higher. I am the shortest person. Without a tripod I am looking up at everything. There is no way I can get a square image without standing on a ladder. Frankly, $30 is the cheapest emergency room insurance for me.

Learn to use your tripod and your camera. I am very fortunate that the Spider tutors me. It's an ongoing process. I'm honored to have his help.

However, for exhibitions that require slides there is no way, no matter how good the tutor, that I can replicate Jack Kulawik's studio. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and decades of photographing art put Jack in a class by himself. He regularly puts my slides in the accepted column in national exhibitions.

I don't have the time or the fuel to take a photography class at the local community college. It may be an option for you. However, don't fool yourself into thinking that the best digital camera can replace a professional. I proved it myself this morning.

So here I sit, with my head stuck up like a turtle looking through my trifocals. I've worked seven hours today. Four hours of that is PhotoShop time. The other three hours is in photography, color printing, and computer and phone communications. All these things take time. I am waiting on two images.

Tomorrow I begin the mock-ups in earnest. I've avoided them as long as I can. However, working with the images, sizing, going through things again and again, I'm beginning to get the names, the works, and the sizes comfortable in my brain. Without that nothing happens.

Day Seven - She Made Her Mark

Good Sunday Afternoon,

It's cold, raining, and the wind is blowing here in Sonora. I closed the blinds that look out on the garden to cut the heat loss. Beware, I'm on a rant.

I'm very frustrated today. I am in the process of reducing every image submitted to She Made Her Mark to the scale of one inch equals one foot.

I have provided one of my own very crappy keystoned images rather than disclose any images from SMHM. I have spent about two hours working on the first third of the image deck. The bad news is that photoshop work gets priced out at $35 per hour.

I've been closely cropping and sizing images. Many too many of the images are keystoned. I could use photoshop to correct all the keystoning as represented by the sample. That process distorts the image; it is an improper way to get a good image. That is not the curator's job; it's the artist's job.

If you are going to take your own digital images you need to carefully look in the image display on the back of your camera. Unless you intentionally built a trapezoid you better be able to see that each edge of the quilt is parallel with the window. If you don't have a tripod invest in one.

You need to learn how to closely crop an image and size it properly. File names are of necessity consistent. They should have your last name, height x width, (which is my fault, not in the prospectus), and resolution. Even if that is perfect I still have to rename the file to add your entrant's number; today I'm adding a notation that tells scale.

I am looking at a lot of work that would lose all consideration if a panel of three jurors were evaluating the images. One of the most exquisite works is nicely, closely cropped. However, the artist did not remove the vestiges of the garden in the background.

Anne Copeland and the FiberArts Connection of Southern California have worked very hard to create openings for beginning and emerging artists. Anne has proven time and again that the work of artists with unknown names is equal to or of greater quality than the work of names we know.

Now it's time for all of you to do your work on Google and find the online places that offer classes in everything from photography to photoshop elements. The information is out there; in many cases it costs nothing except self discipline to teach oneself. Quit depending on your children to do your computer work. If you are smart enough to create the quilts I'm looking at you are smart enough to teach yourself about your own computer.

The other issue that is really bothering me is one of scale. As you saw yesterday, The Quilters' Hall of Fame is a huge old house. The ceilings downstairs are ten feet high. Upstairs the ceilings are nine feet.

As I work my way through and scale these images so that each may be considered equally according to their size, image, and merit, I am concerned. I have already cut ten inch strips of foam core to mock up the walls. When I compare the scaled image on my monitor and the foam core I worry.

Many of these lovely works are very small scale. How do I arrange the exhibition so that the intimacy of these works is not lost in a huge space?

As artists do you ever consider how and where your work will be hung? Have you ever thought about scale? If not, it's time to put those issues into your thinking caps.

Sorry to be so harsh today. I set out to give you a good look at the curatorial process. Now you've seen the darker side. So, we need to charge up four hours today, two to photoshop. The woman hours are adding up. If you are a non profit there is no way you can fund an exhibition if you have to hire help.

Now, before anyone has a nervous breakdown, all these issues are mine to work out. This is going to be a knock out of an exhibition.