Author Archives: Robin Botie

Altered Horizons 48

Altered Horizons 48 Robin Botie of ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

Making borders. Framing. For a long time I wondered why it was so satisfying to enclose each of my fabricated landscapes in a decorative border. My work just doesn’t feel done until I’ve framed it. Sometimes I photograph existing picture frames and then transpose their images into negatives in Photoshop, changing the colors and enhancing the shadows and highlights. Often I’ll start a frame from scratch, finding an interesting tooled edge or naturally defined edge on something and then I’ll stretch it out and piece it together, mitering the ends into four sides. Occasionally I’ll superimpose a floral or grassy graphic on the pieces. Surrounding my pictures is like securely wrapping them up into cozy nests. It’s like marking each newly composed place separate from the rest of the world.

The land and sky here is from the frothy edge of a wave washing up on a sandy shore, turned upside down and inverted to its negative in Photoshop. The moon is drawn from the image of an old tarnished Celtic knot pendant that I lightened and highlighted.

Altered Horizons 48

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Altered Horizons 47

Altered Horizons 47 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change.

Well over half a century ago my kindergarten teacher told my mother I was talented. So began my career in art. By the 3rd grade, I was well established as a “good artist” in NYC PS94, and they gave me an easel in the back of the packed classroom where I could paint and draw all day during lessons. For years I painted and drew, and later sewed, my way through social studies reports, science projects, college term papers, and a master’s thesis. Art was a major part of my identity. Then, one day I quit. I couldn’t stand to even go near pencils or paints. People occasionally expected handcrafted cards or gifts, and I struggled through the process of “doing art” for them. Until I discovered I could “paint” with my photographs in Photoshop.

Here I’ve painted a seascape using a photo of the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia, taken after tossing some of my daughter’s ashes into it. The frothy-looking land at the horizon line is the bubbly edge of an incoming tide at a beach where I attended family reunions in Sanibel, Florida. The sky is taken from an image of a sandy riverbank in Maryland where I rented a cottage with a friend during the first COVID Christmas. And the sun is my favorite gold pendant, enlarged, inverted and de-saturated in Photoshop.

When I “paint” in Photoshop I get lost in the process. Using images that pull at my heart and history, I now “do art” with a similar drive to what I had when I was young.

Altered Horizons 47

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Altered Horizons 46

Altered Horizons 46 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

Inspiration for these fabricated landscapes often smacks me when I’m not at all focused on creating. Preparing to cook clams on my grill one evening, I unwrapped a package of metal mesh grilling sheets, shifting the layers in the process. The way they reflected the light reminded me of an ocean’s surface. A seascape, I thought. And later, in Photoshop, I paired the mesh sheets with a photograph of crystal plates that reflected similar angles and diamond shapes when stacked. Moon over a calm ocean. Too calm, I realized. I wanted it to be lighter, more uplifting. So I superimposed an image of the discarded remains of cutout tin can tops I’d photographed at a local scrapyard—to fill the sky with flying birds.

 

Altered Horizons 46

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Altered Horizons 45

Altered Horizons 45 Robin Botie of Ithaca, new York, photoshops fabricated landscapes as therapeutic photography for dealing with depression and grief.

There was an eye in the middle of the underside of a steel chute at the gravel pit. In a world where landscapes are riddled with security cameras, I did not question its presence. We’re always being surveyed and recorded. Possibly even in the remotes of a sand and gravel quarry, I thought.

In Photoshop, the only thing I added to the image was the frame that I pieced together from my photos of nearby gravel-transporting equipment. Also, I lightened up the dark steel to bring out its texture. Rusted metal can be so beautiful; it can be so depressing. But that eye—it was such a docile eye, a bit like that of an adoring pet—it almost turns the tiny industrial landscape into a portrait.

Altered Horizons 45

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Altered Horizons 44

Altered Horizons 44 Robin Botie of ithaca, new York, photoshops a fabricated landscape thinking of war-torn cities in Ukraine.

In my folder of unused images I found a shot of an old piece of equipment the function of which remains a mystery to me. It had reminded me of the innards of a piano when I originally came across it. But recently, all I can see in it are the treads of armored tanks ominously rolling down the streets of war-torn Ukrainian cities. In Photoshop I converted a quilt-square of dotted red fabric into a gray sky where snow falls gently but consistently over a ravaged landscape.

Altered Horizons 44

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Altered Horizons 43

Altered Horizons 43 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

Is there anybody else out there who needs to live by a body of water? Long ago I used to leave the bathroom sink half full for my depressed cat who loved the dripping and dipping into water. Besides the old cat and myself, there must be others who crave water’s calming, cheering, and mind-cleansing effects. After decades of living next to ponds, what will happen when I move away to a place where there’s not even a bathtub? Someone please tell me how my obsession with water might then be quelled. By hanging huge photos of the ocean on my new walls? Or by keeping a tiny kiddie pool on the new patio?

Anticipating the move, I’m creating fake seascapes in Photoshop, pasting together images of objects that reflect light. Like the zigzagging running-board of a tractor, metal ductwork, and silvery-painted chiseled wood. Maybe I can make something look like a lake. So I can fool my brain when I no longer have a pond to gaze upon.

Altered Horizons 43

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