A Step Away from Text

I think that I have always suspected that there is different meaning to images than text. Words. My artistic life is an effort to express that different meaning. This conflicts with many other artists' efforts, who's creative lives are mostly textual. Text feeds the critics. Text feed academics. Text feeds a need for remote discussion. (I differentiate between text as written-blogged-read-performed and those words which are vocalized in face-to-face conversation between individual)

I don't really know where I am going with this (written text). Words cannot describe what Im am after. Perhaps that is it. I am after that which words cannot describe.

Description
"A picture is worth a thousand words"

of an experience out of the ordinary
"Words cannot possibly describe it..."

direct link to the Grand Canyon sketchbook/journal on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615444059/ref=cm_rdp_product

This is selling better than I expected. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who bought the book so far.

Dan Grayber interview

in this link below is in German, but nicely translated to English at the bottom of the page. So, click the link, scroll through the pictures and enjoy the sculpture, then read the interview in English.
http://www.innovationstuntmen.com/?p=1899&sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d5ec93b9a23a8b1%2C0



He has a nice website with more sculpture for you to enjoy. This link goes right to the gallery page for all the lovely pictures.
http://www.dangrayber.com/portfolio.htm

Sketchbook Tour starts in New York

Feb 19 - 27
at the Brooklyn Art Library

This link brings you to a nice page to view the Grand Canyon Trip sketchbook

or


search for the book using the ISBN: 978-0615444055

Morgan's ETSY shop

feather and beaded earings
http://www.etsy.com/shop/morganalefay

why would you by stuff from the mall when you could get real hand-made, artist-made items for yourself and loved ones?
Check out this shop and support fellow artists.

raising awareness...

http://www.supthecoast.com/

Grand Canyon sketchbook slide show

This sketchbook will tour the country with a large group show of sketchbooks in New York, Maine, Texas, Georgia, Washington D.C., Washington, California, Illinois, and Florida.

The title of the sketchbook is "It Must Be...done better (a Grand Canyon Trip)".

It Must Be refers to the existence of that which already exists with or without us; things like the Grand Canyon itself. It is a phrase which also is a recognition that we cannot go some places, or should not go some places, and that is the way it must be. I also believe that we, as humans, have mismanaged natural resources (specifically WATER in this case) and rethinking our rate of use, management techniques, and "rights" to water is something that MUST happen. There are more implications to It Must Be, some of which are too lengthy to list here, and others that you may think of yourself.

done better is directly related to the above paragraph, as well as reflects my own regrets about my personal journey in the Grand Canyon. I had a good time, but there are things that I would do differently/better next time.
(disclaimer: this has nothing to do with anyone else on the trip, only my own approach. We had a wonderful group on this trip, and I'd love to paddle down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon again with each one of them)

Enjoy the slideshow.
The images are hosted at b-uncut.net.
The tour of the sketchbook is an extention of a sketchbook project through Art House Coop

search for the book using the ISBN: 978-0615444055

and the quest continues...

The western trip was a great success. The research trip was a good mixture of fun and work, which has yielded the start of several possible directions to take the new material.

Upon emerging from the Grand Canyon on January 2nd, my first priority was to visit the rim of the canyon on the south side and take some panoramic photos, looking over the area I could not see from the two week trip inside the canyon itself, along the Colorado River. It was covered with snow. The light was diffuse in areas, and sharp in others, lending the images to mimick the harsh and beautiful nature of that desert wonder.

Step two, after driving up to Colorado, was to spend time editing all the images from the two-week river trip. Everything from my compact camera is posted in it's own gallery. Most of the images from the DSLR are posted in another gallery. The DSLR images (including the photos from the south rim) are taking quite a long time to edit. Most of the exposures are bracketted and have to be manually adjusted so that the full range of the landscape could be perserved. You an find the finsihed images in this gallery.
http://artandwater.smugmug.com/GrandCanyonDec2010Jan2011
I set up a gallery for everyone in our trip (who had a camera), so please enjoy all the photos.

The next order of business was to finish the sketchbook/journal that I started in the Grand Canyon. I forced myself to put the photos on hold, and spent 10 days completing the drawings. (these images will play here, in a week, as a slide show)
The sketchbook is shipped, and ready for the tour.
A faithful copy of the sketchbook was published as a book that is available through a few channels (most prominent of which is Amazon.com
the ISBN: for the book is 9780615444055

While in the Durango, CO area, I dropped into Open Shutter Gallery and had some great discussions with Bob about the Curtis gravure prints they have. He seemed very interested in alternative processes. The gallery opened a community show that week called "Entropy". There were some very litereal translations and some very loose ones. For a community show, it had more than a few good photos hanging on the wall. I'm impressed that Durango has so many aspiring photographers in the area.

The Spring semester, family and friends, and the studio space needed to complete this work were caling me back east by January 17th. I had time for a one-day stop in Denver, where I dropped into the studio of Mark Lunning of Open Press Ltd.. We discussed photo polymergravure, and the tremendous potential of this technique. Speaking to a master printer was a rare treat. After a visit to the Denver Art Museum I had an appointment with Jon Lybrook of Intaglio Editions to review my photo polymergravure images and process. He was shooting a new plate, and after talking about my work, seeing his portfolio, and discussing some troubleshooting, I watched his process. In many ways I am encouraged that I am mostly on the right track. A few minor adjustments should make a tremendous difference.

The only bad news (other than a very difficult journey back east) is that I have lost the only two proofs of this image...

This image is a revelatory image for my own polymergravure process. It was scheduled to be editioned next month. Unfortunately, if I do not find the two proofs, I have to assume that it is in the wrong hands and therefore cannot make a fully edition, with proper documentation. I will have to change the image, shoot a new plate, and run with that version. Hopefully, it's just sitting at one of the places I visited and they recognize the two proofs mixed in with their other work and get them back to me.

Water Sculpture from Shinichi Maruyama on Vimeo.

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