About the cover: Melt
The Lewis Range slouches into Larch groves and violet-specked Fireweed hills, eventually meeting the shores of Saint Mary. In the summer of 2015, we drove along Going-to-the-Sun Road with our windows up—a thin barrier between us and the pluming smoke from the Reynold’s Creek fire. What we drove through had already burned; the foothills transformed into a ghost forest of charred husks and ashen stone.
Melt is twofold: a spring thaw, when the river runs high and viridian, and the fiery heat of summer. The lack of one begets the rise of another.
The Harlequin ducks will return to their McDonald Creek brood, and leafy Trilliums will sprout at the feet of Hemlocks. Water will again run down the mountains along avalanches and cascades, and for a time, the world will be verdant with life. I will go out to the garden and see how it fared winter, cutting away last year’s decay to bring sun to new growth. I will drive along the road, past the different mosaics of burn scars, and be greeted by new generations of Lodgepoles.
About the process
Mordançage is an experimental darkroom process dating back to the late 19th century. The process lifts the emulsion in darker areas of a silver gelatin print, creating ephemeral veils that can be manipulated in a tray of chemistry or brushed off to leave behind a bleached image. The process itself is volatile, with the main chemistry being glacial acetic acid, copper, chloride, 20 volume hydrogen peroxide, and water, and the veils themselves are at the mercy of their environment. How a print is moved in a tray of chemistry, how you transfer a print from tray to tray, and how a print dries all determine how the veils flow—the veils are not hardened until the print is fully dry.
This game of chance means there are no two identical mordançage prints. You could make multiple prints from the same image, but they will always vary. A skilled hand can manipulate a print for their desired results, but there are still variables to contend with, resulting in a singular, fleeting piece.
