Ken Smith Photo Journal

simple pleasure 1

Finally something to show. This is one in a series I have as a working title, Simple Pleasure. The series title might change as I go forward with the other images in the series.

As I begin again working in the studio, I have returned to something I know, that is familiar to me. I had collected some dried specimens as autumn came down on the land last year. They have waited while I looked at them on the tabletop in the studio, not sure where they were taking me. This often happens, and an initial idea may get overruled, with some space and time.

At least I am once again moving, thinking of ideas and series. Even seeing what materials can do for me, seems alien, for I have been away from my work for so long. I approach my life now as mysteriously fresh, unknown, and adventurously strange.

Simple Pleasure 1. Pigment ink on cotton printmaking paper. 20″ x 20″ image size. Edition of 15. Other edition sizes available.

image copyright © Ken Smith 2017 all rights reserved.

Over a year has passed, and a recovery is slowly evolving. I have a new home, studio, and some of the things I once had. Enough to begin work again.

There is a difficulty in returning to creative work, after a year and four months working on all things external. The creative work comes from the interior, and little time has been allowed for languishing there. Instead it has been about time schedules, money, people, building details, acquiring lost possessions from the insurance list….an entirely different discipline. What Chinese Buddhist monks call ‘living in the world of red dust.’

So I now attempt to swim my way out of that red dust before it swallows me up. I have my new and beautiful space for living, and also a dedicated workspace and darkroom. I have some tools and materials. The difficulty, as it usually is, is the interior. The getting back to somewhere lost over time where one was comfortable and happy to reside. I am looking for that inner space and it eludes me. I roam about my space, arranging things, but cannot find my vision. I must simply begin…a blank piece of paper, a piece of charcoal, or peering at an old film negative. Print something on the new printer that has yet to be plugged in. Begin, with a kind of fear of the unfamiliar. The transformation that took me away I have to now take to the present. There is no going back; the past is history. I am new, everything around me is new, and yet I look for something I once was, to help me take the next step.

After living in my idyllic natural landscape for many years, making art in its presence, my home and studio and their surroundings were destroyed in the August wildfires. I barely escaped with a few belongings hastily thrown into my vehicle. Luckily, the first things saved were my film negatives and digital master files, so I may start once again.

One more curve in the constantly moving stream – this time made of fire. If one removes oneself from the moment, it can seem like a grand new adventure, and in most respects that is what it is. A time to look at oneself, belongings, priorities, from a cleansed perspective. I try to see it that way, for one cannot go back. Something good must come from this renaissance. All is not lost, but is simply transformed. Brutally, history evaporated…but now what happens? I feel less a participant, and more an observer.

Late one evening, standing quietly among the ashes, the trees of carbon, the gray…I suddenly heard a chattering and saw a red squirrel running headfirst down a charcoaled tree trunk. ‘You made it!’ I may have shouted. Then I heard a chipmunk chirping away behind me. A white breasted nuthatch, came to land, hanging sideways over the dish of water I had put out. There still was life in the dead zone. Hope. Maybe even art in time.

evidence 1 & 2 (diptych)

This Sunday, August 2, from 5-7pm, Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop, Washington www.sunmountainlodge.com will be having a reception in its gallery for four artists, myself included. I am showing eight framed works, a combination of landscapes and still lifes. Not limited to a theme or any particular boundaries, I chose some of my most interesting works.

Evidence 1 & 2 is a diptych that I made years ago but it has always been close to my heart. I told Laura, one of the curators, that in the 24 years I’ve been doing art full-time, Evidence most clearly expresses what I wish my art to be. I find it the most succinct and beautiful of anything I’ve ever done. I’ve felt that before in a new piece, but after a time it fades. Evidence has always been at the pinnacle in my mind’s eye. Strange, to be aware of that, and I continue to look at it and wonder what it has that stuns me.

I remember finding the emaciated branches, down by the stock tank, one early spring day. They had been a plant of some kind, dried and buried in snow all winter, leaves gone, and then, just a line drawing was left. The branches coming off the grey stem were just like tiny strips of paper, but they also were like messages, or musical notes. Each one twisted and reaching a different way, beautiful. I took them back to my studio and went to work. The two stems were only about a foot high each, and I put them in a vase, and they sat on the windowsill for years after. Until, breezes thru the window, time and dry air, they slowly came apart. Looking at the artwork that is left, I love the simplicity, the symmetry and asymmetry, and what they tell me about time. There is something else that intrigues me, but it cannot be put into words – only be shown in a piece of art…instantly recognized but indescribable like a profound mystery.

Evidence 1 & 2, diptych. Pigment ink on cotton printmaking paper. 29″ x 15-1/4″ each. Framed 36″ x 18″ (each).

image copyright © Ken Smith 2015 all rights reserved.

Wound 1

Wound 2

Wound 3

It may be impossible to reverse engineer the thoughts and feelings that come about while creating. But for this one, it suddenly came before me, or more accurately, behind my eyes on that slate that passes continuously in the mind. It was there, and it intrigued me. It kept returning, as I thought up materials and methods so that I might replicate what I saw in my imagination.

Why this particular image imprinted on my imagination is another conundrum, and one attempts to unravel it. I had stitched closed a gash in my elbow once with button thread and a curved needle. I also had been going through the usual psychological wounds of living life, especially significant at times, though one attempts to brush those very real energies aside. Or maybe it was that I had only recently had my left knee replaced, and soon would have the right knee joint also replaced – all in the space of six months. The scar on my left knee was a river pattern. Maybe those impressions could shine a light on why this image metaphored into my mind? Whatever, wherever it came from, I ‘owned’ it now, and I could choose to bring it to a tangible shape.

I wanted to work with aluminum for its malliability and shine. For a while, I was going to simply paint the ‘flesh’ beneath red on some material, but finally chose peened and raised copper. I found the same curved needle I had used to suture my earlier wound. I learned the proper suturing knot. Then began the tests, the failures, the melding of expectations with what materials and reality finally allows to move into form. All mounted on wood panel. A viewer at the gallery show purchased it the first day it was hung on the wall…a validation of sorts. Of feelings that may be universally felt; of images that symbolize…something to me, and maybe also to someone else.

Wound. Aluminum, copper, mixed media on panel. 24″ x 12″.

image copyright © Ken Smith 2015 all rights reserved.

McLaughlin Canyon Tree

Six of my images are part of a group show at Sun Mountain Lodge, in Winthrop, Washington www.sunmountainlodge.com. My selection of floral still lifes and landscapes will be on exhibit into the mid-Summer. Sun Mountain Lodge draws an international clientele to the Methow Valley and the stunning North Cascade Mountains year-round. I am happy to be invited to show at this beautiful location.

McLaughlin Canyon Tree. Pigment ink print on cotton printmaking paper. 13″ x 20″ image, framed 22″ x 28″.

image copyright © Ken Smith 2015 all rights reserved.

far away

Far Away. Pigment ink on paper. 26-1/4″ x 20″.

image copyright © Ken Smith 2015 all rights reserved.

morning light

Morning Light. Pigment ink on cotton printmaking paper. 24″ x 20″.

image copyright © Ken Smith 2015 all rights reserved.

valentine vase

I have been working on this image for some time. It all came together on Valentine’s Day, which is innately significant. This is a gift to myself on that symbolic day, for it represents the feeling of love, love lost & a love for art.

Valentine Vase. Pigment ink print on cotton printmaking paper. 21-3/8″ x 20″ (other editioned image sizes).

image copyright © Ken Smith 2015 all rights reserved.

Tracery 3

Tracery 2

Another show at my local gallery has opened. At Confluence Gallery in Twisp, Washington www.confluencegallery.com, artists were asked to interpret the idea of “Tracks”. I chose some imagery that was inspired by the larvae trails beneath the bark on the firewood I put up for the winter heat. I am intrigued by natural forces like erosion, and these serendipitous waunderings with purpose . I question what made these simple insects construct such an intricate and beautifully-unique pattern? I have more in the series that I did not exhibit, and if interested, please contact me. The show opened January 10 and ends February 14. There is a variety of interpretations and mediums in the show, and if you are in the area, I encourage you to stop by.

Tracery 3. Pigment ink print on cotton printmaking paper, on wood panel, varnish. 14″ x 11″.

Tracery 2. Pigment ink print on cotton printmaking paper, on wood panel, varnish. 12″ x 12″.

image copyright © Ken Smith 2015 all rights reserved.