| Falling
Up and Falling Down These images were
made while I was the Hewlett Packard Artist in Residence at
the Centre for Fine Print Research, the University of the
Western England in February 2004. I wish to gratefully acknowledge
the assistance of the Arts and Cultural Council for Greater
Rochester for supporting my travel expenses to the U.K. thus
enabling me to accept this position.
 I
am an Australian living in the
USA. As such many phenomena, common
in the Northern Hemisphere, seem
exceedingly exotic, if not downright strange, to someone who
has spent most of his life in the Antipodes.
Of these phenomena, of particular interest is the nature
of things that fall from the sky. Like many northern hemisphere
countries, upstate New York where I reside, is constantly
visited by snow, rain, freezing rain, hail, autumn leaves,
pollen, seed pods, industrial pollution, etc. For one who
is accustomed to (at worst) the year-round shedding of eucalypts
and the reasonably regular deposits of rain, the sheer variety
of atmospheric and other phenomena that descend as a matter
of course on the Rochester area, is something that cannot
go un-noticed.
Over the years I have documented a number of these events.
Most recently in late 2002 I made three, large scale, direct
scanned images of samples of the seed pods that spread themselves
abundantly over the countryside during Fall. I was attracted
to these seeds for a variety of reasons:
 Firstly
the sheer numbers of the pods is extraordinary. Literally
thousands are expelled from every tree. On occasions I have
thought that this event certainly puts paid to the notion
of Mother Nature. As one watches this profligate display of
excessively optimistic propagation one cannot help but imagine
(in a somewhat silly way) that anything so indiscriminate
in the way it spreads its seed on the ground would have to
be a boy!
Additionally, the seeds have wings and appear to exhibit
an almost conscious effort to distribute themselves evenly
throughout the world. I have heard that their structure and
flight behaviour influenced the design of the cluster bomb.
Whether this is true or not, in these difficult and dangerous
times the sight of thousands of these pods twirling and rushing
to earth can seem as much menacing as strangely beautiful.
What is particularly unusual about this phenomena is that
these seeds fall during Autumn, a time usually associated
with the “shutting down” of generative processes.
These seeds descend in their thousands, spinning down from
the maple trees like a swarm of miniature helicopters. As
they reach the ground they attempt to bury into the soil,
not to die and decompose like the many leaves that also fall
at this time, but instead to wait patiently for Spring.
Americans use the term “Fall” to describe Autumn.
This play on the notion of falling (perhaps from grace) is
an especially poignant term. As the seeds descend they sometimes
resemble thousands of tiny angels, expelled from heaven to
hide for a while, hoping to receive a second chance to rise
again.
The prints are made with (permanent) pigmented ink on
Somerset watercolor paper. Each print (Falling Up and Falling
Down) have an actual image area of 29.25 x 24.5 inches on
a 35 x 47 inch sheet. The statement above is printed on a
separate sheet with a small image embedded in the text. This
sheet is 27 x 21 inches. The price for the set is $5,000.00.
It is preferred that the images be purchased as a set but
single images can be purchased if desired. The edition size
is 15.
|
