Struck By Light:

Photograms
1992 – 2019

Struck by Light is the name of my other umbrella concept and artistic practice; it refers to artworks made under an antiquated method called the photogram. They are not studio-based, but made in a darkroom, without a camera and in color, which is exceptionally light sensitive. No light is allowed except upon exposure. As practiced in the 19th century by early experimenters, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) and his contemporary, the Victorian Anna Atkins (1799-1871), one finds a Talbot photogram, his paper negative, a palette rich in earthy browns while an Atkins cyanotype yields a Prussian blue. She is the first woman practitioner and the first in color. Briefly stated, Talbot’s photogram (1834) involved placing an object (leaf/lace) onto the surface of light sensitive paper, using the sun for exposure; these “sun pictures” were drawing with light. A ghostly, silhouetted negative image of the object’s outline, its “shadow,” was the end result. Talbot’s negative print was contacted for its positive (1840), making the negative and positive axis the foundation for all photography. (more)

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