ELISE ROBERTSON
Los Angeles Public Library Creator Grant Application
Supporting Materials
Envisioning the Microscopic Library Tile Project
This project concept brings together an experimental technique I developed while pursuing my Photography Certificate at PCC with a vision for illuminating various library locations through extreme close up photography.
The technique I pioneered combines flipped lens microscopy with resin casting to create tiles that can be arranged in an endless array of patterns. Initially inspired by the calming feeling I experienced looking at details of my garden, I experimented with flipping my camera lens and using it to document close-up images of my plants, bringing into focus the wonder and beauty of even the smallest patch of nature.
But in reading the specs of your grant, I realized that the library, with its many shelves of books, documents, and patterned architectural elements, provides a similarly vibrant potential playground for this technique. My vision is to engage library patrons (kids, hopefully!) to participate in workshops to take these pictures. This will allow for many eyes and outlooks. After curating the images, I would then do the work of prepping the photos, printing, and resin casting. Here are some pics I took at the Central library to show how beautifully the concept would translate to the library environment.
Here are photographs and a short video of the various prototype presentations I did at PCC over several semesters, featuring students there playing with the tiles. The library version would hopefully be set up on a table within the library space, so the microscopic images would be things the participants could find/see at that location.
I want to again stress that this concept has not yet been brought to completion anywhere: it would be completely original to the library if you choose move forward with it :)
Previous Projects:
ARROYO CATCHMENT
Photographic/multimedia sculpture - objects & artifacts from the Arroyo Seco basin, original & historical photographs/news clippings rendered via cyanotype onto cotton gauze, filmed scenes of the present-day Arroyo Seco.
As an artist, I am perpetually fascinated by the moment, or the place, where order meets chaos, and particularly as this pertains to the intersection of humanity and the wider natural world. In this piece, I turn my gaze toward the Arroyo Seco River basin which runs just a few hundred feet from my home.
This piece emulates a debris catchment, objects caught and intertwined in the course of flooding. All of the objects, branches, and detritus are locally found/scavenged. Live oak acorns and toyon berries, both native to the area, bits of concrete, stained glass remnants and nails from an old worktable dating from the late 1800’s found in a dumpster at Judson Studios. The cookstove grate was abandoned when a few of our neighbors were moved from their encampment a few weeks ago. The shifting history of this place is rendered onto pieces of gauze, using cyanotype technique, a natural photographic process in which the sun develops the images, and which has been used since the early 1800’s, including by botanists to capture and record images of plants.
THE SUITCASE SERIES
Digital inkjet transfer mapped onto vintage suitcases, polaroid photographs as seen through door peephole lenses.
This is my empty nest series. When you spend 18 years raising kids, and they leave for college, there’s a void. And you look around, and so much of them is still present. Memory is projected on the objects, the tasks, the moments, the time of day, the weather. They are everywhere. But they’re not.
The interiors of each suitcase contain polaroid self portraits illuminating the process of letting go.
THE DANDELION SERIES
The Dandelion series utilizes a variety of media to explore the fleeting and fragile nature of life.
Flipped lens microscopy, Collage w digital transfer and gold leaf, immersive video.
OTHER WORKS
This is a larger ongoing collection containing a variety of techniques exploring patterns in nature and the intersection between humanity and nature
For me, visually co-mingling the human body with the natural world inspires a deep level of appreciation, connection, and shared experience. The weaving of the photographs themselves provides an additional visceral manifestation of this union. Humans have been weavers for millenia, but so have birds, spiders, fungi, plants, and countless other creatures . The physical act of weaving whether fibers, roots, webs, or images, is a manifestation of the most basic and joyous essence of life.
Thank you for your interest in the project. I can be reached at elise@eliserobertson.com or by phone/text at 323.496.6659 if you would like additional information.For more information about me and my various art practices, check out my website at
www.eliserobertson.com or instagram @eliserobertsonart