Shelley Lawrence Kirkwood

Transmutations

In the summer of 2021, I took part in an art residency in a remote Cretan village perched on a windblown mountainside. I could see the sea miles below from my bedroom window. Cicadas chirped through the day, and the sun was blazing hot by mid morning. In the shade of the early afternoon, I foraged for flowers which I pulverized with a stone mortar and pestle in my small apartment. Each evening I coated papers with these vibrant liquid pigments before stashing them them away from the light. I left the residency not knowing if I had really accomplished anything.

Later that year, in the darkest part of winter, I decided to make transparent digital negatives with some images I had taken of my fellow artists from the residency. I placed the negatives top of the pigment-coated papers to create photographs. The process, know as anthotype, was invented by William Henry Fox Talbot in the early 1th century before being abandones for more precise and permanent technologies.

My first prints were so moving to see. Having captured a place and group of people in the organic material of that place struck a lyrical cord that resonated deeply for me.

In the spring, I began collecting flowers from the meadows near my home in New England, and from my own garden. I experimented using one flower emulsion to create an image of another. A peony created with a pigment made of irises was the first of these trials. The process has been a continuation of themes that have interested me for many years: the interconnectedness of memory, the illusory nature of time, and the places that have become a part of who I am.

This project is ongoing, and very connected to my work from The Forest and the Meadow in particular. I hope to bring this project to other settings so that I can capture an international collection of landscapes and experiences through anthotype.