#38 of 52 projects

In 2000 I was enamored with antique photos most likely because I was working on a memory book after my fathers death that year; my aunt sent me a box of old photos, plus, that was around the time the use of cabinet photos in altered work was the "in thing." I've never been "in" so it's not surprising that my love affair with the collection I built up died fast. This piece seemed to scream for a focal point so I got out the container of metal ephemera and viola!

Components: pellon interfacing, tissue paper, cheesecloth, perle cotton stitched on, loose threads needle punched on, image on metal, buttons.

Okay, the answer about the image on the metal metal piece is: An altered image, done in PhotoShop Elements was printed onto a transparency and run through a xyron machine, cut out and adhered to metal which in this case is a seltzer water can that was heat distressed. The transparency image is too shiny and raw so it was sprayed with matte spray. The metal piece sewn onto the left of the photo was painted with gesso and blotted off. Nice to have pieces of metal just waiting to be used! (Years ago I played around with ways of applying images onto metal and came up with this approach rather than doing a transfer; gel medium or other types of transfers I tried rarely were successful. When I ran across the ones I did years ago I was blown away by how good they still look.)
PS. my good friend D. just asked me a question about matte spray on the transparency. I wrote an article for a now defunct Zine about Faux Tintypes and this was one of the examples, so yes, this is a great way to create faux tintypes. So much for memory!


Quote: So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains And we never even know we have the key.
Lyrics from Already Gone, performed by the Eagles for their 1974 On the Border album