Night Moves

Posted on January 4, 2013 by CatRutgers4Art

Opening Night © Catherine Rutgers 2013Do you love taking photos at night without using a flash? If you do, good, because that means you’ll understand my attraction to these deeply shadowy, obscure, and ambiguous images.

There seems to be very little information, data, whatever you want to call the DNA that makes up a photo of the dark. But it’s deep. And unpredictable.

Which exactly reflects the torrenting thoughts that clutch me in a new year. Consumed with one picture for the past three months, the payoff is a range of startlingly divergent color and form. The hard part is selecting a few from the flow and the *really tough* part is to stop.

Staunch © Catherine Rutgers 2013Fade © Catherine Rutgers 2013Tranche © Catherine Rutgers 2013Resplendid © Catherine Rutgers 2013Dipsillated © Catherine Rutgers 2013Minupsided © Catherine Rutgers 2013Devillify © Catherine Rutgers 2013Queried © Catherine Rutgers 2013Vaylurrtwee (Previously Unknown Language) © Catherine Rutgers 2013Un-nighted Vision © Catherine Rutgers 2013

Images and text by Catherine Rutgers © 2013

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Home Zone

Posted on December 15, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

Ailanthus Cameo © Catherine Rutgers 2012You might relate to this circumstance: almost every day I’m manipulating the universe behind the glass over many daylight and nighttime hours.

This is often wildly pleasurable, but to curb a total disconnect from substantiality, I have a personal mantra. Keep in touch with the physical world. Don’t neglect your physical environment. It reminds me to wash, sweep, polish, dust; and attention to such insistent chores is accompanied by a roving agenda of renovations – scraping, sanding, plastering, and painting.

I try to avoid having “zones of stagnation.” But my foyer, alas, had fallen into the chips-peeling-from-the-ceiling-bike-tire-marks-on-white-walls state of being, and every time I closed the front door too enthusiastically, emerald fragments of paint were left behind.

In August 2011, Ellena Rutsch (home turf, France) graced the Guest Spot at CatRutgers4art. Boy, did we have fun! This was one of the coolest collaborations, but all entirely cyber. Imagine how happy I was to hear that she and her mom, Dina of the Netherlands, were coming to New York this October. This called for action. With the expert assistance of my brother, Tim, I was ready to welcome the warmly anticipated guests. Entryway, living room, kitchen. Or, you could say, library, gallery, laboratory. It’s all part of exploring, documenting, living in a space for work, regeneration, and inspiration. So spiral down to this in your sweet time: it is a small world I have created, narrow, but very beautiful, and you can step inside, if you want to.

Welcome Home © Catherine Rutgers 2012Handpainted Door © Catherine Rutgers 2012The Lovely Arches © Catherine Rutgers 2012Deoxyribonucleic Acid © Catherine Rutgers 2012

Homegrown Wunderkammer © Catherine Rutgers 2012Southeast Perspective © Catherine Rutgers 2012Palm Willow Mobile © Catherine Rutgers 2012Hot Summer Night © Catherine Rutgers 2012Sparkle © Catherine Rutgers 2012 Alternative Shadows © Catherine Rutgers 2012Photographs by Catherine Rutgers © 2012
You can sample the artistry of Rutgers Carpentry at blogspot
and paintings by Ellena Rutsch at the Guest Spot!

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A New Beginning of Time

Posted on December 11, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

One of my major topics, time is. So it was certainly serendipitous to meet Olga Ast, who invited me to participate in the ArcheTime project, beginning in 2009. Most recently, I’ve been inspired by the roundtable discussion at New York University (see Archetime dot net, “The Faces of Time”). Now, I have a new concept image, grounded in my compost project of August through December 2011 and somehow becoming a universe.

New Beginning of Time by Catherine Rutgers © 2012

Image and text by Catherine Rutgers © 2012

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I’m Hopelessly Devoted to You: Addenda, Credenza, Epilogue (Everything Plus the Atelier Sink)

Posted on December 7, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

An Open Book © Catherine Rutgers 2012“My head, it says, ooooooh, forget it. My heart, it says, don’t let go.” This is how I remember it, anyway, and let us run with whatever wings our way at the moment. Theoretically, this is the end of the book. But the beauty of here is that I can do whatever I want. A rambling title? Sure. Eighteen images that may or may not relate to each other? Yes. Within this template, which I carefully chose for its simplicity and resolutely resist altering, the options are open.

There is no sink actually in the studio. But there are two finishing pages to the thesis: a sheet of shiny red paper and a plastic bag to hold multi-colored shapes. It was meant to be a game to play, the red page is the board and you could (more than theoretically) make new art. I did, in 1990, and glued them to another, larger, sheet of paper. Hence, there’s only one piece left in the bag, though many ways to keep playing the game.

Ready for You © Catherine Rutgers 2012Represent Choice © Catherine Rutgers 2012Prescient Echo © Catherine Rutgers 2012Single Piece © Catherine Rutgers 2012Jewel-Tone Space v2 © Catherine Rutgers 2012Once on the Wing © Catherine Rutgers 2012Revelations © Catherine Rutgers 2012Major Change © Catherine Rutgers 2012Even Better When You Get Closer © Catherine Rutgers 2012Bluer Shade of Pale © Catherine Rutgers 2012Chips Falling Where They May © Catherine Rutgers 2012Always on the Wing © Catherine Rutgers 2012Chips Up © Catherine Rutgers 2012From the Deep (Create the Future) © Catherine Rutgers 2012My Yellow In This Case © Catherine Rutgers 2012Metallic Front © Catherine Rutgers 2012We Three © Catherine Rutgers 2012

00 An Open Book, 01 Ready for You, 02 Represent Choice, 03 Prescient Echo, 04 Single Piece, 05 Jeweltone Space v2, 06 Once on the Wing, 07 Revelations, 08 Major Change, 09 Even Better When You Get Closer, 10 Bluer Shade of Pale, 11 Chips Falling Where They May, 12 Chips Up, 13 Always on the Wing, 14 From the Deep (Create the Future), 15 My Yellow in This Case, 16 Metallic Front, 17 We Three

Catherine Rutgers © 2012

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Foot(note) Fetish

Posted on November 15, 2012 by CatRutgers4Art

Black and Red © Catherine Rutgers 2012Footnotes are lovely. Really. Do you like what you’re reading and want to discover more? Do you enjoy getting credit for your work? Consider footnotes as your vehicle to knowledge and your best bet for sending or receiving due respect.

The original thesis has endnotes in the back, on pages titled “Footnotes.” Curiouser and curiouser.

It was so hard using a typewriter to create them. The paper is onion skin. It’s a little crinkly, a bit slick, and has aged to a mellow tawny color. There are brushed-on strokes of white-out here and there. There are attempts to fix letters with a pen. The holes were punched by hand. On the back of the last page, on ring reinforcers, there are two tiny notes: SORRY and I TRIED. Apologizing for the twice-punched page, which apparently I couldn’t bear to retype.

What the heck were those ring things called? I think they peeled off a strip and you wet them to stick. Or did they come in a package and you poured them out? Most of them have fallen off. The typewriter clattered and made a distinct grinding noise when you rolled up the page and ultimately ripped it out of the machine. Something that I haven’t heard in decades but think I would recognize instantly if it appeared again in my life.

Can you get a feeling of how physical this was?

Sometimes I think the inspiration for the entire project to digitize “Untitled” was the way the black ink turned red in part of some letters. These footnotes are survivors. Here they are in all their glory, transported to the 21st century.

Footnotes 1-15 © Catherine Rutgers 2012Footnotes 16-31 © Catherine Rutgers 2012Footnotes 32-47 © Catherine Rutgers 2012Footnotes 48-54 © Catherine Rutgers 2012Trying to Do It Right © Catherine Rutgers 2012

The Positive Side of Negative Space © Catherine Rutgers 2012

Scans of a bygone era.
Catherine Rutgers © 2012

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