Interview: Heidi Gustafson Recounts Establishing an Archive Preserving Hundreds of Humanity’s Oldest Art Materials

All images © Heidi Gustafson, Early Futures, shared with permission

The word ochre tends to be associated with the warm brownish-yellow color, although it also refers to the physical substance that once removed from the earth, crushed, and combined with liquid, becomes paint. In a new interview supported by Colossal Members, we speak to forager, artist, and researcher Heidi Gustafson, who established the Early Futures Ochre Sanctuary in 2017 and has since amassed hundreds of samples of these pigments.

When you get into the nature of color (akin to tracing food from farm to table), you start to realize color symbolism has a lot of direct, solid foundations in geomorphology. Red that feels “intense or energizing” is often made of 500 million-year-old ancient volcano spew. Yellow that is “sunny” might be ochre made by spring sunlight interacting with microbes to create fresh iron hydroxide. Blue that feels “mournful or spiritual” could be made from vivianite (iron phosphate) forming in dead bodies.

In this conversation, Gustafson speaks about Early Futures, its evolution, and what it’s meant to work with a substance with such a rich and lengthy history. She discusses the multi-sensory and sometimes uncanny nature of her process, the threat the climate crisis poses to the earth’s stores, and how ochre’s legacy reaches far beyond its alluring color.

 

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Blooms Exude Presence and Personality in Bold Cyanotypes by Rosalind Hobley

All images © Rosalind Hobley, shared with permission

In London-based artist Rosalind Hobley’s expressive cyanotypes, flowers assume a portrait-like quality through varied textures and supple shapes. In her Still Life series, a cast of dahlias, anemones, roses, and peonies sit like regal subjects. Originally trained in figurative sculpture, she uses light and shade to accentuate form and gesture. “I aim for my prints to have the weight and presence of a piece of sculpture,” she tells Colossal.

Cyanotype is an early form of photography, first invented in 1842, named for the monochromatic rich blue hue of its prints. Hobley uses cotton rag paper with a light sensitive solution of iron salts and then leaves it to dry in the dark. She then exposes it to UV light under large format negatives, and finishes up by washing the prints in water, where they develop their characteristic blue color. “I love the mess and creativity of the cyanotype process,” she says. “I am interested in techniques which translate the photographic image into something more interesting and exciting. I like mistakes, blur, brushstrokes, loss of definition, spontaneity.”

Hobley has work in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, which runs June 21-August 21, 2022. She also has prints of available for sale on her website, and you can find more on Instagram.

 

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June 2022 Opportunities: Open Calls, Residencies, and Grants for Artists

Image © Nespoon

Every month, Colossal shares a selection of opportunities for artists and designers, including open calls, grants, fellowships, and residencies. If you’d like to list an opportunity here, please get in touch at hello@colossal.art. You can also join our monthly Opportunities Newsletter.

 

Open Calls

The 13th Epson International Pano Awards
Open internationally, the 13th annual Epson International Pano Awards celebrates all facets of panoramic photography. The competition will award more than $40,000 in prizes, including $14,000 in cash. There is an entry fee of $22 per submission.
Deadline: Midnight (UTC-11) on July 11, 2022.

International Art Textile Biennale 2023
Open to international applicants, Fibre Arts Australia is seeking submissions reflecting contemporary textile practice as an art form in the International Art Textile Biennale with prizes totaling AU$15,000. There is an entry fee of AU$75 to submit up to two artworks.
Deadline: July 17 2022.

Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize
Awarding $57,000 in cash and prizes, this annual international competition celebrates diversity and excellence in visual arts, supporting all static mediums. The top prize is $13,500, and there is a $40 entry fee.
Deadline: Midnight PST on July 17, 2022.

Faena Prize for the Arts
Artists across genres, disciplines, and technologies are invited to imagine temporary and site-specific projects to be installed at the Faena Beach during Miami Art Week 2022. The winning proposal will receive a US $100,000 prize.
Deadline: August 1, 2022.

8th National Juried Exhibition at the Oxford Arts Alliance
Now in its 8th year, the National Juried Exhibition at the Oxford Arts Alliance is hosting an open call for an October 2022 show. There’s a $30 entry fee and a top prize of $500.
Deadline: August 19, 2022.

The Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Painters
U.S.-based painters are invited to apply for the third iteration of The Bennett Prize, which awards $50,000 to one artist with a runner-up receiving $10,000. The entry fee is $40.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. MST on October 7, 2022.

 

Grants

The Velocity Fund for Philadelphia-Based Artists
By awarding grants up to $5,000 for community-focused projects, The Velocity Fund directly supports artists throughout the city of Philadelphia. Individual visual artists​ and​ artist run spaces/collectives who are located within the city limits ​of Philadelphia are encouraged to apply.
Deadline: June 6, 2022.

The Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grants
Open to women-identifying artists based in the U.S., this grant awards up to $20,000 for environmental art projects. Proposals should focus on the impact of the project and must have a public engagement component.
Deadline: 5 p.m. ET on June 14, 2022.

Innovate Grants
Innovate Grant awards two $550 grants each quarter to one visual artist and one photographer. The initiative is open internationally.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. PST on June 16, 2022.

Disability Communities
A series of new photography grant from Getty Images and Verizon aims to promoted authentic representation and visual stories on the community aspect of disability. Open to global photographers and videographers, the one-time grant awards one recipient $15,000, one recipient $10,000 and three recipients $5,000 each.
Deadline: June 30, 2022.

Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists
This $10,000 grant recognizes an existing body of work by a Black trans woman. It will also provide additional support for continuing their work.
Deadline: June 30, 2022.

Media Arts Assistant Fund
This fund provides individual New York-based artists with support for the completion and/or public presentation of new works in all genres of sound and moving image art, including emergent technology. Artists will receive up to $7,500 to assist in completing new work.
Deadline: July 1, 2022.

Southern Artists for Social Change
This National Performance Network program provides $25,000 project grants to artists and culture bearers of color living, working, and engaging in social change in urban, rural, and tribal communities of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Deadline: 5 p.m. CST on July 29, 2022.

$500,000 Creative Capital x Skoll Foundation Fund
Kickstarter, Creative Capital, and Skoll Foundation launched a $500,000 Creative Capital x Skoll Foundation Fund to support projects by Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx creators. Awards are given out on an ongoing basis to creators in categories like Arts, Comics & Illustration, Design & Tech, Film, Food & Craft, Games, Music, and Publishing.
Deadline: Rolling.

Adobe Creative Residency Community Fund
Adobe’s Creative Residency Community Fund commissions visual artists to create company projects on a rolling basis. Awardees will receive between $500 and $5,000.
Deadline: Rolling.

 

Residencies & Fellowships

Granite Falls Community Artist in Residence
The City of Granite Falls, MN, and the Granite Area Arts Council are requesting qualifications from interested local, regional, and national artists for a 12-week Community Artist in Residence program. The selected artist will receive lodging and studio space, a $3000 project budget, a stipend of $600 a week for 30 hours work, and an additional travel stipend of $500.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. CST on June 3, 2022.

ACE Artist in Residence Program
Open to U.S. artists across disciplines, this residency awards a $1,000 stipend and seven days in the mountains of Alta, Utah. The application fee is $10.
Deadline: June 15, 2022.

Franconia Sculpture Park Residencies
Franconia provides a communal residency experience where up to 18 selected artists live on-site at their 4500 sq. ft. farmhouse. This year’s theme is “Public Art IS Public Health.” Applicants should express an interest in investigating and creating work exploring intersectional impacts between public art and public health.
Deadline: August 1, 2022.

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In Clever Stop Motion Tutorials by Omozoc, Wooden Boards Slice Like Sticks of Butter

Stop-motion animator omozoc (previously) has a knack for making complex and labor-intensive processes look remarkably effortless. In a new series called Stop Motion Woodworking, planks of wood are sliced with kitchen knives, cookie cutters carve mortise holes like dough, and a bench scraper shapes tenons for the joints with the smoothness of a blade through a stick of butter. Satisfying chopping and slicing sounds accompany the construction of a small stool that is just the right size to hold a milk crate, which features in its own tutorial video.

Find more animations by omozoc on YouTube.

 

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Chimerical Creatures Combine Feathers and Fur in Isabel Reitemeyer’s Uncanny Collages

All images © Isabel Reitemeyer, shared with permission

Berlin-based artist Isabel Reitemeyer is known for making uncanny collages that splice images of animals and bodies into humorously enigmatic compositions. In her recent series, songbirds with guinea pig heads perch on twigs, horses with enormous bunny ears stand in fields, and a retriever looks out at us from the body of a chicken. The assemblages, which are often small in scale and made from found photographs and cutouts, are deftly aligned so that the outlines of the animals fit together seamlessly.

A bunny’s beady eye or the slight cock of a terrier’s head gives personality to each chimerical creature, as if self-aware of their unusual predicament. Reitemeyer taps into the ways we anthropomorphize our pets and other animals, reading into their expressions and feelings as if they were our own, resulting in sly and unusual personalities.

You can find more of Reitemeyer’s collages on her website and on Instagram.

 

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Lush Aerial Photos by Pham Huy Trung Capture the Annual Harvests of Vietnam’s Countryside

Trang An. All images © Pham Huy Trung, shared with permission

From the foggy limestone mountains of Trang An to grass collection in Bao Loc, the scenic shots by Pham Huy Trung (previously) preserve Vietnam’s heritage. The photographer often works with drones, allowing him to capture aerial views of wooden boats wedged into a harbor and farmers grasping large baskets as they gather tea. Resplendent with vegetation, the images frequently center on industry and annual harvests to create a visual record of everyday activity.

Pham is currently planning a trip abroad—follow his travels on Instagram—and has select prints available on his site.

 

Pink trumpet flowers, Bao Loc

Boats, Trang an, Ninh Binh

Tea harvest, Bao Loc

Lillies, Mekong Delta

Tea harvest, Bao Loc

Grass harvest, Mekong Delta

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Containing 80 Portraits, ‘Stop Tanks with Books’ Pleas for Broad, Sweeping Action in Ukraine

Lina in a national costume, Orihovo-Vasylivka village, Donetsk (2018). Images © Mark Neville, courtesy of Nazraeli Press

Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, British artist Mark Neville moved to Kyiv, a city he traveled to frequently from his home in London since beginning Stop Tanks with Books in 2016. The project, which culminates in a new 180-page volume edited by David Company and published by Nazraeli Press, involved documenting life in the country through portraits of passersby on the street, families lounging at the beach, and others dancing among energetic nightclub crowds.

Each photograph tethers a human face to the entirely inhumane atrocities of war and “(weaponizes) the medium to effect change.” The images are intimate and profound, showing a young girl screaming into a toy phone following shelling in 2016 or a father and son cradling goats in their home in Decyatny.

 

Alexsandr Konokov and Sasha on their Goat Farm in Decyatny, Zhytomyr Oblast, 2017

Neville’s intention for the project has always been twofold. He hoped to inspire broad, international support for Ukraine’s independence in Donbas and Crimea and to offer a necessary corrective to the stereotypical information and images disseminated by the Kremlin, which he saw Western media sources often redistributing without context. “Stop Tanks With Books was my attempt to fight Russian aggression,” Neville says.

Eighty of his portraits are positioned alongside research from the Centre of Eastern European Studies in Berlin about the 2.5 million people who had already been displaced by 2018, in addition to short stories by Ukrainian poet and novelist Lyuba Yakimchuk that detail life under Russian occupation in Donbas.

The pairings lead to a call to action written in both Ukrainian and English, one made more urgent by the full-scale assault on the nation that’s taken thousands of civilian lives alone in the last three months. “I wonder what the international response would be if Stockholm, London, Paris, or New York were threatened with an unprovoked and imminent invasion by Russia? Our book is a prayer and a necessary plea to the international community,” Neville wrote before the war officially began, when he also sent copies of the book to 750 policymakers, ambassadors, media members, and those involved in peace talks. He hoped to raise awareness about the immediate threat the people of Ukraine faced.

There are a few copies of Stop Tanks with Books available from Setanta Books, although a second edition with a new foreword by Neville is in progress. You can find much more of the photographer’s activist-centered work, in addition to more images from the series, on his site. (via Lens Culture)

 

Boy with dog, Troitske, Luhansk (2019)

Couple at Stanytsia Luhanska Bridge (2019)

Ukrainsk, Donetsk (2021

Three Kilometres from the frontline, Donetsk (2019)

Policewomen, Mariupol (2019)

Kristina in Troyitske, Eastern Ukraine, an hour after the shelling (2016)

Maria Holubets, Natalia Tarasenko, Rozalia Boiko, Maria Shvanyk, and Rozalia Mahnyk at the Greek Catholic Monastery, Zvanivka (2018)

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