Random Art Moments: Aquarium and Electric Rose

Electric Rose, 2012

Other than dinner, I don't make things too often, but lately I've had a couple of those random art moments. This week I had an idea about an electric rose growing in the garden, giving off visible electrical waves. Energy and nature. I'm thinking about making this image into a small quilt. Yesterday, I visited Pushdot Studios at their new location on Division Street, and I learned they could print on fabric.

Pushdot is where I'm getting "Aquarium" printed. They do high quality archival pigment printing, and I've been very happy with their services in the past. But it's been a couple years since I went there. They were in the old location last time I saw them.

"Aquarium" will be part of the fourth annual Spooky Show at the Lightbox Photographic gallery in Astoria. It was selected by juror Russell Joslin, owner, editor and publisher of SHOTS Magazine.

In the past, the show didn't have a guest juror, but the gallery has steadily built a reputation as a wonderful place to exhibit. It's nice to be going back for another Spooky Show. I participated in the first two years of the show but missed last year.

The last time I exhibited a print at Lightbox was the Spooky Show in 2010, and my photomontage "Zauberspiegel" received an award. It was very different from everything else in the show, and I think Aquarium will be, too.

Lightbox attracts artists who work in alternative processes, and in this day and age, traditional gelatin silver printing or anything involving a dark room and chemicals is considered an alternative process. Exhibits at Lightbox include everything from elegant platinum prints to offbeat plastic camera images.

Even though the gallery shows such a broad selection of artists, my work is something other- it's outside the box, conceptually and technically. "Aquarium", for example, is a digitally reconstructed dream. The image never existed in the real world, and was not seen by the camera or printed in a darkroom. It was laboriously assembled in Photoshop and printed on a state of the art machine.

Since I didn't get to the opening when "Zauberspiegel" was displayed, I missed seeing how people reacted to the piece, but I can imagine some folks being a little puzzled by it. "Aquarium" goes a few steps beyond. It looks like it came from another universe. This might be one of those shows where I spend some time lurking near my picture. All of these random art moments seem to have something in common. They are metaphysical. I should give some more thought to that.