Artist - Eleanor Moty

Eleanor Moty does not seem to have her own personal homepage, but her work can be found on:

http://www.artfulhome.com/artist/Eleanor-Moty/527

Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery

http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=35120

BIOGRAPHY

"Moty was drawn to jewelry and metalsmithing as an undergraduate student at University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana. She was particularly interested in electroplating and photoetching. While at University of Illinois, Moty became acquainted with an expert technician in photoetching that worked in a well-equipped engineering lab. Moty worked with this equipment to produce high-quality photoetched plates and combined it with her electroformed and fabricated pieces. Eleanor Moty is noted for bringing the photoetching process into the metalsmithing field and integrating the process into her work. During her graduate education at Tyler School of Art she researched and developed photoetching equipment for the studio. Her first major electroformed and photoetched piece was shown in the Goldsmith 70 exhibition at the Minnesota Museum of Art. This research and development of the photoetching process was the basis of her entire professional development. Moty found a new direction for her work and uses rutilated quartz as a focus for her pieces.

Moty is the recipient of numerous grants and in 1975 the National Endowment for the Arts Craftsman Fellowship. She is published in several publications and has lectured on photoetching and her work. Moty is a distinguished member of the Society of North American Goldsmiths and the American Craft Association. Her exhibition record includes over one hundred solo, group, international and national exhibitions."

http://www.temple.edu/crafts/public_html/mjcc/local/history/biographies/b128.html

ARTICLES

Clowes, Jody. Metalsmiths and Mentors. Madison: The Board of Regents, 2006.

     Google Book Search. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.

The following is a review of a show at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is also the same show that the book listed above entails.

Lewis, Frank C. "Metalsmiths and Mentors: Fred Fenster and Eleanor Moty at

     University of Wisconsin-Madison." Metalsmith 27.2 (2007): 57. Academic

     Search Complete. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.

QUOTES

“Edges, geometric volumes, diffractions, and reflections create a hyper-modern sense of order, but without the coldness of so much modernist design…an aesthetic grounded in the artist’s sensitivity to the formal qualities of materials.”

Lewis, Frank C. "Metalsmiths and Mentors: Fred Fenster and Eleanor Moty at

     University of Wisconsin-Madison." Metalsmith 27.2 (2007): 57. Academic

     Search Complete. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.

“She also continued to experiment with industrial processes, and her work from this period collages imagery, materials, and techniques in poetic, densely interwoven layers.”

“Moty set up a small lab to investigate electroplating and electroforming – and while still an undergraduate, she pioneered the use of photo-etching, photo-electroplating, and photo-electroforming processes in the studio environment, transferring photographic images onto metal to create surprising, evocative effects.”

Clowes, Jody. Metalsmiths and Mentors. Madison: The Board of Regents, 2006.

     Google Book Search. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.

I am drawn to Eleanor Moty's work because of her exploration of the photo etching process at the beginning of her career.  She obscures images and creates interesting, wearable items using multiple processes.  Although not all of her work includes the etching process, her compositions and techniques are always interesting and intriguing.  I enjoy the small scale of her work, while allowing the viewer to want to look closer and wonder what is going on.  Her selection of images is interesting, and am excited to continue to research her work.

Fan Brooch

1981

Photo-etched sterling silver, abalone shell, silk thread

4 x 3 ½ in 

Mirror Image

1974

Sterling silver, brass, amethyst, leather, mirror

2 ½ x 3 ¼ x ½ in

Dual Image Brooch

1974

Photo-etched sterling silver, quartz crystal, obsidian star

3 x 2 ¾ x ½ in

Interrupted Vertical Brooch

1990

Sterling silver, 27k and 18k gold, topaz, rutilated quartz

4 x 1 ¾ x ½ in

Idea - Etching

Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal (the original process—in modern manufacturing other chemicals may be used on other types of material). As an intaglio method of printmaking it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains widely used today.

www.wikipedia.org

Nik Semenoff and L.W. Bader’s article, Intaglio Etching on Aluminum and Zinc Using an Improved Mordant, explains different metals and chemical combinations used in the etching process.

“Since the seventeenth century, artists have etched intaglio images on metal, first using mainly copper and later adapting zinc…while other metals and alloys can be used for etching plates, they are not often used by the average printmaker.”

“The handling and disposal of spent etching solutions, or mordant, has become a problem in the environmentally concerned society of today.  Because of these reasons, we began a search for a simple, environmentally safe, inexpensive and readily available mordant that would be useful for today’s etchers…the cost…has created a financial burden for most students...therefore, we decided also to search for less expensive  materials that would react much like traditional metals for short printing durations.”

Semenoff, Nik, and L W Bader. "Intaglio Etching on Aluminum and Zinc Using an

     Improved Mordant." Leonardo 31.2 (1998): 133-138. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2011.

     <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576516>.

Gabor Peterdi’s article, Experiments in Contemporary Intaglio Printing, deals with the more creative and innovative aspects of the process.

“Experimentation then was not a premeditated program, but the spontaneous expression of an inner necessity to create broader and more flexible means to accommodate our changing visual concepts.”

““As long as creative people handle tools and materials, unexpected things will happen.  Artists invent, not by intent, but by necessity.”  Art is a means of communication to me – my concern is the image, the technical means are only related to it.”

Perterdi, Gabor. "Experiments in Contemporary Intaglio Printing." Art Education

     17.4 (1964): 9-12. JSTOR. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/

     stable/3190456>.

As I stated in my last entry, I have been experimenting with the chemical process of photo etching.  This process has been around for many years, and began as a technical process which transformed into a more artistic, creative movement.  I'd like to experiment with different types of metals, such as zinc and aluminum, to discover the possibilities and limitations of the materials.  Etching creates a concave image, which in the process that I have worked in, can relate to a positive or negative image, depending on which portion of the image is eaten away by the chemicals.

photograph of an etched image on copper from:

http://www.evilgenius.net.nz/gallery/album/Copper-Etching

Artist - Bettina Speckner

http://www.bettina-speckner.com/

GALLERIES

Deutschland: www.rosemarie-jaeger.de

Luxembourg: www.galerie-orfeo.com

Nederlande: www.galerie-ra.nl

Japan:       www.deuxpoissons.com

USA:          www.siennagallery.com

Australia:   www.galleryfunaki.com.au

REVIEW OF WORK

http://www.bettina-speckner.com/41332.html

OR

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?hid=119&sid=6efbeea6-de24-44e2-b98b-d3cecc8ff684%40sessionmgr110&vid=3

Latter link was found on Academic Search Complete. It is the same writing, yet this one includes photographs of work.

BIOGRAPHY

“Bettina Speckner doesn't like to talk about her work. When pressed, she speaks of process, or of the parts that compose the whole, in terms of universals of form, color, and structure. Not an unusual response from a jeweler, except that most of Speckner's work involves mediation of psychologically super-charged photographic images, preciously worked materials, and carefully considered comments on adornment. Photographs inevitably invite speculation and interpretation and each piece offers seductive opportunities to communicate narrative or suggest emotional content. However, in most of the work the image is her subject only as it functions related to its own disruption and abstraction.”

Wagle, Kate. "Bettina Speckner, Deliberations and Negotiations." Metalsmith 26.2

     (2006): 34-41. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.

Kate Wagle is a metalsmith and head of the Department of Art at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

QUOTES

“The photographically based work, particularly those pieces that incorporate portrait ferrotypes, reflect Speckner’s primary struggle with the inherent authority of the photograph. In The Power of Images David Freedberg speaks of the power of the “accurate image” in reference to legends surrounding portraits “unmade by the human hand.”… The existence of these images is proof of the miraculous, conferring credibility. As the direct heir to this phenomenon, the photograph allows us to believe in events, visit sites and enter spaces occupied by people we have never met. More than evidence, the photographic portrait is a document, bearing witness and demanding respect.”

“While the ferrotype was a common product of the industrial revolution, it may have accrued some of Benjamin’s famous “aura” in the last hundred years or so. The specific identity of the individual has been lost over time, becoming instead a signifier of a lost culture. Our response to these images may also reflect a conditioned nostalgia, generated by films and romantic literature and filtered through the mechanisms of popular culture. Speckner’s approach to her “loaded” materials has to contend with both implications.”

“Each piece is the record of a complex negotiation between the artist and the shifting elements of a visual conversation. Her tools are formalism, abstraction, and a strong sense of visual integrity. She is aware of the documentary authority of the photograph and works with that quality in very specific ways”

All quotes are from:

Wagle, Kate. "Bettina Speckner, Deliberations and Negotiations." Metalsmith 26.2

     (2006): 34-41. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.

There are many well known people in the photography world mentioned in Kate Wagle's writing.  I find this very interesting because Speckner is in fact a metalsmith.  People such as Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Diane Arbus, etc, are all mentioned, and I have looked into their works, whether that may be photographs or writings.  I have become very interested in the idea of mixed media and creating something that could not be created without the other medium(s).  I have personally worked with photoetching, and am proposing an independent study with the metals department in order to explore other ways of combining metal and photographic processes.  I think what I find most interesting about Speckner is that she works with materials that have loaded connotations.  Placement, product, process, etc. is all incredibly important in her work.  I became interested in photoetching because I found that solidifying an image into metal and redesigning and redefining known images to be powerful and therapeutic.  I have also been considering using images that I am not connected to, such as found images at thrift stores.  Speckner uses images such as these, yet usually relates it to her homeland (landscapes).  The interesting difference between Speckner and myself is that she is mainly a metalsmith, and I am mainly a photographer, so I am intrigued to see what I can produce with more technical knowledge in the photography world.

Brooch 2009
Ferrotype; Silver; Diamond Beads

Brooch 2009 
Photoetching/Zinc; Silver; Amethyst

Brooch 2007
Ferrotype; Gold 750/000

Brooch 2007
Ferrotype; Silver; Coral;
Maple

Neclace 2007
Photo in enamel; 
Silver; Lapis lazuli; 
Quarz