The Transitional Image

Awagami Factory

I've discovered a source of Japanese paper that is now being coated for inkjet printing. The Awagami Factory is so nice they will actually send you a sample pack from their factory in Japan. The coated 70 gsm Kozo is much sharper and the blacks are immensely richer than any uncoated Kozo I've used. The website is a wealth of info, and beautifully designed as well-just what you would expect. I am such the Japanophile.

Here's a haiku of Basho's-

The village is old;
No house
Without it's persimmon tree.

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Photographic pigment Ink print. Elena Ray Copyright 2007. An image I've been working with I've titled "Closed Open Nude" printed this time on two different Asian papers and collaged together with Asian motifs.The primary paper has mango leaf inclusions. The secondary paper is a fragile taupe Unryu. A small square of Japanese block printed calligraphy paper is at the bottom, below that a section from a Chinese money envelope. 11' x 14".

Gel Medium

Careful. Very Careful. Too Careful. Not Careful Enough.
I've gone too far.
Good.
Now I know where I am!
New place.

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This Image "My Thesis On Fire And Landscape". Elena Ray Copyright 2007. Mixed medium collage. 8.5" x 11" A wide assortment of papers painted and collaged. Two panels: red Enso (circle) around black square representing Fire. Abstract blue wave between abstract blue sky and green earth. Japanese script.

Everything Frees Me

!!!!

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This Image "Everything Frees Me". 11" x17" Pigment Ink photographic print on Acrylic and Inkaid prepared Kinwashi.

Return to Existential Angst

I feel alone in what I create. I realize I keep going back to all my old failures and with direct intent, repeating them. There's something there. Nobody can tell me. I don't understand why it doesn't work but I still like it. I'm not sure if I can know anything. I've decided to go forward anyway.

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This Image, Untitled. Lee Vining Creek, CA. Lensbaby image. Elena Ray copyright 2007. On our way up US395 to our camp site we visited the Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, CA. There I saw the work of two of our nations top landscape photographers; (the recently deceased) Galen Rowell and David Muench. Beautiful stunning nature photography. However I was deep in the middle of Rebecca Solnit's book" Storming the Gates Of Paradise. Landscape for Politics", so my perspective on the majestic masculine "Nature" as erotic vestal virgin approach to landscape art was being challenged by her thought process. As a photographer you can't help but be turned on by the sheer photographic skill and passion in their work. But as a discerning outsider, I went away feeling somewhat surprised to discover that the print quality in my own studio was every bit as good as that shown on the walls of the gallery.

Closed Open Nude

Tomorrow Tim takes me up to the mountains for some much needed R&R. If only I could leave myself behind, it would be the perfect escape.

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This Image "Closed Open Nude". Elena Ray copyright 2007. Scanned print on Urara Japanese paper.

Study Dream Love

I'm undergoing a deep exhaustion unlike any I've felt in a long time. On the surface my life is orderly with my daily yoga classes setting a metered pace for my work. On the inside though the learning and subsequent insights have been accelerating dramatically. I'm suddenly burnt out. I keep ending up in the bed, holding a book, with my eyes closed, as though I'd taken some sort of barbiturate.
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This Image "Study Dream Love". Elena Ray Copyright 2007. Still life photograph of little flower and stacked stones set on an incense tray. Mixed media print on gouache stained and acrylic and Inkaid primed Japanese Kinwashi paper. Red ink stamped Chinese characters mean: Study, Dream, and Love. 11" x 17". The original file was shot with a Lensbaby. The image was printed on Urara paper then scanned. That file was printed onto the altered Kinwashi substrate. The print is very textural, very physical with two deckled edges (not shown). It's a simple image of no great import, but it's significant for me in that it is the very first print I've made with the self realization that my medium is paper-and now I am officially printmaking.

Urara Paper

The simplest example of using Japanese paper as a substrate for digital photographs. A straight pigment ink print from my Epson 4800 directly to the paper's unaltered surface. It's a very small print-image size about 5x7 inches, which dramatizes the textures. Next step I'm curious to take; printing this scanned image much larger to another textural substrate.
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This Image "Little Zen Arrangement". Lensbaby photograph with Nikon D200. Flatbed scan of Japanese Urara paper print. Elena Ray Copyright 2007

Inner Nature

A year ago we had a devastating fire in our community which destroyed an ancient transitional ecosystem of extraordinary beauty. One of my reactions at the time was this overwhelming desire to create permanence with my work. I wanted to print on metal. I wanted something stronger than paper to commit my images to.

Yesterday I was telling Annie that I've finally realized that paper is my medium. The fact that it is fragile, that it rips apart, easily stains, can be dissolved, devoured by moths and termites, burns, all these qualities make it so much more compatible with the pathos of my own soul.

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This Image "Inner Nature". Pigment ink on Kinwashi, 17" x 22". Elena Ray Copyright 2007

Sky Potatoes

Tom sent these home with Tim. I'm going to plant them tonight. It's some kind of vine that grows "all over New Orleans". It's been 110 degrees here in the Mojave. Maybe they will make it beneath the shade of a Palo Verde tree where a drip line keeps it moist.

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This Image "Sky Potatoes". Elena Ray Copyright 2007. Photographed on an American Clay surface in my light tent. It's too hot to work in the light tent anymore, though the extreme light is wonderful... I'm printing now making big prints...getting into paper, exploring the personalities of various papers.

Sun Salute

Walking alone in the Kelso dunes before the sun rises, a cup of coffee in my hand. When I faced towards the rising sun and began a sun salute I noticed a tiny figure reaching the top of the highest dune. It was Henry, I found out later, when I rejoined everyone at camp.
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This Image, Untitled, my footprints in the Kelso Dunes. Elena Ray copyright 2007. Photographed with a Lensbaby.

I'm not the person I am

This blog is the clearest mirror I have, a total surprise for me. I have been keeping a personal journal for decades so I never would have thought that this new medium for my thoughts would have such an impact on my self perspective. Because I've never practiced controlling what I've privately written as I do for what I've publicly shot, the words revealed here, combined with the images I'm producing, keep showing me the schism that has developed between the two. The blog has become the couch. The enormous anonymous occasionally making it's presence known world of the WWW is my therapist. My hope, to be whole, holistic...to explore my own voice and vision. But this couch is an uncomfortable place.
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This Image "Untitled Page From Personal Journal 2003". Elena Ray Copyright 2003

Valor

My love is on the front line. It is the first fearless thing that I am. Many of my other qualities fall behind, fail to live up to this courage to love, to be wounded, to be touched, to feel another as deeply as I feel myself.

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This Image "Valorous Heart". Image In process. Elena Ray Copyright 2007. This is a photograph taken in studio then digitally montaged with multiple layers of various textures I create while painting, and a delicate Washi. I think of this stage as though it were a digital negative. The next step is to print it out on the acrylic primed substrates I'm producing to go through my 4800 Epson pigment ink printer. With the help of a top coating of Inkaid the watercolor paper prints with painted under coats are turning out beautifully. The only problem I have is keeping the paper flat enough to feed through this precision machine. I do that by light misting the back of the print with water, briefly laying a large flat object on it, then sending it through damp. I cross my fingers and hope the printer heads don't jam. I stand above the printer watching the heads pass back and forth mesmerized with hope.

My Vision

Photography is just the external manifestation of an inner skill.
I see people.
I see into people.
I see into life.
This is my essential practice.
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This Image "The Secrets Of Paradise Dream In Your Soul". 17" x 22" Giclee. Copyright Elena Ray 2003

Femina Poetica

-having transcended words.

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This Image "Femina Poetica". Image in process. Elena Ray copyright 2007