We live in a constellation
Of patches and of pitches,
Not in a single world,
In things said well in music,
On the piano and in speech,
As in the page of poetry-
Thinkers without final thoughts
In an always incipient cosmos.
The way, when we climb a mountain,
Vermont throws itself together.
–Wallace Stevens
Exploring circles - symbols of strength, unity and life - through the cyanotype process exemplifies how an elemental shape made with the sweep of a brush, can evoke many qualities and moods.
At the start of the pandemic when first working with cyanotypes, I became fascinated with circles. A free-form circle is hand brushed onto an archival watercolor paper using a solution of ferric acid ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. The coated paper is exposed to sunlight and then processed in a bath of clear water. The process is as elemental as the circular shape itself, happening very much in the moment, intuitively, in a grounding and healing ritual practice. A particularly exciting characteristic of the cyanotype printing process is the element of unexpected surprise and chance that occurs in the print processing.
The imperfections and beauty of the brushwork create an ephemeral, transitory feel, while subtleties of the cyan wash develop a range of translucencies of blue, animating the page, eliciting a sense of water, life and earth.