Before I started this business last year, I’d never really printed my photos. And even over the past 12 months, I’ve mostly printed small – 8-by-10s and 8-by-12s.
When I applied for the Rock Island Art Guild’s 2024 Fine Arts Exhibition at the Figge Art Museum, I figured my chances of getting in were slim. So I set the size of this piece at a ridiculous 3 feet by 2 feet.
To my annoyance, I actually had to print (and frame) it at that size.
But I’m really glad I did. Photographs exist when they’re just on a screen, but they become more when they’re permanently committed to paper, canvas, metal, or another physical medium.
And scale matters: This picture on your phone or computer monitor is very different from it as a small print, which is very different from the version covering 6 square feet on a wall.
My submitted artist statement for this photo:
“Western Rock Island’s bike path is flanked by commerce — the Mississippi and its barges on one side, and functional industrial buildings with their storage lots on the other. Beyond a stray flower or some decorative flourish on the Crescent Rail Bridge, it’s an ugly place.
“I’ve long loved it as a subject for photography, and not just because of the pleasure of highlighting an isolated bit of relative beauty. The real fun comes from imposing harmony or even elegance on such a coarse landscape.
“Taken on Easter 2023, this image has an uneasy equilibrium. The orderly beams dominating the top of the frame lack context and feel out of place yet are balanced by the entropy of the rubble below. The dark tree is opposite light weeds, and horizontal lines have vertical partners. The fence appears to have been placed without purpose but has been neglected into an artful pose.”
Related collection: Monochrome.