Cathy Cone: Milking Butterflies
Pod © Cathy Cone, Archival pigment inkjet with additions in watercolor and gouache
Written by Andy Dion
As a child, Cathy Cone noticed a large fish-shaped birthmark situated on her grandmother’s neck and face. She witnessed double-takes and pointing fingers from strangers, curious about her guardian’s perplexing congenital mark. Her grandmother, however, turned her mark into a creative story. She fabled that when her mother was pregnant with her, she would often cut her fingers while slicing fish, thereby marking her daughter-to-be. This history sparked Cone’s imagination and pushed her in a creative direction few have gone before: collecting tintypes at yard sales and antique shops.
Milking Butterflies is an amalgam of Cone’s surrealist eye with the history and tradition of found tintypes. She nursed a penchant for collecting photogravures and tintypes of family portraits and expounded on them in imaginative ways, recreating their scenes and inhabitants. These old photographs are emblematic of photography’s roots — symbolizing a then-newfound mastery of photographic technology that brought the art form to where it stands today. They also represent a time of utility — of photography that preceded artistic means and sought primarily to document history. The original portraits may be often dry, but Cone reintroduces imagination to them with her painterly touch.
Sleep © Cathy Cone, Archival pigment inkjet with additions in watercolor and gouache
Bow © Cathy Cone, Archival pigment inkjet with additions in watercolor and gouache
Echoing Cone’s grandmother’s curious birthmark, she paints over tintypes dating back to the mid-1800’s with striking naturalistic use of color that complements and expands upon the aging sepia prints. What was the sole subject is now sequestered to share space with a wholly new image. In one image, Cone paints a ruffled clot that billows like an ornate dress with gestural strokes mimicking ruffles and tulle over the subject’s drab clothing. Each stroke of paint alters the world of each print, much like the parables of Cone’s life.
Cone’s dreamlike images in Milking Butterflies act like stories passed between generations. The old amplifies the new and the new encapsulates the old, by complimenting the original piece and interpreting their form. Vestiges of the dearly departed turn into ghosts by her will, emblazoning fading frames with nature’s colors. They softly breathe from the beyond, continuing to live as precious stories shared by fish-touched lips and imaginative eyes.
One © Cathy Cone, Archival pigment inkjet with additions in watercolor and gouache
Bud © Cathy Cone, Archival pigment inkjet with additions in watercolor and gouache
