About

Words In Progress

“Time is the paradox which allows us the journey through yet another paradox, life.”

Gary Thaxton

Welcome and Hello.

My name is Gary Thaxton and I am a visual artist.  My art endeavors include photography, mosaic art, digital art, printmaking and the living sculpture of bonsai.

Born 14th of February, 1950 and I reside in Saxaphaw, North Carolina.

I have two years of formal education in photography.  I am self-taught in mosaics art, digital art, inkjet printmaking, and bonsai.

In 1971, I began the journey in photography while in the Navy.  In 1973 I began my formal education in photography.  The interest was photographic art.  The plan was to be self-sufficient in my personal pursuit of allowing no one else to produce the creative darkroom magic for me.  Unfortunately, as the years passed I developed allergies to the photo chemicals and had to give up the darkroom magic.  I no longer offer traditional produced photographs.

I then began my informal education into drawing, mosaic art,and the cultivating of the living art of bonsai.

The images I offer today are inkjet prints from HD scans  of monotone negatives and photographic digital files.  The negative sizes are 5×7 inch, 8×10 inch, 35 mm and high definition photographic image files from digital cameras.

Photography has been my medium of focus while black and white or monotone images became my vision.  While in school I discovered that the color negative produced images on paper which was extremely poor in longevity and lightfastness.  Digital photography, when first introduced, had poor image and display quality.  This has changed over the years.  It has changed immensely  because of the demand from photographers and other visual artist to put in the market quality equipment and supplies.  There are some major companies now producing printers, inks and papers of the highest quality.  This to me presents itself in the ink of color prints from inkjet printers.  But not all printers, ink and paper are on equal standings.

I spend years researching the inkjet papers and inks for lightfastness and archival qualities.  The paper and inks I choose are archival and lightfast.  Wilhelm Imaging Research,  Aardenburg Images and Archive and Paul Rourk was the web sites where I obtained the most pertinent  information I was seeking.