Racking

Medium: Giclée print from digital camera

Dimensions: 18″x12″ print in 25 6/16″ x 19 6/16″ frame

Date: August, 2020

About the Artwork:

This is one of my favorite images from the Residency. Ryan is racking this barrel: gas is pushed into the barrel, which forces the wine up and along the hose. The small window allows for monitoring of the liquid so that only the wine that has settled out is taken, leaving any sediment behind. Ryan is watching carefully to stop the flow at the right moment. I feel a strong connection to the activity in this image.

This is wine that I helped create during harvest 2019, and it’s likely that I put that wine into that barrel ten months prior. This image has many of the elements I look for when composing: symmetry, context, contrast, balance, and a dynamic pose. The background provides environmental context, we can see what each hand is doing, wine is flowing and is illuminated by the flashlight, and we can see the concentration in Ryan’s eyes.