Rootnegs

The Rootnegs are explorations of the life force as expressed by seemingly dead and inert plant cuttings which, after some weeks, miraculously sprout new roots and come to life within their glass water-filled containers. I started to document this thinking I would scan the Polaroid color prints and make from them large digital prints in ink on paper. But the gooey peel-apart Polaroid negatives caught my attention. I remembered them from my childhood; their color, although strange, had a particular nostalgia for me, as did the sandwich of materials comprising the "negative" (not really a true negative, nor a true positive.)

I ended up scanning the gooey negatives (quickly, before they dried and faded) and making 40x50 inch prints on scrolls of Shiramine mulberry paper. This way of working is a takeoff from the conventional "Polaroid transfer" process, in which the negative is pressed against paper and the image transferred. But rather than yielding a small unique print, the rootnegs are large and have an edition size of 7.

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