Altered Views: Vicki Reed Opening Reception

Altered Views:  A Solo Exhibit of Works by Vicki Reed
Exhibit Dates: October 16- November 27
East Gallery

 Click here to see more of Vicki Reed's photography.

A statement about the exhibit by artist Vicki Reed:

ALTERED VIEWS
Process, process, process

An ongoing dialog I have with artist friends revolves around process. Is process more important than the finished piece? The older I get it seems that the journey is often more treasured than the destination and I wonder if that is not often the case in art. Whether we artists start with a blank canvas, a block of clay, a plank of wood or a fresh roll of film, we share a common journey of moving toward the finished work. Does the fulfillment and joy come from seeing/ holding/touching the result or from the process of creating it?
A graphic designer I recently met talked about the importance of process to him. He appreciates how technology facilitates executing his creative ideas but said he misses the tactile feel of art. He longs to get his hands dirty when he creates. He misses the unpredictability of results that the computer has eliminated with one click of the mouse... ’undo’. He longs to recapture the excitement of discovery/disappointment/learning through nonreversible mistakes and happy accidents. And so he has decided to become an art teacher, introducing children to the magic of art and the tactile, simple, often messy process of creating something new. He will not neglect the technological aspect of creating art today but he does not want them to miss out on first discovering how personal art can be when created simply with their own hands, without electricity, computers or the internet.
After 33 years in the darkroom I still experience excitement when I take a roll of film out of the tank, unrolling a bit of it as I hold it up to the light to see if there are images there. Though I understand the science of silver based photography, I am still amazed when I look at each roll of film, fresh from the fixer. I still believe it is magic. My love of this process and my desire to get my hands ‘dirty’ is why I stubbornly cling to film, the wet darkroom and alternative processes. Each time I walk in to my darkroom or studio I never know where I will go that day and it is that not knowing, that process of discovery that preserves my childlike excitement about my art.
Through this exhibit I hope to share a bit of the process involved in creating my work. I start with a toy or vintage camera and a blank roll of film. I can alter the image I capture in a myriad of ways. Sometimes I want to accurately reproduce the scene I captured but often I want to alter the view, create a different mood. The choice of camera, film, paper and chemicals are all part of my process. Yes, I know that many of these techniques can be simulated in Photoshop or with apps on an iPhone, but that would leave my hands clean and eliminate what I enjoy most, the process.
Though my work is film based I am not above incorporating scanners and computers into my ever widening field of processing tools. Digital negatives and positives are required in some of the primitive alternative photographic processes that I use and I find it fun to use advanced technology to facilitate a primitive process such as cyanotype that dates back to the beginning of photography.