Uprooted
Sue Abramson thinks about roots, how they knit together a world we can’t see, mysterious and wise and functioning underground. Then one day they shift into the air, meet the ground, and their tree’s time is done, as far as living goes.
Of course a tree’s time is never done, which is like life, how a person is never truly gone but they continue on through the tricky and tenuous process of grief. Sometimes that grief manifests as art and seeks out the same cycles of joy and sorrow we experience as humans, except in a photograph of cicadas, 17-year space aliens, living under the trees roots and rising like steam to say: we’re still here.
The cycles of nature are a lot like the breathing we must continue to do, the breath that flows in and out because of the oxygen the trees give us. Sue walks through the woods as she breaths, observing all this weird beauty and decay.
We all root. We uproot. We stretch ourselves out of ourselves and this experience is like the majesty of the trees—dead and alive—in Frick Park. Witnessing the trees through every season Sue Abramson senses and sees what has risen and what we often neglect to see, the loss, the fall.
Sherrie Flick
From the Same Bulb
From the Same Bulb is a series of camera-less imagery made directly from Elephant Ear plants grown in my garden. The project began as an experiment in 2005, the year my husband, Kevin, and I first planted the bulbs. I was fascinated by the size of the leaf and wondered how it would reproduce as a black and white photogram. After one printing session I was committed to the process. Over the course of ten years, the work evolved to include scanned color imagery of both the leaves and the bulbs.Fortunately and unfortunately, this photographic experiment turned into a yearly ritual that I used to process my grief for Kevin, who died suddenly in April 2006. Working on our home and in our garden were a significant part of our relationship. From the Same Bulb integrates aspects of our shared life and allows me to move forward while staying connected to my past.
2005 - 2015
All images are printed 20” x 24”. Color Images are Archival Inkjet Prints made in an edition of 5. Black and White images are one of a kind Gelatin Silver Prints.
Magicicadas
Magicicadas, also known as periodical cicadas, have an extraordinary lifecycle. They live and grow underground for 13 or 17 years and then emerge en masse to fly, sing, mate and reproduce. Weeks later the adults perish and the nymphs burrow back into the soil to start the process over again. The first time I witnessed this phenomenon was in 2002. I was fascinated and wanted to make photographs but I didn’t have my camera. In 2019, the cicadas emerged again. Taking inspiration from their survival strategy of strength in numbers, I planned to shoot the project with my entire camera collection. Originally I had envisioned making imagery in a science fiction or horror genre. However, creating that kind of imagery in the midst of an environmental crisis seemed irresponsible so I had to change course.
After my initial research, I understood that I would be aware of the initial emergence of the cicadas but there was no guarantee I would be in the right place at the right time to make the photographs I had envisioned. In fact I did miss the massive emergence. Instead, what I encountered on every shoot were thousands of empty exoskeletons at the base of the trees while all the live activity was occurring way above my head. After a few frustrating weeks, I began collecting the exoskeletons to use as photogram materials and photographing the tree trunks as individual specimens in the landscape. Later, in the darkroom, I created imagery that was both fact and fiction to illustrate the cicada’s magical emergence from the ground. I combined my negatives with camera-less representations of the insects. Additionally I enhanced the exoskeleton shapes with graphite as a way to add depth and illumination to the print. The finished photographs place the cicada exoskeletons in their original context, on the surface of the forest floor surrounding the circumference of the trees.
2020 - ongoing
All Images are one of a kind 16” x 16” silver gelatin prints with the addition of graphite
Woodlands
My relationship with nature began when I was eight years old. At that time, my two best friends and I would walk every day after school to the neighborhood park to climb a group of three trees. Each of us had a favorite that we claimed as our own. Because most of the branches were intertwined, we could climb to the top, move from tree to tree, and hang out until we had to go home.
Twelve years later, I was living with my husband Kevin in a geodesic dome that was situated in the woods on the side of a mountain. This collection of photographs began among those trees, and follows my relationship, over the next 40 years, with light, loss, chaos and place. And as all relationships change through the mechanisms of time and chance, so has my photographic response to the woods.
1979 - ongoing.
All images are Archival Inkjet Prints - 20” x 20” made in an edition of 5.
This body of work is published in the 2018 monograph A Woodlands Journal. The book can be purchased at https://silvereye.org/shop/a-woodlands-journal-signed
or
http://www.spacescorners.com/books/A%20Woodlands%20Journal-Sue%20Abramson.html
Zone Blue
In the book Imagine Jonah Lehrer writes, “The color blue automatically triggers associations with the sky and ocean. We think about expansive horizons and diffuse light, sandy beaches and lazy summer days; alpha waves instantly increase. This sort of mental relaxation makes it easier to daydream and pay attention to insights; we’re less focused on what’s right in front of us and more aware of the possibilities simmering in our imaginations.”
For me, these photographs evoke a strong emotional response, to both the seductive quality of the cyanotype blue and the lush idyllic landscape. The images were made during my walks and travels over over a period of several years. The work is an affirmation and celebration of the earth’s ever changing landscape.
2014-2018
All images are printed 14” x 21” in a limited edition of 4.
Homegrown
I’ve been using my garden as photographic subject matter for the past twenty-five years. This series of photographs is an excerpt from my journal of vegetable garden images for the year 2012. The composites are partially inspired by Karl Blossfeldts’ “Working Collages” in that they are a detailed inventory of plant forms. But much like the work of Charles Jones’ in his monograph “Plant Kingdom” they document a gardener’s summer specimens with a certain amount of pride. I had a good year and a good yield. All the subjects in this portfolio, recorded over a period of months, have also been eaten, frozen or composted.
The process of making this work at first seems relatively simple; plants are placed directly on the scanner glass and recorded. But in fact it is more complex, these objects that are initially captured on a horizontal plane, when finished, are perceived as vertical compositions. Vegetables that were originally sitting on a flat glass surface transform into free-floating objects; the bits of dirt and dust surrounding some of them give the illusion of space. Another discovery I found when making these photographs is that when the scanner’s surface is incorporated into the final picture it’s visual syntax is reminiscent of contemporary wet-plate collodion prints. And just like a 19th century Ambrotype the addition of a black layer behind the glass negatives reveals significant changes.
2012 - 2013
All images are Archival Inkjet Prints on 20” x 24” paper made in a limited edition of 5.