Local artsts' photos on canvas draw raves at Arts Fest

September 20, 2010

If people were to canvass the two artists at Bluebird Imaging, they’d discover that Kendra Knight and Aaron Horowitz are wild about canvas.

“The appeal to me would be that it looks more painterly,” said Knight, half of the husband-and-wife team. Together, they dazzled shoppers at last week’s Labor Day Festival of the Arts with photographs printed on canvas, then stretched on a 3-D display board.

“It reminds me of any painting,” she said. I always look my images, in particular, and think that the abstract feeling of my images really lends itself well to canvas. It just feels really original, like an oil painting.”

Horowitz said he began using the technique by making images of other peoples’ oil paintings, then printing directly to canvas.

“I think everything looks good on canvas, both black and white and color. And it’s not hard. It’s more expensive than printing onto photo paper, but it’s the same process.”

Knight said that she and Horowitz can take any image from any client or customer and create these types of canvas prints. All the images are printed on archival fine art canvas paper with archival inks.

The images are stretched on a pine stretcher bar and backed with archival paper.

For their own images, prices at the Labor Day Arts Festival ran from $65 for an 8X12 image to $225 for an 18X24.

At the center of their show at the arts festival were a number of black and white images. Horowitz showed, among other artwork, lightning strikes shot from Mesa Verde, Colo. and photographs of Mammoth Rock.

“I just always liked black and white,” he said. “It’s how I started off in the very beginning. I’ve always liked all the old photographers, Ansel Adams, the Westons.

“I think it has something do with contrast, but everyone looks at color now, and looking at black and white makes you remember the olden days, maybe. It looks classy.”

Knight agreed. “Black and white has a tremendous appeal to me. It’s vintage. There’s something about it that feels old-fashioned, even though it used to be a new thing. I’ve studied Ansel Adams’ techniques. Black and white will always have an appeal.”

Aaron Horowitz teams up with his wife, Kendra Knight - together, they are Bluebird Imaging - to print images onto canvas. This is Horowitz in Bluebird's booth at the Labor Day Festival of the Arts.