Wood.
The word brings with it many meanings. . . many feelings.
Strength.  Warmth.  Structure.  Character.  Wisdom.  Beauty.
It has been used for many things since the birth of humankind.
. . . as a tool, a means of survival and as an art form.
It possesses an innate quality that separates itself from other materials.
As a living entity, it has a soul - an essence - that continues to survive long
after its death.  As long as it is being recognized, utilized and admired,
the spirit of wood continues throughout the ages.  If forgotten or ignored,
it rots and returns to the earth, beginning the process of life anew.

I pursued these images of wood (trees, wood grain, barn wood and wooden
objects) during the spring and summer of 2003 as a personal and artistic journey.
The objects chose me.
There is a spiritual connection between these diverse images.
The stories and poems that accompany each
image help guide the viewer on this journey.
Open your eyes, and open your heart.

EXHIBITION NOTES
The images displayed in this online version of HEARTWOOD consist of a portion of the main "gallery" exhibition.
The original photographs were acquired using a Shen-Hao 4x5 large format wood field camera, Rodenstock 135mm
lens, TMAX 100 4x5" sheet film developed in D-76, printed on Oriental Seagull exhibition fiber paper developed in a
custom amidol-based paper developer, hand toned in a proprietary sepia/selenium toner process.
The negatives were printed using a process called "unsharp masking."  This involves creating a soft, fuzzy positive image
of the original negative on another sheet of film, then printing the negative (the original) and the positive (the mask) together
in the enlarger.  This process gives the artist an image that is sharper, with more shadow detail and consistent contrast -
an important tool that I use to ensure that the final output matches my pre-photograph visualization.

ONLINE VERSION NOTES
I am always rather hesitant to place scanned images of my work on my (or any other) website,  Even using a high
quality flatbed scanner, the images viewed by web visitors are only a reasonable facsimile of an exhibition print.
In particular, these scans from my large format negatives only display a fraction of the emotional content of the original images.
The online images, due to the scanning process and high compression, lack the glow, warmth, sharpness
and emotional content of the original images.  The image is present, but its soul is not.
I invite you to view my prints in person, to feel the entire emotional journey intended.

FEEDBACK
I invite you to share your comments and feelings about this online exhibition.
Please CLICK HERE to leave feedback.

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