WEBVTT

00:00:23.660 --> 00:00:25.460
I love these pieces.

00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:32.720
Besides the fact that they're history to me,

00:00:32.720 --> 00:00:34.800
I just think they're beautiful.

00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:37.600
For a long time, I thought they were too beautiful.

00:00:41.180 --> 00:00:44.500
Beauty is a problem sometimes in art making.

00:00:47.160 --> 00:00:52.620
In the '70s, the rest of the world thought
that beauty was a weakness;

00:00:52.620 --> 00:00:55.540
but the reality is, it's a strength.

00:00:56.180 --> 00:01:00.760
I think, just as other things
have changed in the world,

00:01:01.380 --> 00:01:03.120
things come around, you know.

00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:09.380
[CURATOR]
--So exciting, I'm dying to see this.

00:01:09.380 --> 00:01:10.380
[LAUGHS]

00:01:20.620 --> 00:01:22.080
--That is beautiful.

00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:26.000
--Oh my gosh, Barbara, this is exciting. I love it!

00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:35.420
[KASTEN]
--I'm going to work with this again, I'm sure.

00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.700
--I like it. Yeah, I like it.

00:01:42.740 --> 00:01:45.940
This was my first attempt at photography.

00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:49.580
It's called cyanotype.

00:01:50.320 --> 00:01:54.300
It's a liquid emulsion that's a mix of
iron and bleach.

00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:59.480
Any object can be placed on it
and exposed in sunlight.

00:02:01.220 --> 00:02:04.259
When it's washed, it turns blue.

00:02:04.260 --> 00:02:07.300
Blue is such a spiritual color.

00:02:08.620 --> 00:02:12.060
I love the fact that this blue
can be so intense.

00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:19.780
In the '70s,
when I was teaching textile sculpture,

00:02:19.790 --> 00:02:24.120
I needed a way to demonstrate
how to take a flat woven surface

00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:26.250
and make a three-dimensional form.

00:02:26.250 --> 00:02:28.480
And I found this window screening.

00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:34.660
When I saw how two layers
make a beautiful moiré

00:02:34.660 --> 00:02:40.560
I thought of this cyanotype process,
and experimented with that.

00:02:40.820 --> 00:02:42.600
It's very easy.

00:02:42.610 --> 00:02:45.500
It didn't require a darkroom.

00:02:45.500 --> 00:02:49.530
I liked the idea that it was
more like a printmaking process;

00:02:49.530 --> 00:02:53.300
but, it happened to be
a photographic recording.

00:02:55.060 --> 00:03:00.780
I just knew that there was something special
about these works.

00:03:02.860 --> 00:03:05.020
I just put them away for a while.

00:03:08.900 --> 00:03:15.480
I didn't want them out in the world without
some sort of recognition as a body of work.

00:03:21.780 --> 00:03:25.560
I still have an affinity for materials.

00:03:27.440 --> 00:03:33.800
I still respond to the transparencies
and textures of different surfaces.

00:03:37.200 --> 00:03:41.420
At that point in time, I really had a freedom.

00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:45.340
I didn't know anything about photography.

00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:48.620
Now I think I know too much about photography.

00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:57.120
It was a more experimental time,
in a different way.