Explorations

Kerala India

Coastal Carolina Life published an article I wrote and photographed about south Kerala, India. View the PDF: SouthKerala

There is actually a funny story behind this article. Last December (2011) I went to India for a month with a friend. I was not on assignment, but of course I couldn’t resist taking pictures. It was a challenge to carry all my clothes and my camera gear in a back pack for a month.

Most of the trip was in south Kerala with its beautiful beaches, ayuvedic centers, rich cultural events, such as Kathikali, the ancient dance drama, and Indian classical dance and martial arts. Other highlights were a visit to an ashram, an overnight birthday trip on a converted rice barge, and a sojourn in the home of a Keralite family. I also enjoyed many visits to an amazing diversity of religious sites–Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Jain.

A kathikali Dancer prepares for a Performance — Kathikali Dancer prepares for a Performance

It was a journey of stunning landscapes, lovely people, exotic food, and rich cultural displays.

This summer, while driving across the US midwest, I received an email from Carolyn Males, the new editor of Coastal Carolina Living, asking if I could supply an article about India, complete with photos. So it was that I found myself madly typing on my laptop about moist tropical Kerala as my friend drove thousands of miles across the parched US midwest.

I found it enormous fun to once again write and illustrate as I had many years ago. So far I’ve received the most comments about the Ayuvedic foot massage.

Epidaurus Greece — Dreaming at Aesclypian Temple, Greece

Being around so many creative artists, I feel drawn to exploring with different media, not just photography.

Sometimes exploring means a journey inward instead of to another continent. A dream, a vision, a painting, can become the passport stamp. Exploring can be traveling to Greece with Jungian< therapist and dream tender JoHanna McNamee and going on an inner journey of dreams and visions.

Exploring means painting with abandon or making a clay mask on a hot summer day. Exploring means combining photographs, paints, fresco to create an image.

Here are some still-wet experiments with different media such as gel emulsion transfer, fresco, painting, and clay, using photographs and Photoshop as a basis. Exploring can also mean going to the edge of our known understandings. An example is “The Next Level of Living,” a short video about a man dying of a malignant brain tumor and how it transformed him, his family, and friends.

Currently I’m exploring audio portraits about enduring relationships.

I have galleries of mixed media images called Alternatives: Mixed Media.

Also, check out the work of mixed-media artist Peggy Doig.

Arches National Park, Utah — Digital image of Arches, Utah

Alternatives

Over the years I have been exploring ways to manipulate images. Some of these are through photoshop alone.

Some combine alternative mixed media which include photographs that I have digitally created, paintings, gel emulsion transfer, or fresco.

These are some ways I am exploring by manipulating images in photoshop.

I created this explosion of lizards from a photograph I took of a collared lizard at a Mesa Verde, CO parking lot.

Check out my Alternatives: Mixed Media gallery, which includes images digitally manipulated in photoshop as well as gel emulsion transfer images, enhanced by handpainting, clay images and fresco.

JoHanna McNamee gives workshops in clay figure and maskmaking. Sedona artist Peggy Doig gives workshops on mixed media. See her website at Essence-studio.com.