Thursday 3 May 2012: No fear of color

"No fear of color" is how the curator at the Seattle Art Museum described the people in central Asia who wove these wonderful ikat robes in the "Colors of the Oases" exhibit there. We had a very informative gallery walk with her -I'm not a weaver but it does boggle the mind how these textiles are made --30 hands for 1 robe. From the silk road area, which is now all those Russian "stans." Most of these were from Uzbekistan. The photos of Samarkand and Bukkara, the 2 main islamic cities here were wonderful too- with all that colorful tile, no wonder the people wanted to wear color! LOVE the colors of the natural dyes and the ambiguous forms. It's from the National Textile Gallery in Washington D.C.

There were also some photographs from a Russian photographer (Sergei Mikhailovitch) who in 1910 had the use of a train car through this area to develop his black and white (glass?) negatives with 3 different colored filters to make colored prints -amazing. They are archived in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. which one can look up online! I didn't remember his name, but searching the site I found what I thought to be him and then looked quickly through some of the his 26oo photos digitalized there (!!) and did find this one that was in the exhibit, showing the filters on the edges, which is how they are printed out. Thought some of you photographers might be interested in this.. so here's the link to the Russian photographer's 1910 photo in Samarkand I hope that works....

And of course, no photos allowed in the exhibit - these are from the banners outside the museum, in the steady rain we have had today. :-(

This is a very educational day -tonight off to another Sound Conversation at the Aquarium about restoration to the area where the Elwha Dam was taken down.

• Canon EOS REBEL T3i:
• f/29:
• 1/80":
• 70.0mm:
• ISO 800

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