The Visitors, Sixty photographic pigment prints on 100% rag paper, each sized either 23” x 90” or 16” x 62”

3. The Visitors, 2022-2023

"When you start working, everybody is in your studio - the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas - all are there. But as you continue painting, they start leaving, one by one, and you are left completely alone. Then, if you’re lucky, even you leave.”  John Cage.

Inspired by this quote from John Cage, The Visitors is a series of sixty large scale photographs of books from my collection that document the lifelong work, major project or significant exhibition by the architects, conceptual artists, painters, photographers and sculptors that were influential in the evolution of my thinking about visual art. During the last few years as a caregiver I've become isolated from the frequent and direct interchange of ideas I previously had with other artists but, I found a renewed connection by photographing these books.  I specifically chose publications that had extensive reproductions of artwork that I could review to revitalize the artist's presence in my mind as I welcomed them into my studio. Eventually, as Cage predicted, they left one by one and I was once again alone. Ultimately I left too, taking my expectations with me and, as promised, was lucky to discover some unexpected results.

My photographic system was an evolution of the landscape panorama technique I previously used for the series Becoming California. The camera was moved along stabilizing rails that enabled a series of precisely framed digital files which were later merged into a single high resolution image by photo processing software.  My procedure required photographing the books in a horizontal position and I assumed the prints would also be shown in this "landscape" orientation. But as the photographs first emerged from the printer on the paper roll's long dimension, the book image was in an upright position and I had the sudden realization that the pictures were de facto portraits of the artists and should be displayed vertically.

The books in The Visitors had a wide range of proportions so the 23" x 90" prints were standardized with 6X height enlargement to create a consistent sense of scale thorough all the sixty of the final prints.  The 16” x 60" sized prints are a 4X enlargement. There is also a subtle and unexpected characteristic in these images that is a byproduct of the panoramic process. A typical photograph has a monocular view of a subject. The panoramas, however, are made from a sequential series of exposures, each contributing its own perspective as the camera moves parallel to the book. When the software blends the component files together the large final photograph incorporates all the multiple points of view simultaneously giving the book a frontal directness and presence.

The Visitors, 2023. Prototype installation wall with twenty-five 90 “ x 23” photographs.

Detail: Gerhard Richter. Painting After All.