Staghorn Fern
Patricia Grabski

Media: Lumen
Frame Size: 11"x13"
Price: NFS


Process:
Lumen is an alternative photographic process that uses new, expired or fogged black and white photographic paper. For the process I contact print with fresh plants, exposed to sunlight and then fixed, there is no development.

Artist Bio:
Patricia Grabski is a San Diego based fine art photographer. She makes her images with a variety of cameras: a handmade pinhole, vintage and new Polaroids, 4x5 large format, medium format toy cameras (Holga and Diana), 35 mm, digital and digital infrared. She contact prints using alternative processes: cyanotype, platinum, palladium, albumen, van dyke brown, salt, and lumens. She also prints her images on photographic paper, art paper, glass, tin, cotton handkerchiefs and old linens.
Her images demonstrate an interest in combining old and modern photographic materials and processes. She is a modern-day photographic alchemist. In the end she says, “It’s all magic”.
Her works has been selected for juried exhibitions for alternatives processes, (s)Light of Hand, Photographer’s Eye Gallery and Creative Collective (2019 and 2021), Escondido, California and the San Diego County Fair international Photo Exhibit for Alternatives Processes (2014) and has exhibited at Gallery 21 in Balboa Park, Grossmont College Hyde Park Gallery, San Diego City College Luxe Gallery and the Scarlet Letter Bookstore and Gallery in San Diego, California. She was a finalist in the 34th Annual Spring Photography Contest (2014) Photographers’ Forum Magazine.

Artist Statement:
I make images without a camera using an alternative photographic process known as Lumens. Lumens are made with black and white photographic paper exposed to light. Each lumen differs due to the type and age of the paper, exposure time and moisture in the air and plants.

The outcome is an array of unimaginable colors on black and white photographic paper. Each print is unique, one of a kind, that cannot duplicated.
I enjoy making lumens. They reassure me that this is the art I should be making. They speak to me and together we create.
They are simplistic and elegant. We work together as if in a dance. I let the movement of each element: myself, the paper, plants, and light create the work.
I bring my aesthetics to the process, but I do not control the outcome. Each of the elements bring their individual characteristics to the process that influences the result. Each element has a say in the process, we are in it together.
Making lumens is a contemplative, collaborative and an on-going learning process. They are a way for me to create a unique remembrance of something that has happened in my life. My best images are ones that have personal relevance to me: a person, place, or an event. I have a triptych of a datura blossom and seven ferns. The datura is my Mother, the seven ferns represent myself and my siblings.
Making lumens is fascinating and satisfying process. I enjoy creating the compositions from things that have special meaning to me to create a permanent memory of them.