Gen-erate teen Lavina Gray presents a virtual cyanotype workshop and engages artist and educator Sarah Spengler to discuss cyanotypes in history through the present day. Participants receive cyanotype materials in the mail and videos by Spengler and Gray will be emailed to you to walk you through the process of creating your own cyanotype images.

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Lavina’s program notes:

A cyanotype is a kind of photography that is described as being cameraless, when physical objects are placed directly on top of paper coated with ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide which is then exposed to the sun, creating a negative silhouette of the selected objects in blue images. With this printing process, you can overlap, create a composition, make an abstract, portray translucency and opacity, or express the everyday and familiar items through artistic expression. 

Cyanotypes are interesting during a time when everyone has a camera in their pocket, and can take a picture at any time. The process allows the artist to integrate deeper into the picture than a digital camera does, without producing large amounts of images. They aim to celebrate these everyday objects that are printed, making the outcome perplexing, intriguing, and creating it to be almost greater than it is meant to be with care and consideration, similar to thinking about using a film camera.

Sarah Spengler earned her Master of Fine Art in Photography from the University of New Mexico in 2002 and holds a BA in cultural anthropology from Bates College. Her artwork often examines and demystifies technology through the use of antiquated optical devices.

Lavina Sage Gray is a senior at New Mexico School for the Arts. She is Mohawk from upstate New York, and currently lives in Española, New Mexico on a two-acre farm. She has taken a great liking to large scale expressive painting and drawing of abstract portraiture, and hopes to further her visual studies after high school to pursue her goals as an artist. Her work incorporates acrylic paint, charcoal, and dirt, mostly on butcher paper or raw canvas, drawing inspiration from nature and humanity. She is able to use her creative intellect throughout the process of planning her public program at SITE.

Gen-erate is a new program through SITE’s Education Department that offers three Santa Fe teens the chance to curate public programs at SITE and to engage in intergenerational programming that responds to the themes of SITE exhibitions, focuses on topical issues of local importance, and brings teens and adults together for constructive dialogue through the exploration of contemporary art and expression. This program is supported by a grant from Santa Fe County. SITE’s first three Gen-erate teens are Lavina Gray, Natalia Payne, and Malia Seva.