The Ink + I: Diptych

This is in photography because it was made using a scanner as an input device similar to a camera with a built-in dark room. No editing was done other than to place the pair on a background for presentation here.

See also: The Ink & I: Triptych images

I got the idea into my head of putting ink (wet stuff!) on the scanner (electrical device, oh no!) and letting it run wild. It was a sort of exploration of the relationship between the artist and the artist's medium. Is it a partnership, with artist and medium cooperating to produce? A dictatorship by the artist in which all movement is tightly controlled? More of a master and assistant interaction, with the artist making most movements and the medium as the assistant to make creative suggestions here and there?

In art, as in many other fields, there is a theory of children producing the only "pure" art, creating without outside influence playing into their thought or process. When others, parents or teachers or friends or whatnot, step in and offer direction or commentary, the purity of the child's ability is tainted, and thereafter all art has borders and control forced into its every fiber.

It felt to me as if the ink were representative of the pure child, and I was the kindergarten teacher who stepped in to instill method over madness. Both of us could produce beauty, but was one product more beautiful than another?

How it was done: I placed an empty picture frame on the scanner to act as a containing wall, then placed saran wrap inside to protect the scanner from the ink. Then I dumped acrylic inks and india inks on that saran wrap and let it run wild. I could only choose when to hit SCAN. I could not "preview" a scan, since the ink would have moved again by the time I approved a preview. After that, I could only choose scans to include in the series, and the only editing I did was to straighten the cedar picture frame before printing. In this case, the top piece is the part where I stepped in and took away the ink's freedom, controlling the imagery.

Image copyright © Kate N.Y.