We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Glenn Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Glenn, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned how to build pinhole cameras in a free workshop at my local library. Learning how to develop photos was through trial and error and with the help of an online community that has documented their results. I have since become aware of more workshops I could take to learn more of the process, but I also learned a lot by failing on my own. A lot of my experience learning comes out of my curiosity about pinhole photography at many levels — the physical and chemical processes, how they’re made, what pinhole cameras can and can’t do well, and how to make good photographs.

All of my space art starts out as cooking ingredients in kitchen pans, with then some digital photography and editing. No one taught me how to do this; I made it up myself. Over several years, I invented ways to take what I had in my imagination and turn it into something tangible using oils and spices. Of course, I’ve learned by looking at photographs of real objects in space — the textures, the lighting — but mostly I learned by experimentation: seeing what different cooking ingredients do under different conditions, what they do together, and how to use those properties to achieve something that looks like planets or galaxies. But more than trying to make the subject look technically correct, I’m trying to capture and convey my lifelong fascination with space.

Glenn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a part-time artist focused on pinhole photography made from homemade cameras, and space art made from cooking ingredients in my kitchen.

I’m fairly new to the art world. I suppose in a way I stumbled into it, following my curiosity in making things, and then putting my work out into the world, first on social media, then in art shows and galleries.

I do take some pride in the uniqueness of my space art and the processes behind it. It’s often the reason people will buy the art. But it’s also a challenge — without telling them about how I make the images, people often mistake them for standard astrophotography, and so I find myself talking a lot about what I do and how I do it to draw people in and set myself apart. I’m certainly not the only person doing pinhole photography or developing photos with coffee, but it’s rare enough that not many people know about it, and so there, too, those unusual aspects make my work stand out.

I think my art taps into the curiosity and wonder that we all have in one form or another, sometimes the younger parts of us. A particular image might draw someone in, but it’s often how I made the image that wakes up those parts of them and lets them view things in new and surprising ways.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

First is the process of making something from start to finish. It could be anything, really — a piece of furniture, a poem, a meal. Makers need to make. Along the way is the joy of discovering new ways of making or seeing. And of course having something at the end is nice, too.

Second is connection. I’ve connected with a community of artists that I never knew of, who have supported and encouraged me along the way, and I’ve learned so much from them. I can be a weird artist doing weird things because they all understand it deeply in some way or other. And I’ve connected with people who enjoy what I make and who enjoy hearing about how I make those things. At art shows, I’ve had people thank me for teaching them something about photography that they didn’t know, and I’ve had others drag their friends or relatives into my booth so I can surprise them with my space art. I’ve had people drive more than an hour to take my pinhole workshops. To share my own sense of wonder and curiosity with others has been extremely rewarding, and something I didn’t expect.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think I’m really bad at social media. I don’t post enough, and I have so little control over what gets seen, even by my own followers. But what has sometimes worked for me is when I’m going beyond just posting images and instead I go into the processes or the science behind the art. These stories have helped me find my audience in whatever forum, social media or real life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://glenntaylorart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glenn010101/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/Glenn.Taylor.Art

Image Credits

all my images