About Outside the Box

“Outside The Box” is a phrase with many cultural colours in our society. I would like to list those that apply to the images of this collection and a period of my life.

My favorite comes from the treatment of domestic house cats by veterinarians. A domestic cat when injured or in pain will seek a secret spot to hide. Veterinarians will encourage this behavior by providing a small box, as a refuge for the cat. A cat will use the box until recovery has set in, and on occasion when under stress, return to this hiding space.

Another application of the phrase, “Outside The Box”, applies to the freedom from the toxic environment of the photographic darkroom offered by digital imaging processes. This may seem obvious today, but was less so in 1998.

With the development of the Internet, it became possible to discover opportunities for Exhibition that were unheard of in earlier years. I was able to take advantage of many opportunities in the United States, and to a lesser degree in Canada, to exhibit in centers I could never dreamed of before 1998. The Internet allowed me to break “Outside The Box” of restrictive local opportunities.

I was, at various periods of my career, interested in alternative means of creating art. Painting and printmaking had been attractive to me. I rejected printmaking because of solvents, the high cost of maintaing studio space, and the cumbersome capital equipment required.

As it had released me from the darkroom, digital imaging also released me from the expenses associated with printmaking and the maintenance of a substantial studio. I was once again “Outside The Box” of traditional restricts. The same studio expenses would also apply to a painting studio, which I had for a 10 year period in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.

The release of an archival ink set (Lysonic dye set) and an affordable digital printer (Epson 3000} in 1998 were keys to breaking “Outside The Box” of traditional barriers of producing art. Development in the field of archival printing has advanced substantially over the past 10 years, and artists are now blessed with choices of printers and media.

And now, much later, the ability to print small book editions, on demand, is yet another form that is “Outside The Box” of traditional book printing. The advent of On-Demand-Printing affords the visual artist of a new avenue that is an alternative to the traditional gallery system, public and private, in the dissemination an artistic vision.

I eventually transferred that interest to ways of reproducing the effect on paper while a student in Fine Arts. Eventually, I succumbed to investigating the concept through image editing software on a computer.

The original photographs were colour negatives or colour slides. The original photos date back to the 1970s through to the 1990s. They are part of a life project of capturing images as they present themselves. The images were selected as being appropriate to the thought that being seen on TV is validation; of the moment, the place, the experience.