Photographer Rachel Phillips; Field Notes

Sometimes you see something visual and it just resonates with you on such a deep level that it starts the beginnings of an interest, an obsession, or even a love affair.

I was in the Catherine Couturier Gallery a couple months ago and came across a few pieces by artist Photographer Rachel Phillips, who considers herself a photographer yet uses her photography in such a unique manner via a transfer process that all her art works are one of a kind, completely unique. In her work entitled “Field Notes”, she transfers images to old letters, envelopes and aerograms. They are personal, in that each has a cancelled stamp from somewhere, and the name of who sent it or who it was sent to, some with letters or personal notations.  I had expressed some interest to Catherine, the gallery owner, and she said, wait a couple of months, Rachel has a show coming up and was bringing in a lot of new work.

(embedded video to view: Rachel Phillips Transfer Print Demo)

Well the show’s opening was yesterday evening. Knowing that I wanted to purchase a piece for myself, I went in earlier in the afternoon and with the gallery to myself, I wandered around deciding and then un-deciding many times until I finally picked out two pieces that spoke to me on various levels. I loved the imagery on all of them, but one of the pieces held a personal connection for me in that it was an envelope, obviously fan mail, sent to Norma Talmadge, the silent film actress. The postmark date on one envelope is 3 11 1928. My first son was born on 3 11. The letter was sent to her care of United Artists in Hollywood California, where I grew up. The image is one of a child sleeping in a four poster bed, hunkered down under a duvet. One of the other elements in the piece was an envelope sent to someone in Staten Island New York from France. My family immigrated through Staten Island in the early 1900s. I was born in New York. I grew up in California, well I’m sure you are starting to see the connection to the piece.

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