MORTY FANGILIO

At Boisbuchet, Morty Fangilio visual artist and graphic designer worked with the simplest tools: sun, chemistry, water and the landscape. Most mornings, he walked the meadows and forest edges, picking what the day offered: leaves, grasses, seed pods, the occasional flower. Back at his table, he brushed on the sensitizer in wide, steady strokes and arranged the day’s finds under glass so their ribs and edges pressed cleanly into the paper.

His first exposures were shy and cloud-soft; by midweek he was reading the light with more confidence and pushing for deeper blues. What emerged did not feel like pictures so much as imprints Boisbuchet’s plants lending their bodies to the page. The site shaped every decision. Prints made by the river carried a gentle blur. A session beneath the Japanese House roof gave him the crispest veining, perhaps thanks to the dappled shade and stillness there. In the evenings, he hung the wet sheets by the mill and watched the color settle.

Conversations with the other residents, architects, designers, and makers, continually encouraged him to look again and look wider. People suggested new corners of the grounds, new ways to weigh down a stubborn stem, and new exposure times to try. Those small exchanges altered the work more than any single technique, and he remains grateful for them.

He left with seven finished cyanotypes and a method he could carry forward. Mornings to collect, afternoons to coat and expose, evenings to tone and review. The week confirmed what he had hoped that cyanotype could be both quick and reflective, immediate yet layered, a way to let a place write itself with little mediation. Boisbuchet taught him to slow down, to pay attention to weather and shade, and to let blue become a record of time and touch.