Schlagwort: Willits

Pinhole Power Pole

I don’t know why but for some reason I am fascinated by these electro poles or posts or however they are called … maybe for me as a European they look so retro?

Anyway, of course I must portray them. Set up my tripod and my Illy pinhole camera, hole pointing pole upwards, never really knowing what comes out, perspective for sure unordinary, risk of sunlight beams falling into the camera, they would darken the negative but who cares, I’m the devotee of adventures and accidents!

Right on the bottom: first of three, positive paper from a negative, both developed in coffee.

Redwood Pieces

How can I present my photos?
I made positives from the pinhole negatives using 40 years old ORWO (made in the GDR) paper which is still amazingly awake and alive and gives me crisp results! I develop them in coffee / turmeric / bark tea / kelp-coffee …. and some more.
I thought about wood pieces. Noel (one of the two founders of North Street Collective) said: „Oh! I have lots! You can have them!“, came over with his gigantic chainsaw and sawed me some little pieces.
Pictures of tree, developed in tree, mounted on tree. I love it!

CC Rider 65

I’m in love with the bus line 65 that takes me from Willits to Fort Bragg. 32 miles. A curvy street through the forest. A trip a little more than 1 hour. A 16 seater van.
Today, a hot day, a crisp blue bright day. Pure beauty for a long moment, I forget everything, all the shit and crap and assholes that are about to kill our wonderful earth and for a moment it all swooooshes in the unimportant background, there is only the bus and us 3 women on bord and rock’n’roll in the bus radio and countless glimpses of beauty looking through the window. Even Bob Dylan does not ruin my mood. Mama’s in the factory, she ain’t got no shoes – Daddy’s in the alley, he’s lookin‘ for food – I’m in the kitchen with the tombstone blues.

CC Rider by Chuck Willis

Little Beauties In My Garden

My first week’s circle is quite narrow: I wander through the village, I get to know my streets, my neighborhood and all the plants in our garden. My pinhole synapse itches! I brought two pinhole cameras made from a coffee and a spice can. Simple but wonderful. I browse the garden and get attracted by tomato plants, by peppermint, by pink lillies, by a planetlike flower, already dried, by other unknown garden fellows.

I take small photos (negatives), develop them in Caffenol (instant coffee, washing soda, vitamine c), and then later at night when it’s dark I lock myself in my improvised darkroom and make sandwich prints on paper. Then I have positives! Testing them with Caffenol, later then probably in their matching soups (tomato picture – tomato soup!!)

Come back!

First Week In Willits

… in North California. I am a lucky artist, I got an artist-in-residency here up North in Mendocino County where the sky is high and blue, marihuana lingers in the air and the wild ocean is so close! Actually 33 miles and there’s a bus going there but only twice a day … not more, why, everybody has a car in oil wonderland! No, that’s not true, I see cyclists. I realize bike lanes. It’s California!

I live in a sweet village house together with two other female artists and I love our daily life: someone makes tea, someone talks to the phone organizing poetry congresses, someone is looking for walnuts to dye something, someone sits on a withered wooden chair leaning on our (our!) garden redwood tree, someone stirs magic developer made from cowboy sage (me!!) and falls in love with the huge outdoor sink every single day …

7 more weeks!