More tintypes, new tintypes.

 

"Tracks in white snow

Trees high and low

I want to say "Hello"

To whoever made these pawprints that show"

Here are a few more tintypes that I made this week.  These images were taken over my winter break, back in New York.  I really love living in California but there are time when I miss the changing of the seasons, especially snow during the winter time.  In New York, my family's house sits on a rural plot of land with a small wooded area behind.  You'd never know that small critters and deer come in and out of the yard all the time until the snow falls and you can see the tracks.  

I love to follow them and see where they lead, occasionally stumbling on a rabbit hole or den.  Sometimes the tracks lead nowhere, as if the animal changes its mind and returns back the other way.  Mostly, it's like observing miniscule traffic patterns, with one critter going left and another going right, intersecting at some point or another. 

In other news, I have sent my re-worked midpoint tintypes to various exhibitions.  One got back to me last night and I was accepted into the Alternative Process Exhibition for the Florence Quarter Gallery at Southeast University of Visual Art in Tuscon, AZ.  The exhibit goes up from March to April and I am pretty thrilled to be one of ten artists showing alternative work.

Making the tintypes has been a great experience and I managed to finish the last four this week as well.  I'm satisfied with these new four prints and I might go back to redo a few others.  It really depends on how much tintype developer I can stand smelling before fainting.  Man oh man! Is that stuff potent!  (Think of the smelling the most extreme and condensed version of ammonia.)  I'm seriously thinking of buying a vent. mask...

Anyway, I digress...

Now that most of the images, if not all, are done, I am now thinking about tintype presentation.  It's really difficult to try and find any source material on contemporary methods of displaying tintypes, especially if it's more than just one tintype to display.  Sure, I've seen a lot of antique tintype frames and CDV album pages but they aren't exactly what I'm going for in terms of presentation.  The problem with these types of housing is the image display space.  Especially with CDV album pages, the image space is really small.  6cmx9cm is the typical size that I see and my tintypes really utilize the 4"x5" space.  I'd hate to crop out the awesome melting details.  I do however, really like the embossed paper frames that tintypes used to be housed in during Victorian times.  I've been thinking of trying that and embossing thick card stock myself and then cutting a mat within the embossed edge.  We'll see...keep you posted I guess.  ;-)

Fleeting visions

So I've had this idea for a while. 

Tin Types and my thesis imagery have always had a kind of relationship and connection.  When I first saw some of my midpoint work in tintype, I was really surprised how transported they were from my digital prints that I had made for the committee.  I have always wanted to express this idea of something non-concrete, something fading and a kind of fleeting moment with the work.  I have felt that the topic of my Korean heritage was something that wasn't ever stable but rather fleeting and transient. 

The end result of these images were something of a mistake actually.  I was washing some bad plates in the hot water and I noticed the way the imagery was melting off the plate.  And I really liked that. 

And I really like these.

And all I can think of are Stevie Wonder songs

For once, I can say, this is mine, you can't take it
As long as I know I have love, I can make it
For once in my life, I have someone who needs me.

Perhaps it's just the sentimentality of it all, but I am one happy girl, floating on cloud nine. 

On February 5th, 2013 Thom proposed to me in Rochester and I of course said yes, yes, yes!  I can say, without a doubt, I was completely surprised and taken aback.  I was already in New York by myself for about three weeks prior and at the time, I was attending an amazing photographic workshop at the George Eastman House.  On the second night, when I was checking into my hotel, I turned around to find Thom waiting in the lobby.  (He flew out from San Francisco the night prior!)  I could feel his excitement as we both made our way in the hotel to find my room, when all of sudden he proposed right their in the hallway.  It was sweet and endearing.  I was crying and he was shaking, forgetting the speech that he had prepared in his mind and instead, saying something that was so much more real and truthful.  But they were exactly the right words and I didn't hesitate to give him that simple and lifelong answer, yes.

Thom and I had discussed making this commitment in the past and we have even looked at engagement rings over a year ago.  But this ring, Thom found and chose on his own.  I really couldn't be happier with it.  The center opal is fiery and full of life.  Every turn of my hand and the color changes.  The opal is set around some hand cut diamonds, each individually shaped and procured.  And the band is made of rose gold, my favorite kind which speaks of an older time and place.  The ring itself is over 100 years old and was probably made in the Victorian era.  I love the idea of a piece handed down over time and I think of this ring as one of kind.

 

I want to thank everyone that has reached out to us and shared our profound happiness and elation.  We can't wait to start this new chapter of our lives.  And it is all of you, you, and YOU, you know who you are, that makes us want to keep celebrating and sharing our love for a lifetime.