More paper litho

A group of us are starting a quick project at the Lancashire archives for exhibition in September. It's based on the work of John Mercer, dyer, chemist and early salt print pioneer.

In response to one of his sets of prints (same image different colour ways)  I found myself asking questions . Who is the boy?  Do the props say anything about him?  Or about John Mercer’s musical and scientific interests? Is the setting significant? What is that building?

OR could it be simply set outside for light using a collection of stuff that was to hand to see how the detail would work in print.

My instinct is to try and make a story out of the image.

I’ve started by making images containing a person and several objects.

Hopefully the viewers will be led to infer something about the character and their history because of the elements contained in the image. There is no right or wrong story, the narrative will depend on the experiences that the viewers bring and the connotations that the objects have for them.

As characters I used people taken from family photos, mainly Victorian or Edwardian and added ‘props’ from my own photos or scans of objects

 As a link to Mercers experiments I have started to explore these as monochromatic prints in similar colours to those used by Mercer. I don’t have the equipment to make cyanotypes (or other salt prints) but have made initial experiments  trying to replicate their appearance with paper lithography

And as some of the images held by the archive are printed on fabric I’ve also printed onto thin cotton.

The Mercer images are copyrighted but you can follow this link to find them