Laura Blacklow blends traditional photo techniques with modern messages to create the books in her 检疫项目

作者：Marc Chalufour b|图片：connor Doherty

早在数码相机出现之前，劳拉·布莱克洛（Laura Blacklow）就开始学习摄影了。–based artist never developed a fondness for working in a darkroom. 相反，她喜欢上了可以在户外进行的氰版和范戴克棕色印刷。她说：“当太阳出来的时候，我就活过来了。”

Those classic sun-printing methods are also conducive to experimentation. Blacklow (’67) has printed onto paper and textiles, and she’s created images with both photo negatives and three-dimensional objects. 冲洗照片通常只是第一步。She might color them with pastels or watercolor paints, sew them, or fold them into unique artist’s books.

作为艺术家和活动家，布莱克洛经常在她的作品中混合文字和图像来传达信息。She’s made prints with native rainforest plants to highlight the plunder of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala and with plastic toy soldiers to expose violence against the Maya. For the past two years, Blacklow has drawn inspiration closer to home—pulling words from her readings, objects from her home, and flowers from her garden, she has created a series of accordion-fold books that she calls her Quarantine Project.

“最好的多种艺术形式”

作为一个在华盛顿特区长大的孩子，布莱克洛追随杰奎琳·布维耶（Jacqueline Bouvier）的工作。布维耶是《华盛顿邮报》的摄影师和专栏作家，后来布维耶嫁给了约翰·肯尼迪（John F. Kennedy）。CFA didn’t have a darkroom when she attended, so Blacklow studied painting and drawing, then trekked down Comm Ave to take a photojournalism course at the College of Communication. 大四那年，她在波士顿当代艺术学院参加了罗伯特·劳森伯格（Robert Rauschenberg）的展览，给她留下了深刻印象。

“This man was combining photography with painting. 我知道这不是严格意义上的新闻报道，但他是在发表澳门威尼斯人注册活着的言论，”她说。“他把我打晕了。”Blacklow began melding mediums and hasn’t stopped. More than five decades later, she still considers Rauschenberg her biggest influence—although the form that she has devoted most of her career to isn’t framed prints meant to be hung on a wall. 她说：“我不是那种需要制作英雄般的大型艺术品的人。“I like little, intimate messages.”

对布莱克洛来说，一本书代表了多种艺术形式中最好的。Each page can be observed alone, like a photograph or painting, while the book itself occupies three dimensions, like a sculpture. 学习和翻页的身体动作需要时间，就像看电影一样。“这里有一种亲密感。你可以把它放在腿上。你可以前后翻阅，”她说。 

的检疫项目

大流行切断了布莱克洛平时的灵感来源：旅行和深入的档案澳门威尼斯人注册网站研究。Quarantined at home, she tended to her flower garden where she grows hibiscus, lilies, astilbe, hosta, ferns, iris, daffodils, tulips, crocus, bleeding hearts, wisteria, and cohosh. She cleaned out her grown son’s old closet and discovered a box of his high school English books and began reading, for the first time, James Baldwin, Nadine Gordimer, and James McBride.

其他人帮助Blacklow过程世界事件的言语。“我是一个狂热的杂志门将自从我还是个孩子的时候,”她说。“I write down quotes, I write down dreams.” 随着疫情的恶化，以及全国对乔治·弗洛伊德（George Floyd）、布里奥娜·泰勒（Breonna Taylor）和阿莫德·阿贝里（Ahmaud Arbery）遇害事件的反思，她决定分享一些她认为最有帮助的名言。“It’s so hard to have hope sometimes. 我是个乐观主义者，”她说。

Blacklow began pairing quotes with plants from her garden or other objects found around her house, like old locks and keys, and making sun prints in her yard. Quarantine Project captures a vision of the pandemic that’s uniquely her own. Blacklow has produced more than a dozen one-of-a-kind books, drawing from sources as disparate as Native American proverbs, the late congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis (Hon.’18), 13th-century Persian poet Rumi, and contemporary Russian poet and mystery writer Elena Mikhalkova.

Each book is formed by a single sheet of folded paper that opens to reveal a print Blacklow created by laying objects and sheets of acetate, with words written on them, over light-sensitive paper. 

Blacklow is quick to point out that she often employs more modern methods in her art. 她说：“我想说清楚这一点——我不是勒德分子。”When the first color Xerox machines were introduced, Blacklow printed onto the thickest paper its rollers could handle without jamming. She’s printed onto satin, which she had to stiffen with spray-on starch, experimented with Polaroid cameras, and embraced digital photography. “Spending a day in the darkroom with a red light is not my favorite thing,” says Blacklow, author of New Dimensions in Photo Processes: A Step-by-Step Manual for Alternative Techniques (Focal Press, 2018), now in its fifth printing. “我花了一天的时间，用Photoshop和喷墨打印机15分钟就能完成。”

Photographers typically use paper that’s precoated with emulsion, but Blacklow likes to have more control over the surfaces she prints on. Her work begins in the renovated carriage house behind her home, where she has a studio and darkroom. 如果她在照相，她会把水加到铁氰化钾和柠檬酸铁铵的混合物中，形成乳剂，然后在灯光暗淡的情况下，把乳剂刷在纸上——通常是高质量的棉布。Then she hangs the sheets to dry or, if she’s in a hurry, uses a hair dryer. For Van Dyke brown, the emulsion is slightly different: water, ferric ammonium citrate, silver nitrate crystal, and tartaric acid.

新的美术硕士学位：印刷媒体和摄影

劳拉·布莱克洛（Laura Blacklow）毕生致力于的一种艺术形式现在是一个艺术硕士项目。从2022年秋季开始，CFA将开设平面媒体和摄影艺术硕士课程。“This is a degree that bridges these two mediums,” says Lynne Allen, a professor of printmaking and director of the new program. “版画和摄影有很多共同点，包括各种技术和制作多幅作品的能力。赌博也可以是学生作品的很大一部分，我们鼓励实验。I’m excited because this allows for a wider discussion about contemporary art—and print and photo’s place within it.”

Learn about CFA’s new program merging printmaking and photography practices.