
Wedge and White Hemisphere, 1999
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 48.4 x 32.6 cm. (id#680)

Specimen Box, 1998
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 48.4 x 33.0 cm. (id#636)

Allegory (Mirror Shelf), 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 36.5 x 39.8 cm. (id#694)

Carpenter's Box, 2001
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 19.0 x 48.1 cm. (id#749)

Chakras, 1997
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 48.2 x 36.8 cm. (id#605)

Fishbone, Wishbone, and Ring, 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 22.6 x 48.4 cm. (id#729)

Untitled (Arrangement in Silverware Tray), 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 17" x 15" (id#717)

4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 24.6 x 48.1 cm. (id#746)
One of many images partly inspired by the grisaille tradition in liturgical painting.

Toolbox with Baseball, Horseshoe, and Plumb, 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 48.3 x 25.4 cm. (id#700)

Kumquats (Still Life with Honey Dipper), 2001
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 33.9 x 48.3 cm. (id#750)

Arrangement in Paint Tray, 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 36.0 x 47.5 cm. (id#721)

Cabinet with Crescent and Disc, 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 38.8 x 37.1 cm. (id#713)

Diptych (Arrangement with Beeswax IV), 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver prints, 31.2x47 cm. x2 (id#742LR)

Diptych (Arrangement with Beeswax IV, left panel), 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver prints, 31.2x47 cm. (id#742L)

Diptych (Arrangement with Beeswax IV, right panel), 2000
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver prints, 31.2x47 cm. (id#742R)

Triad with Discs and Rectangle, 1999
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 48.3 x 29.4 cm. (id#688)

Untitled (Spheres), 1998
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 47.9 x 33.0 cm. (id#633)

4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 29.7 x 48.4 cm. (id#638)
The sheets of printed paper under the ribs come from a sort of moral or religious tract on the categories of punishment, written in I don't know what language of India. I only know the subject due to an occasional phrase in English, such as "Retributive Punishment" or "Deterrent Punishment".

Bones Mandala, 1999
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 38.0 x 48.3 cm. (id#664)
These are squirrel skulls, arranged in a ring. My father used to trap squirrels - though I don't mean to suggest that he was some sort of mountain man, making his living on the frontier, collecting animal skins for city folk. He was a suburban Long Islander who wanted to protect his flower bulbs from predation. He trapped them, drowned them, and tossed them on our compost heap. (Our yard must have been a sort of black hole of squirreldom; as soon as they got too close, they got sucked in and disappeared.) A few years later they were fertilizing our garden. By then the skulls were nice and clean, and I collected them for my photography, hoping to immortalize them in some way.

Arrangement with Sword, Corncobs, and Skull, 1998
This skull was from a raccoon. (See note to previous photo, "Bones Mandala".)
I don't have any human skulls in my "collection" of objects for still life (only the one I still use on occasion). Many years ago, however, I was able to make a charcoal drawing or two of a human skull: a housemate was studying medicine, and he had obtained a skull to help him learn anatomy. He showed it to me, and I held in my hands what I had presumed was a replica, made with just the right shade of pale yellow plastic. But no, the detailing was too good to be a copy, and the thing just didn't feel like plastic.
Some years before this, in a life drawing class at Columbia University, there was a skeleton positioned on a stand. We were to draw from this instead of from the usual human model. During the break I went up to take a closer look. On one of the ribs there was a sticker with the name and address of a lady in Buffalo.

Rusty Metal Box, 1998
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 48.4 x 32.6 cm. (id#645)

Arcimboldo's Leer (Window Light), 1997
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 47.8 x 29.0 cm. (id#607)
This is my only still-life in which I tried to hint at a sort of face-like arrangement, a little like the great Arcimboldo. I didn't want to go too far with this, however; it would have seemed corny.

Tray with Seeds and Thorns, 1997
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 37.3 x 47.3 cm. (id#612)

Arrangement with Cuttlebones, 1997
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 48.3 x 24.8 cm. (id#614)

Alcatraz Baroque, 1998
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 45.8 x 37.7 cm. (id#656)

Watercolors, 2001
4"x5" format, gelatin-silver print, 33.9 x 48.5 cm. (id#743)
Prime Arrangements, 1997-2001
A selection of still-life photographs composed for the view camera from 1997 to 2001.
These images exist in limited editions of fifteen signed and numbered prints of any size and any type of print, whether traditional analog silver-gelatin prints or digital pigment prints. They consist principally of gelatin-silver prints (as they were made when I still routinely made traditional prints and had not yet adopted the use of a digital pigment printer), sized mainly to a format of 16" x 20" or 11" x 14". Because I generally did not complete the editions in gelatin-silver, I have begun to fill them out with most images by making digital pigment prints in A3Plus, not to exceed a total of fifteen. For example, of "Toolbox with Baseball, Horseshoe, and Plumb" (id#700), I already have nine signed and numbered gelatin-silver prints, and in recent years have made three digital pigment prints, so I can make only three more pigment prints.
For an artist's statement regarding these images, see the last menu item in this section, "The Persistence of Memory - Still-Life Essay".
© 2014 Allen Schill. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or used without prior written permission from the author. Anyone is welcome to link to it, or to quote brief passages, but I would like to be notified.
© Copyright Allen Schill