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Pencil & Ballpoint Pen Drawing, 1987, 4 1/8 x 6 1/4 inches
Torn Edges, Pencil & Ballpoint Pen Drawing, 1987, 4 1/8 x 6 1/4 inches
Torn Edges {Detail}, Pencil & Ballpoint Pen Drawing, 1987, 1 1/2 x 2 inches
Torn Edges {Detail}, Pencil & Ballpoint Pen Drawing, 1987, 3/4 x 1 inch
Torn Edges {Detail}, Pencil & Ballpoint Pen Drawing, 1987, 5/16 x 7/16 inches
Notes for #12 TORN EDGES
This is a 6 inch drawing rendered with a mechanical pencil holding 8H to 4B leads, along with ballpoint pens. The original inspiration for this drawing was a young female, who in the 1916-21 time period in Humboldt California, had her portrait taken at the Seely Studio {1904-89}. This negative was 5x7 inches and was one of the tens of thousands of negatives I saved from the dumpster when the Seely Studio closed after being in business for 85 years. This negative was found beneath the developing tanks in the darkroom, along with several hundred others, and I recognized these were probably some of the oldest negatives still in existence of Seely Studio. The problem was, the studio had moved numerous times and the older negatives were put further and further on the back burners until they ended up underneath the rather un-archival messy developing sinks. This location was 900 Ninth St. Arcata across the street from the CO-OP. So, to try and save these older film negatives, which were all stuck together in a giant mass of sticky-ness, I got the great idea to just throw them into the water filled bath tub, all at once and then I could start peeling them apart. Well, bad idea. The water mixed with the sticky chemicals and started liquefying the emulsions, meaning dissolving them into nothingness. So, with disaster under way, I quickly pulled them ASAP out of there. The result was that quite a few images began dissolving around the perimeters, one of which was this one.