SCANOGRAPHY

​I was captivated when I first saw a scanograph.  My partner and I spent a lot of time at the secluded Lake Michigan beach at the base of the Port Oneida area of Leelanau County.  The closest community center was Glen Arbor, a vacation destination unlike any other, in my opinion.  We visited Glen Arbor whenever visiting that hidden beach, seemingly a world away from Traverse City.   
 
“Synchronicity” seemed to be the most intriguing art gallery in Glen Arbor.  On one visit scanographs created by Kim Kauffman (https://www.kimkauffman.com) were on display. We communicated with Kim and arranged that I would pick up the exact piece desired at Mackerel Sky Gallery of Contemporary Craft on M.A.C. Avenue in East Lansing when I was in the area on business.
 
My interest in scanography took off from there.  Kim provided basic information and I couldn’t resist taking one of her workshops at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.  I created two scanographs at that workshop which were exhibited in the halls of the KIA and both of which have subsequently been juried into photographic exhibitions or fine arts exhibitions elsewhere.  One of them is a visual memoir of two trips to the Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich.  It is perhaps my most complex scanograph and for that reason probably my favorite.
 
To create a scanograph one uses a flat bed scanner.   Flora, found objects, paper shapes, really anything that is not too heavy for the scanner’s glass plate are gently placed on the scanner’s glass plate.  Because of my admiration of Kim’s early work, all my first scanographic images were of flora like hers were.   I usually gathered these items for scanography at my cabin near Mancelona.  Because they would have wilted rather quickly during the two hour drive home in the summer, I had to transport them home in a cooler.  However, one of my favorite images, called “Impermanence” shows exactly the wilting effect summer heat can have on flora.
 
If a heavy object is to be used in the image, one places a separate, stronger pane of glass above the scanner glass that rests on something other than the scanner.  This presents a photographic challenge because the further away from the scanner glass the objects are placed, the blurrier the image will be.  Any distance more than 3/4ths to an inch away from the scanner glass will show gradations of blurriness.
 
When the placed objects seem ready to scan, a cardboard box larger than the scanner’s glass is placed over the scanner.  If one can find a cardboard box with dimensions the same as the scanner glass’ frame, it is ideal.  If not, a larger box will suffice and portions of the sides are cut away so as to leave corners as “stilts” alongside the scanner.  The inside of the box will have been spray painted flat black. 
 
One clicks “scan” to create the image.  Easy enough!  But rarely does the image on the monitor screen appear exactly as one imagined it would look.  At that point the items that are resting on the glass are rearranged and a second image is created.  One continues to rearrange the items until the resulting image is worth clicking “save”.  Naturally, sometimes this is with the fifth “scan” click, or the tenth, or the twentieth, or….you get the idea.  Creating an image that is acceptable whether it is what you expected it to be or not, takes patience and expertise and luck and a willingness to explore aspects of an image never envisioned.  

​Photos 1 and 2: Optional box arrangements for use in creating scanographs
Photo 3:  "Quillwork", is a scanograph image that was temporarily on display at the KIA showing porcupine quillwork that I created.  I was taught quillwork at the Intertribal Center in Newberry about 30 years ago and from additional native teachers after that initial training.
Photo 4:  "Leaves from a Garden" is an image constituting a visual memoir of two trips to Dachau Concentration Camp near Munich that was displayed in the KIA.  This image is actually composed of four separate scanographs which were layered onto and into each other.   The zen garden shown in the photo is located in the famous "Englischer Garten" of Munich, only 21 km (13 miles) from Dachau.  The contrast of peace and tranquility one feels at the garden compared to the horror one feels at Dachau is unavoidable. 
Photo 5: "Impermanence", scanograph of wilting flora