Opening event for The FRAME’s newest art installation, Blue Alchemy by artist Renee Greenlee. Featuring projections by Vanish Works and music by Cam Gilmour.

About the work:

Blue Alchemy is an ongoing cyanotype project using water sourced from the Lake Champlain watershed and beyond. Employing the cyanotype technique — an early photographic process reliant on UV light — the artist begins by saturating fabric with cyanotype chemistry. Once dried, the silk is taken to the water's edge for exposure, forging a tangible representation of the landscape itself in collaboration with the watershed. The resulting pieces embody the very essence of the landscape itself — a reciprocal act of creation with the natural world.

This ongoing journey is a poignant means of navigating the ever-changing climate shifts we face in the present and future. According to Vermont Public, "At the peak of flooding in July [2023], more than 4 billion gallons of water flowed into Lake Champlain every hour. Some rivers carried more than a year's worth of phosphorus into the lake over the course of about a week." The 12 cyanotypes in this collection were created in Lake Champlain and the Winooski River. They are shared in honor of the flooding that devastated areas of Vermont in the summer of 2023.

About the artist:

Renee Greenlee is a photographer based in Vermont. In addition to her professional and community projects, she utilizes film and historic processes to explore place, liminality and the work of being present. To that end, she creates cyanotypes of her local watershed, bringing a blue world to light. Renee Greenlee was awarded a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.