Last Iceberg (No. 9200) copyright 2022/2024 Douglas Stockdale –
With today’s solar eclipse and the ‘focus’ on our sun (and its effects, which is why a ton of individuals have purchased special solar eclipse glasses), a good time to provide a PSA (Public Service Reminder). Global warming of our blue planet is not due to any changes in the attributes of the sun, rather what we as a society are doing to the protective atmospheric layer that keeps us safe from the sun’s effects. As we steadily increase the amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, global warming has become global heating and the only reason that we do not eliminate/reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that we release into our atmosphere is due to one thing; greed.
It’s not my intent to make any stunning photographs of the eclipse today, there will be a ton of individuals that will document more spectacular photographs of this event than I will. Nevertheless, with all of the attention on the sun, I figured that I could post a segway cyanotype image that could call attention to a more pressing issue about global warming. But which? Since I came up with this genius idea this morning, I do not have any time to print a new cyanotype, which I would have completed last night. Back up plan; which cyanotype might be interesting alternative?
I immediately thought about my environment aware project, Last Iceberg. Regretfully, I do not have any black sun or eclipse type cyanotypes, but then I remembered No. 9200 with the hand-stitching and embroidery. Cool! Then I had another brain-storm (okay, I was kinda inspired by a friend’s abstract eclipse artwork she had posed on IG this morning), make a collage with something that might further make my emphasis on the relationship between greed (both corporate and individuals) and global warming. After considering some alternatives, I created two options, the smaller coin (quarter) allowed the inner sun stitching to show, but it’s silver color was not as inspirational as the gold colored dollar coin, even if the dollar coin did cover parts of my hand-stitch sun. (below is the original hand-stitched cyanotype before my collage, while the colors appear different due to my inability to rephoto artwork and have the correct color adjustments. sigh).
Truth be told, this is also my very first cyanotype collage and I am guessing that now that I have open Pandora’s box, I will probably consider other aspects of incorporating collage into my artwork. I will take this moment as a win-win.
Last Iceberg (No. 9200), a classic cyanotype 9 x 12″ image on a sheet of 11 x 14″ archival Revere Platinum cotton rag, collage with hand stitching and embroidery.
Make every day an Earth Day
Doug
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Artist book still available:
The Flow of Light Brushes the Shadow, an artist book from Singular Images Press, 2022, $60.00 (CA sales tax for those residing in the USA) plus shipping expenses. Message me douglas.stockdale.artist@gmail.com
Singular Images 
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