Of the Egg In the Heart

These photographic sculptures are tangible manifestations of interpersonal relationships as depicted through two bodies in physical relation to each other. Just as you, and someone you love, or don’t love, stand closely intertwined, or resist the slight of back-to-back contact, your bodies are entangled in the unseen strings of attachment or discord between one and another. When two people join together, in any short or long inter-personal relationship, good or bad, they form a unique entity between them – one that can only be understood from inside their relationship, or when viewed intimately, as if peering into the soul of joining bodies.

Technique/Process:

These are black and white photographs –  true ‘photo-graphs’ – which is defined in Latin as ‘light’ and ‘write’, or translated to ‘written by light’. In this photographic chemical process, projected light, in varying intensities and for varying lengths of time, can change the chemical composition of the light-sensitive emulsion that I painted upon the inside surface of the eggs. Dark blacks are created by exposing the emulsion with greater light-intensities and/or time-periods, while the grays are created with lesser degrees of light-intensity/time. White is created by the absence of light-exposure; by using shade to eliminate any light-exposure of the emulsion. 

Let’s begin from the duck. There was a kind old family out on Rt. 2 who used to bring their horses down to the Boston Common for carriage rides during the holidays. They kindly raised ducks, and they so kindly gave me many duck eggs. These duck eggshells, I first broke open on one side and cleaned out. Subsequently, many quiches were enjoyed. After thoroughly drying, these eggshells became tiny niches, who I then delicately treated so that photographic images could be projected, exposed, developed, and fixed upon their inside back surface. 

The treatment was completely procured in a darkroom, with only an infrared light present. I painted a foundational substrate, followed by four layers of liquid light-sensitive photo-emulsion, while patiently waiting between each layer for long room-temperature drying times to secure the emulsion in place. (I once made the mistake of trying to speed up the drying process by using heat, and the emulsion was unfortunately “burnt”, resulting in black images. Argh!) 

I would prepare 24 eggs in each batch so that I had enough eggs, with the same consistent emulsion, to make all the ‘test-strip’ eggs and ‘final-print’ eggs for each image. During the printing process I exposed each niche eggshell by placing it under a projected image; using a photo enlarger to cast light in the shape and design of the image. Then, in order to bring the eggs out of the darkroom and into normal roomlight/daylight I ran them through a typical series of photographic chemicals in order to develop, stop, fix, and wash them. These chemical baths halted the emulsion’s light-sensitive capacity and fixed the images into what you see today inside the light boxes on these walls. I hope you enjoy them!

Often I am asked, and so I must make clear: these are not eggshells with pieces of paper taped, glued, or pasted on the inside. These images are also not drawn or painted onto the inside surface of the egg. These eggshells have been elaborately treated so that illuminated images from the world could be cast inside them and saved upon their surface, by the natural wonders of chemistry. Enjoy!