Grace R.'s Moleskine Pages #1

I looked to the mid-1800s photographer/botanist Anna Atkins for a little inspiration in interpreting some Dickinson for my Moleskine today. Atkins is known for making cyanotypes, an early photographic process originating around the same time as the Daguerreotype. The process is fairly straightforward: mix the right ratio of water, green ferric ammonium citrate, and potassium ferricyanide, and use the mixture to coat stiff paper (watercolor paper works well). Pick what objects you want to use for your contact print (Atkins used plants) and be careful only to expose the coated paper, which is a light green color, to sunlight when you have everything set up just how you want it. Leave it in the sun for a while, then rinse the paper off in water until the water runs clear off of it and the page has turned bright blue (I'll include a clip of the washing step from when I made some cyanotypes at Wellesley last year). I had gotten the right chemicals/had already coated some paper before today for other art projects I am trying to work on during this unexpected period away from Wellesley's studio spaces.

As I note in the journal entry on one of my pages, I really feel like Anna Atkins and Emily Dickinson would have been kindred spirits. Working with "I dreaded that first Robin, so," using a sunlight-dependent process that also has a temporal aspect to it felt meaningful. This cyanotype was very unplanned and experimental (and it darkened more than I've ever experienced as it dried), but hopefully I will make more for my Moleskine in the coming weeks. I definitely encourage Googling Atkins to see what the real deal looks like! (And the short write-up "The Woman Who Made the World’s First Photobook" is a good place to start if you want to learn a little more about her.) Thanks for bearing with me on this long explanation—I really like talking about cyanotypes...