So today is the big day: Chicago Community Darkroom is having our member showcase at Cobalt Studio here in Pilsen. We were contacted by Antonio Martinez, the owner of Cobalt, and a fine artist in his own right, about CCD having a gallery show at his space, and we jumped at the opportunity. It's such a great feeling when other artists see what you do and respect it enough to offer their help. Anyway, Antonio has been great about it all, and we've spent the last couple days getting it all ready.
Personally, I didn't think I'd be showing any of my work at the show, but since the other CCD board members are showing their work, I figured I should show some solidarity. It's funny, but even though I'm involved in the day-to-day operations of Chicago Community Darkroom, (heck, I'm a board member) I don't do much darkroom printing anymore. I still love it, and I find it very therapeutic to work in the darkroom, but since getting my scanner and printer I haven't done as much as I should.
It was a bit of a scramble to get everything in order, since I just moved into a new apartment and everything is in boxes. I knew there was a particular piece I wanted to show, 'Boy In Protest', but I only had enough frames for three other pieces. My roommate, Paige, and I went through the 30 or so pieces that made it through my initial culling. I probably have over one hundred analog black and white prints, but I quickly excluded the vast majority. It's an odd combination of fondness and humiliation looking through prints that I'd made almost two years ago. We spent the day getting the frames cleaned and ready to go, and had to order some custom square mats, since most of my prints come from my 5DmkII.
Here's what the final three prints ended up looking like. 'Boy In Protest' had been already assembled, so that was already at Cobalt. The funny thing is that we've been planning on doing this showcase at Cobalt Studio for a couple months now, but I hadn't realized that Cobalt is less than a two minute walk from my new apartment!
I gotta go now and help finish hanging the rest of everyone's prints, but I should have some photos of the party later. If you can make it out, thanks in advance for what I'm sure will be a great time. You can check out Cobalt Studio at cobaltartstudio.blogspot.com, and of course CCD is at chicagocommunitydarkroom.org