Look, See

Floating Away

[T] Chris Ashley: Floating Away, 20070331, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Floating Away, United Airlines flight over Greenland, 2007

Merci! Au Revoir! Bonjournay!

[T] Chris Ashley: Merci, Au Revoir, Bonjournay!, 20070330, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Merci! Au Revoir! Bonjournay!, Mons, Belgium, 2007

Something There is That Likes a Grand Platz

[T] Chris Ashley: Something There is That Likes a Grand Platz, 20070329, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Something There is That Likes a Grand Platz, Brussels, Belgium, 2007

Say Your Prayers and Close Your Eyes

[T] Chris Ashley: Say Your Prayers and Close Your Eyes, 20070328, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Say Your Prayers and Close Your Eyes, Paris, France, 2007

Astonish Me

 

[T] Chris Ashley: Astonish Me, 20070327, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Astonish Me, Paris, France, 2007

What I Believe

[T] Chris Ashley: What I Believe, 20070326, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: What I Believe, Lens, Belgium, 2007

All of Land Meets All of Sky

[T] Chris Ashley: All of Land Meets All of Sky, 20070325, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: All of Land Meets All of Sky, Belœil, Belgium, 2007

Going Full Speed Ahead

Sitting with Casualties

 

[T] Chris Ashley: Sitting with Casualties, 20070323, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Sitting with Casualties, American WWII Cemetery, Hamm, Luxembourg, 2007

Want To Go To Paris Tomorrow?

 

[T] Chris Ashley: Want To Go To Paris Tomorrow?, 20070322, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Want To Go To Paris Tomorrow?, Paris, France, 2007

Taking the Long Way Home

 

[T] Chris Ashley: Taking the Long Way Home, 20070321, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Taking the Long Way Home, Jurbise, Belgium, 2007

Finding My Way to Beauty

[T] Chris Ashley: Finding My Way to Beauty, 20070320, HTML, 360 x 420 pixels
[B] Ann McConville: Finding My Way to Beauty, Paris, France2007

Collaboration with Ann McConville

The pairs of March 2007 drawings and photos, and the titles prompting them, are a sharing and exchange between Ann McConville and me. Ann is my wife. It’s been a long time since we collaborated like this. We have been together nearly twenty seven years, and we think we know each other pretty well. But even still, it is a very pleasant surprise to be working together because there is still the element of surprise: you don’t know what it will look like until you actually see it.

Ann has been working away from home for a fair amount of the past year. She is a psychotherapist, and early in 2006 decided to take a leave from her work as a clinical supervisor and from her private practice in order to accept contract work, most of which has been in Europe, except for six weeks in Oahu last fall.

Ann is also an artist. We met in art school, which she entered as a quite accomplished photographer, eventually moving through printmaking to painting. She learned her darkroom skills in high school, and was fortunate to have good examples and mentors early on. Also fortunate for her are two qualities- a great eye that can compose in the viewfinder, and a literary/humanist bent that moves her to make pictures that convey deep feeling and empathy. These two qualities have infused whatever visual work she does. It’s intuitive; she just does it.

Living and working in Europe has enabled Ann to take lots of day and weekend trips: one weekend in Paris, another in Amsterdam, another in Berlin; a day trip to Padua, another in Antwerp or Brugge. Prague, Venice, Stuttgart. Brussels, Colmar, Verona. Ribeauville, Asiago, Metz. The names of these places and others represent a lot of occupied space on her camera’s SD memory cards.

For the past year I have chosen to make HTML drawings in response to a monthly theme. I typically decide on a subject, a size of image, some motifs, and then just follow where it takes me. A set theme and size feels necessary these days; I have a day job, I’m busy, and I like knowing the subject and the size I’ll work with each day. With these two decisions set comes the hardest part: working out the image.

As March approached, and because she’s home and her head is full of travels, places, names, images, and other memories, Ann suggested providing me with titles for the month, and that’s how we began. She typed up a list of over fifty titles and emailed it to me, expecting that I would choose, edit, and rearrange them. Instead, I just started at the beginning and am going down the list- I don’t want to choose, and I’m just happy to have the list. These current titles focus on the time she spent during December 2006 until mid- February 2007 in the Benelux region. The only changes we’ve made are the occasional word adjustment.

At first, I thought the images I was making were too influenced by what she told me about Belgium in winter- dark, grey, short days- and her description of the landscape, which I feared would result in too many horizontal lines, sky above, ground below. I became conscious of not wanting to let this happen, but at the same time also that depicting place is what I wanted to do. My mind still isn’t made up about that. These images are always teetering between abstraction and representation.

A few days into March one of us had the idea of pairing Ann’s photos with my drawings, and I’m thrilled we’re doing this. I really enjoy it when a drawing and photo is linked by a color, a kind of space, or some kind of physical or mental quality.

When looking at Ann's photos, keep in mind that all of these photos are full-frame, uncropped- they are captured totally through the viewfinder. This is something I am terrible at doing-- framing an image through the camera-- and something that Ann is really good at; she is capable of seeing that way.

Here’s how it sort of works: there’s the title, and I try to make some kind of abstract-like image about that title, and then Ann finds a photo that is connected to that title without it being merely an illustration. I am working downstairs on a Windows machine, and she is working upstairs on her Mac with iPhoto, but we’re not necessarily working at the same time. She views the weblog, and emails me a photo. It might be days between some of the pairings pairings, and as of this writing there are still some drawings unaccompanied by a photo, but we’ll have it worked out by the end of March.

I am delighted by some of the pairings. Just a few examples are:

• “Danger, Risks Involved” on March 9 shows a splitting: in the drawing, red and yellow- hot, dangerous colors- separate and transform into darkness, while the photo shows an isolated fork in the road.
• The pair for “SHAPE Up,” March 7, includes a map of the Ardennes Offensive (from the American Cemetery in Luxembourg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardennes_Offensive), or Battle of the Bulge, in 1944-45, and a drawing of a kind of winged, missile-like column in motion.
• “Benelux Measured in Time” from March 18 contrasts a centralized reflected tree image with a three section flag-like shape, the center of which also has a reflective quality.
• “A State of Grace, or, Meeting the Monk” on March 16 pairs a photo of a monk who Ann picked up hitchhiking, and whose chapel she subsequently visited; he stands, turning to look at the camera, while the drawing presents a vertical, loose column of tiny pale blue particles in a pink and yellow evanescent field.

Now, let me make a pitch here: below is a photo of four paintings by Ann installed in our house. The two small pieces are maybe seventeen years old, ten by eight inches, acrylic on canvas board mounted on stretchers. The two larger pieces are three or four years old, eighteen by fourteen inches, PaintStick on canvas board mounted on stretchers. I hung these four in this arrangement in a central part of our house. I like them. This is a confession: I sometimes like her art more than my own. Let this be a public plea: Ann, paint more. You’re good.

[L] Ann McConville, Untitled, ca. 2003, PaintStick on canvasboard mounted on stretcher, 18 x 14 inches each

[R] Ann McConville, Untitled, ca. 1990, acrylic on canvasboard mounted on stretcher, 10 x 8 inches each

Homage: Prinsengracht, Amsterdam